Visiting The Liberty Bell
The Liberty Bell Center is located on Market Street in Philadelphia
, Pennsylvania between 5th and 6th Streets. The building is open year round, though the operating hours vary by season.
The Center offers a video presentation and exhibits about the Liberty Bell, focusing on its origins and its modern day role as an international icon of freedom. Taped presentations about the history of the Liberty Bell are offered in a wide range of languages for the convenience of foreign visitors.
The bell itself is displayed in a large glass chamber with Independence Hall in the background. It as a national treasure that is preserved and cared for with much prudence.
It was originally used to call the Pennsylvania Assembly to meetings, but was soon adopted not only by abolitionists and suffragists, but also by Civil Rights advocates, Native Americans, immigrants, war protestors and so many other groups as their symbol. Each year, two million people journey to the Bell just to look at it and ponder its meaning.
The Liberty Bell's inscription conveys a message of liberty which goes beyond the words themselves. Since the bell was made, the words of the inscription have meant different things to different people.
When William Penn created Pennsylvania's government he allowed citizens to take part in making laws and gave them the right to choose the religion they wanted. The colonists were proud of the freedom that Penn gave them.
In 1751, the Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly ordered a new bell for the State House. He asked that a Bible verse to be placed on the bell.
The bell was cast in the Whitechapel Foundry in the East End of London and sent to the building currently known as Independence Hall, then the Pennsylvania State House, in 1752. It was an impressive looking object, 12 feet in circumference around the lip with a 44-pound clapper.
The inscription read: "Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the Land unto all the inhabitants thereof" (Leviticus 25:10). As the official bell of the Pennsylvania State House it rang many times for public announcements.
The old State House bell was first called the "Liberty Bell" by a group trying to outlaw slavery. These abolitionists remembered the words on the bell and, in the 1830s, adopted it as a symbol of their cause.
Beginning in the late 1800s, the Liberty Bell traveled around the country to expositions and fairs to help heal the divisions of the Civil War. It reminded Americans of their earlier days when they fought and worked together for independence.
In 1915, the bell made its last trip and came home to Philadelphia, where it now silently reminds us of the power of liberty. For more than 200 years people from around the world have felt the bell's message.
No one can see liberty, but people have used the Liberty Bell to represent this important idea. A bell for the Pennsylvania State House was cast in London, England; however, it cracked soon after it arrived in Philadelphia.
Local craftsmen John Pass and John Stow cast a new bell in 1753, using metal from the English bell. Their names appear on the front of the bell, along with the city and the date.
By 1846 a thin crack began to affect the sound of the bell. The bell was repaired in 1846 and rang for a George Washington birthday celebration, but the bell cracked again and has not been rung since.
Though no one knows why the bell cracked either time, presumably every subsequent use caused further damage. The bell weighs about 2000 pounds.
It is made of 70% copper, 25% tin, and small amounts of lead, zinc, arsenic, gold, and silver. It hangs from what is believed to be its original yoke, made from American elm, also known as slippery elm.
Because of its inscription, abolitionists started using it as a symbol, first calling it the Liberty Bell in the Anti-Slavery Record in the mid-1830s. By 1838, enough abolitionist literature had been distributed that people stopped calling it the State House bell and forever made it the Liberty Bell.
by: Terry Daniels
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