The United States is a relatively young nation. While countries such as China, Italy, Greece, and Egypt often point to thousands of years of history to burnish their reputations, the United States has only existed for 249 years — soon to be 250. One benefit of this nation’s youth, however, is that we can identify a specific date on which our nation started: July 4, 1776. Because of this, the United States also has the ability to celebrate various milestones—50 years, 100 years, 150 years — of the Union’s continued existence. Have these anniversaries always meant the same thing to us? And why do we place so much value on something that seems, for all the significance we give it, a bit arbitrary?
Jane Kamensky, President of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation and Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, sought to answer these questions at the History Club’s annual formal this past Thursday. The event was the fourth part of the History Club’s History Week programming; History Week is a series of events commemorating the 250th anniversary of the United States through events exploring the development of the United States.
After an introduction by History Club President Matthew Foley, Kamensky began her address. She noted that anniversaries can be looked at in both a negative and a positive light. On one hand, they can be arbitrary, and sometimes even exploited as marketing opportunities. On the other hand, they can be special: anniversaries like America’s 250th only happen once or twice in a given person’s life, and they invite us to inspect the United States’ founding values a bit more closely. Indeed, Kamensky noted, Americans seem to love anniversaries such as this one much more than people in other countries.
Kamensky then began with her history of celebrations of America’s founding, starting at the very beginning. She explained that in the republic’s very early years, the 4th of July had not yet been settled on as the nation’s starting date; many people celebrated independence on July 2, which marks the date on which the Second Continental Congress officially voted to separate from the United Kingdom. As time went on, however, the 4th of July was officially settled on as America’s “birthday,” a fact all the more confirmed when Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on July 4, 1826 — 50 years to the day after the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
By the time the United States approached its 100th birthday in 1876, the meaning of the anniversary had changed drastically. All of the members of the founding generation were now gone, and the nation was still recovering from a brutal civil war in which hundreds of thousands of its citizens perished fighting each other, and millions of previously enslaved people found themselves freed from the chains of slavery. In the eyes of many, the country had been reborn, the ideals of the founders realized more thoroughly through the Civil War.
As the 20th century began, however, many historians of the “Progressive” school became irritated with what they saw as an excessive focus on individual founders. In their view, America’s founding — and its Founders — ought not to be put on a pedestal, and instead viewed as just another historical process: a struggle between capitalist and agrarian interests, part of larger global trends. Many others, however, were opposed to this view. In response to these Progressive historians, some Americans pushed for a revival of the older, Founders-focused view of the nation’s history, coining a new term in the process: “Founding Fathers.”
When Americans celebrated the nation’s 150th anniversary in 1924, the definition of what it meant to be American seemed to be retreating significantly. That same year, Congress passed laws severely restricting immigration and establishing border control, while Virginia passed a law implementing a eugenics-based regimen on thousands of its citizens. By that point, Kamensky quipped, it seemed like being a “real American” was more about looking like the Founding Fathers than thinking like them.
The nation’s bicentennial, celebrated in 1976, however, was decidedly more inclusive. Historians placed much more attention on women, Black Americans, Native Americans, and ordinary people in general when discussing the nation’s founding. This democratic, inclusive spirit extended to the celebrations themselves: millions of Americans bought books, clothing, and merchandise related to the nation’s founding. While some dismissed this trend as nothing more than “bicentennial schlock,” Kamensky noted that this was indeed a time of profoundly renewed interest in American history.
As the nation’s 250th anniversary approaches, however, Americans seem much less enthusiastic about celebrating its founding: while the bicentennial revitalized interest in American values, Kamensky noted, the 250th anniversary threatens to unravel them. At one end are those, often aligned with President Trump, who seem keen to erase inconvenient parts of American history, while at the other end, Kamensky claimed, are those who wish to toss out the idea of America’s founding entirely. Will America, some may ask, survive these trials to make it to its tricentennial? Only time will tell, but in surveying the 250 years of American history, it is important to remember that the nation has survived great trials before, and yet we remain standing.
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