Independence Day: July 4th

Happy birthday America! From the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, to picnics, parades, and fireworks, take a patriotic tour through the collections and reflect upon the meaning of liberty and equality and our journey to create a more perfect union.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
— Preamble to the Declaration of Independence

On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass delivered a speech titled “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?,” a call for the promise of liberty to be applied equally to all Americans.

Photo Cards, W.E. Leppien as "Uncle Sam"

Commemorative scarf

Woman and the Flag July 4 March through Chapel Hill

Trade Catalog, Unexcelled Fireworks Company, 1888

The Fourth of July Parade, Convoyed by Airplanes, Passing the Public Library, [photomechanical print]

July 4, 1976, Louisville, KY

13c Declaration of Independence single

13c Declaration of Independence single

13c Declaration of Independence single

13c Declaration of Independence single

Hugh Romney (AKA Wavy Gravy) at the El Rito 4th of July parade. El Rito, NM 1968.

Fire-Works on the Night of the Fourth of July

National Museum of History and Technology - Fourth of July Holiday Display

plate

Portraits and Autograph Signatures of the Framers and Signers of the Declaration of Independence, Philadelphia, July 4th, 1776.

13c Declaration of Independence strip of four

Braniff International Let's Put Our Colors On the Line June 14-July 4, 1976

"Liberty does not consist in mere general declarations of the rights of men. It consists in the translation of those declarations into definite action."--Woodrow Wilson, Address, Independence Hall, July 4, 1914. From the series Great Ideas of Western Man.

The Declaration of Independence lithograph by Napoleaon Sarony after John Trumbull

Thomas Jefferson, Writing the Declaration of Independence

1/2c Signing of the Declaration of Independence artist's model

John Rusk as Uncle Sam During Fourth of July Celebration

Red, White and Blue, from 1776 USA 1976: Bicentennial Prints

Reflections on the Signing of the Declaration of Independence

18c Declaration of Independence sheet of 5

24c Declaration of Independence re-issue single

1876 Mary W. Stow's "Centennial" Quilt

Fourth of July celebration, unit block of North Curley Street -- a 23 year tradition

Fourth of July Celebration / Celebracion de 4 de Julio [screenprint poster]

Fourth of July, hanging out on the stoop of their apartment house, p. 123. 83

Panel

Textile

Fourth of July Parade

Fourth of July Parade

8BC's Fourth of July Pig Roast

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