Beech Tree News Network

By the summer of 1976, the United States was hungry for a reset.  After Vietnam (1955-’75), Watergate (June ’72-August ’74), a recession (’73-’75), and an energy crisis (’73 and ’79 oil crises) the American Bicentennial served as both a distraction and a snapshot of the national mood-part patriotic revival, part marketing wave.

But the celebration was never just decorative fabric and fireworks.  “Most official Bicentennial planners certainly hoped to turn the page on the tragedies and traumas of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s”, says Marc Stein, author of Bicentennial: A Revolutionary history of the 1970’s.  He adds, “yet, the year also sparked protests and alternative events led by racial and ethnic minorities, women, LGBTQ and other groups demanding a more honest national story. Still, for millions of Americans, 1976 was a year of pageants, parades, and over-the-top merchandise, with some critics calling it the “buy-centennial.”  

Operation Sail-or OpSail-brought a fleet of 225 international ships, including 16 tall ships, to New York Harbor on July 4, 1976.  According to the Seaport Museum, 6 million spectators headed to the waterfront as vessels from 30 nations paraded past the Statue of Liberty, making it one of the largest peacetime maritime gatherings in American history.

The Bicentennial Wagon Train Pilgrimage was one of the most significant events of the nation’s 200th birthday celebrations, according to the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum.  But the spectacle also grew criticism.  Stein, a history professor at San Francisco State University, says the Pennsylvania Bicentennial Commission envisioned the Wagon Train as a “manifest destiny in reverse”, with Conestoga wagons from every state heading east to Valley Forge in time for the Fourth of July.

Stein adds that the message was mixed: celebrating an anti-colonial revolution by replacing a key symbol of American expansion.  “In a powerful response, the Native American Trail of Self-Determination trailed the Wagon Train, creating opportunities to educate the nation about its mistreatment of the nation’s indigenous peoples”, he says.

Across the country, towns recognized the Bicentennial with parades, school pageants, folk festivals and reenactments.  The American Freedom Train, which toured the 48 contiguous states for 21 months, offered a travelling museum of American artifacts, including George Washington’s annotated copy of the Constitution, boxer Joe Frazier’s trunks and a moon rock.

The nation’s 200th birthday also shaped children’s media.  Schoolhouse Rock aired its history-centered season titled “American Rock” from September 1975-July 1976 as the country was celebrating the Bicentennial.

Americans personalized the Bicentennial in their homes and driveways.  Cars were striped, red, white and blue.  Families decorated their homes and yards.  Hand-sewn “Spirit of ‘76” fashions were popular.  

Quilters across the country also stitched colonial-themed designs.  “Quilts commemorating the Bicentennial reflect both patriotic fervor and constructive criticism of the government”, according to the International Quilt Museum.  “Communities across the country made Bicentennial quilts documenting local history and families.  Other groups made friendship quilts with patriotic themes and color schemes.”

The U.S. Postal Service issued special stamps, the U.S. Mint produced commemorative coins and medals, and an official Bicentennial star-in-a-circle emblem was licensed to appear on patches, flags and posters.  “What began in the mid-1960’s as a plan for an international exposition celebrating the present and future of the nation had become, by the mid-1970’s, a decentralized array of history-based commemoration projects undertaken by states, communities and individuals”, historian M.J. Rymsza-Pawlowska writes in History Comes Alive: Public History and Popular Culture in the 1970s.

From Bicentennial Barbie to red, white and blue ice cream, themed merchandise was everywhere.  Companies sold everything from commemorative syrup bottles to patriotic tea bags.  Stein points to a 1973 headline in the Philadelphia Inquirer announcing “The Bicen will be a Sellabration in the spirit of $17.76,” with the article noting “The big birthday is lighting new sparks under American ingenuity for making money.”  “There was no end to the kitsch”, The New Yorker reported.  “At diners, where you likely ate off placemats made to look like replicas of the Declaration of Independence, your coffee came with Bicentennial sugar packs displaying a short but sweet biography of an American president, and your 7-Up in a commemorative 16-ounce bottle”.

Two official state visits took place during the Bicentennial celebrations, according to the Ford Presidential Museum.  French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing and his wife, Anne-Aymone, visited in May.  In July, Great Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II toured several states, including attending a formal state dinner in Philadelphia.  “We are deeply grateful for having been invited to visit the United States in the main week of your bicentennial,” the queen said during the event.  “After all, nobody can say that what happened on the Fourth of July 1776 was not very much a bilateral affair between us.”

During the visit, she presented the country with the Bicentennial Bell on behalf of Britain.  (www.history.com) 

Have a wonderful Independence Day and thanks for reading!