Description
Book SynopsisThis 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
Trade Review"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 *
"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 *
"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'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 *
"An outstanding contribution to the study of memory places in the U.S." *
Choice *
"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 *
Table of ContentsIntroduction
1. Landmark: A British Home for the American Revolution
2. Workshop: Building a Nation
3. Relic: Survival in the City
4. Shrine: Slavery, Nativism, and the Forgotten History of the Nineteenth Century
5. Legacy: Staking Claims to the Past Through Preservation
6. Place and Symbol: The Liberty Bell Ascendant
7. Treasure: Eighteenth-Century Building, Twentieth Century City
8. Anchor: A Secure Past for Cold War America
9. Prism: Redefining Independence for a Third Century
10. Memory: The Truths We Hold To Be Self-Evident
Index
