Independence Hall in American Memory - by Charlene Mires (Paperback)

About the Book

This is a book I have long awaited, one that tells the life of a single building so as to illuminate American history from almost every angle--cultural, social, and political.--Mary Ryan, author of Civic Wars: Democracy and Public Life in the American City During the Nineteenth Century

Book Synopsis

Independence Hall is a place Americans think they know well. Within its walls the Continental Congress declared independence in 1776, and in 1787 the Founding Fathers drafted the U.S. Constitution there. Painstakingly restored to evoke these momentous events, the building appears to have passed through time unscathed, from the heady days of the American Revolution to today. But Independence Hall is more than a symbol of the young nation. Beyond this, according to Charlene Mires, it has a long and varied history of changing uses in an urban environment, almost all of which have been forgotten.

In Independence Hall, Mires rediscovers and chronicles the lost history of Independence Hall, in the process exploring the shifting perceptions of this most important building in America's popular imagination. According to Mires, the significance of Independence Hall cannot be fully appreciated without assessing the full range of political, cultural, and social history that has swirled about it for nearly three centuries. During its existence, it has functioned as a civic and cultural center, a political arena and courtroom, and a magnet for public celebrations and demonstrations. Artists such as Thomas Sully frequented Independence Square when Philadelphia served as the nation's capital during the 1790s, and portraitist Charles Willson Peale merged the arts, sciences, and public interest when he transformed a portion of the hall into a center for natural science in 1802.

In the 1850s, hearings for accused fugitive slaves who faced the loss of freedom were held, ironically, in this famous birthplace of American independence. Over the years Philadelphians have used the old state house and its public square in a multitude of ways that have transformed it into an arena of conflict: labor grievances have echoed regularly in Independence Square since the 1830s, while civil rights protesters exercised their right to free speech in the turbulent 1960s. As much as the Founding Fathers, these people and events illuminate the building's significance as a cultural symbol.

Review Quotes

"A fascinating portrait that illuminates the connection between collective memory and history, investigates how traditions and heritage emerge and change, and examines how a heterogeneous society constructs and preserves its history. The book reveals Independence Hall, the most revered symbol of the American republic, as a place of contradiction, where the nation's ideals have been both defined and contested, expanded and limited."-- "Pennsylvania Heritage"

"An outstanding contribution to the study of memory places in the U.S."-- "Choice"

"Charlene Mires liberates a great American shrine from the bounds of Georgian brick. An archaeologist of memory, she sifts the rich layers of meaning and remembrance embedded in a single building. In Mires's hands, preserving and interpreting Independence Hall becomes as dynamic a story as the nation-buiding that occurred within its walls."-- "Tony Horwitz, author of Confederates in the Attic"

"Mires cuts a broad swath through the centuries. We see the forces of preservation and politics converge and collide, countered by the environmental dynamic of a changing urban neighborhood. We also observe how African Americans, always a vital presence in Philadelphia, took liberty's message to heart. . . . Mires's plea for understanding the public memory that historic structures shape should inspire others to follow her lead."-- "Journal of American History"

"Mires's book frees us from any one-dimensional view of the past, and of ourselves, by showing that Independence Hall, like America, always has been and must be a work in progress."-- "Philadelphia Inquirer"

"This is a book I have long awaited, one that tells the life of a single building so as to illuminate American history from almost every angle-cultural, social, and political."-- "Mary Ryan, author of Civic Wars: Democracy and Public Life in the American City During the Nineteenth Century"

About the Author

A former editor for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Charlene Mires is Associate Professor of History at Rutgers-Camden, Director of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Center for the Humanities, and a corecipient of the Pulitzer Prize in journalism.