Why Is There a Crack in the Liberty Bell?

it was hung. When it was first introduced in seventeen fifty one, it was called the State House Bell because it was created for the steeple of the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia. The Liberty Bell nickname came much later, around eighteen thirty nine, when abolitionists leveraged the bell as a symbol in their fight against slavery. Throughout American history, the bell has been used in the service of many

different causes, but initially it was just a bell. It was commissioned by the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly, and it arrived in Philadelphia in September of seventeen fifty two after being cast by Lester and Pack, later renamed the Whitechapel Foundry in London. It was inscribed with the words proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof biblical

reference from Leviticus. And it is a really big bell, measured three ft high with a circumference of twelve feet at the bottom lip that's about a meter by three and a half meters, Made of around seventy copper and ten it tips the scales at nearly two thousand, one hundred pounds or nine d and fifty kilos. Once installed, the bell was used to alert citizens to urgent news, to summon lawmakers to the state House for important business,

and as part of funeral ceremonies. Although historians disagree on when the bell cracked, most believed that the crack happened almost immediately after the bell's initial use in seventeen fifty two, whereupon local shows jumped into action. We spoke via email with Stephen Freed, a journalist, historian, and author who teaches

at Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania. He said a replacement bell was ordered immediately from England, but in the meantime, local founders John Pass and John Stowe melted down the busted original, added some metal of their own, and made a copy. That copy is what we know as the Liberty Bell, but the foundry in England also sent a replacement, and both hung in the new State House Tower. At the State House, the bell was witnessed

to some of America's most powerful history. It's all gatherings of the Second Continental Congress, as well as countless meetings that sparked the Revolutionary War. In seventeen seventy seven, as the British army threatened the city, locals removed the bell for fear of it being captured and melted from munitions. It was hidden under the floorboards of a church in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

In it was raised again, but the bell didn't hold any particularly symbolic importance until eighteen twenty four, when the Marquis de Lafayette, the last surviving French general of the Revolution, went on a year long public victory tour of all twenty four states in the Union. With that grand visit, America saw a resurgence in its national pride. Freed said, the nation first started taking its history seriously, and during his tour, they started calling the building Independence Hall and

realizing its importance. Along with the importance of the bell, it wasn't until a decade later that the bell's famous nickname took hold. Freed explained it began being called Liberty Bell in eighteen thirty five, when the phrase first appeared at a pamphlet published by the New York Anti Slavery Society as the title of a rant about the bell

never peeling for African Americans. Some historians think that the newer bell was damaged in eighteen thirty five, when it was wrong to mark the death of the then Chief Justice of the United States, John Marshall. Others believed the damage occurred in the early eighteen forties, either during the celebration of the fourth of July or of George Washington's birthday on February. The crack might have come about from ninety years of hard use, or it might have been

due to the metallic composition of the bell. In Nive Researchers at the Winter Third Museum took a closer look at the bell's makeup using X ray florescent spectroscopy and determined that its high tin content resulted in a brittle composition that was prone to cracking. In any case, crack it did, But in eighteen forty six, the people were again determined to ring the bell for Washington's birthday, so they set about making repairs using a method called stop drilling.

They actually widened the crack, which is now twenty one inches long and nearly an inch wide, which is about half a meter by two centimeters, so that when the bell was rung, the sides of the crack wouldn't much. If they could touch, they'd vibrate against each other and generate a terrible buzzing sound. But the repair wasn't successful. Another crack developed and the bell sounded no more, but

that didn't mean it disappeared quietly. In the late eighteen and early nineteen hundreds, the bell went on occasional national tours. In nineteen fifteen, politicians decided to hold a ceremonial ringing of the broken bell in hopes of drumming up support for World War One. It wasn't wrung technically, but tapped with a mallet. That led to the bell becoming a symbol of the immense fundraising effort for the war in

the form of buying liberty bonds. In nineteen seventeen and nineteen eighteen, it was also sent on a national railroad tour with a new fangled lighting system that kept it illuminated each night on its journey aboard the Liberty Bell, special citizens flocked to see it. By some estimates, nearly a quarter of the entire country managed to set eyes on this symbol of freedom, and the Liberty Bond drives were a smashing success, raising billions of dollars in war

bonds to help the Allied powers win the war. In two thousand three, the Liberty Bell Center at Independence Hall in Philadelphia opened, which is where the bell now resides.

Over the decades, there have been numerous calls to repair it and make it whole, or even to melt it down, balance its composition, and then recast it to make it usable, but a representative for the National Park Service, which runs the center, said that fixing the bell would serve no purpose as the crack is its most recognizable feature, and furthermore,

might be legally sticky as it's a historical artifact. Freed said, of these never attempted repair plans, all of them have been ridiculous because the bell is a more perfect symbol of our desire for a more perfect union than it would ever have been unbroken. The bell is the most enduring, powerful, yet approachable symbol of our country, even its crack, as

part of our patriotic metaphorical landscape. He then recalled the lyrics from the song Anthem by the late Leonard Cohen, ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in. Today's episode was written by Nathan Chandler and produced by Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots of topics that are exactly what they're cracked up to be, what is it how stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff

is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.