WEBVTT - Why Is There a Crack in the Liberty Bell? 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:06.520 Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of I Heart Radio, Hey 0:00:06.559 --> 0:00:10.479 brain Stuff Lauren boge bam here. Throughout its long life, 0:00:10.520 --> 0:00:13.039 the Liberty Bell has served as an example of just 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:16.720 how vague are collective memories can be. Starting with the 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:21.600 bell's famous crack. Historians have theories, but in short, no 0:00:21.640 --> 0:00:25.160 one knows precisely when or why the bell was damaged. 0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:28.560 It wasn't even called the Liberty Bell until long after 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:31.440 it was hung. When it was first introduced in seventeen 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:34.280 fifty one, it was called the State House Bell because 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:37.120 it was created for the steeple of the Pennsylvania State 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:41.040 House in Philadelphia. The Liberty Bell nickname came much later, 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:45.000 around eighteen thirty nine, when abolitionists leveraged the bell as 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:49.479 a symbol in their fight against slavery. Throughout American history, 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:51.800 the bell has been used in the service of many 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:56.640 different causes, but initially it was just a bell. It 0:00:56.680 --> 0:01:00.000 was commissioned by the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly, and it arrived 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:03.880 in Philadelphia in September of seventeen fifty two after being 0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:07.920 cast by Lester and Pack, later renamed the Whitechapel Foundry 0:01:07.959 --> 0:01:11.720 in London. It was inscribed with the words proclaim liberty 0:01:11.760 --> 0:01:16.200 throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof biblical 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:21.600 reference from Leviticus. And it is a really big bell, 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:25.000 measured three ft high with a circumference of twelve feet 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:27.959 at the bottom lip that's about a meter by three 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:31.600 and a half meters, Made of around seventy copper and 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:35.600 ten it tips the scales at nearly two thousand, one 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:39.680 hundred pounds or nine d and fifty kilos. Once installed, 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:42.959 the bell was used to alert citizens to urgent news, 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:46.160 to summon lawmakers to the state House for important business, 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:50.880 and as part of funeral ceremonies. Although historians disagree on 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:54.200 when the bell cracked, most believed that the crack happened 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:58.200 almost immediately after the bell's initial use in seventeen fifty two, 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:03.760 whereupon local shows jumped into action. We spoke via email 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:07.279 with Stephen Freed, a journalist, historian, and author who teaches 0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:11.560 at Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania. He said 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:15.200 a replacement bell was ordered immediately from England, but in 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:19.160 the meantime, local founders John Pass and John Stowe melted 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:22.040 down the busted original, added some metal of their own, 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:25.360 and made a copy. That copy is what we know 0:02:25.560 --> 0:02:28.800 as the Liberty Bell, but the foundry in England also 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:31.880 sent a replacement, and both hung in the new State 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:35.919 House Tower. At the State House, the bell was witnessed 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:39.560 to some of America's most powerful history. It's all gatherings 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:42.760 of the Second Continental Congress, as well as countless meetings 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:47.760 that sparked the Revolutionary War. In seventeen seventy seven, as 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:50.959 the British army threatened the city, locals removed the bell 0:02:51.080 --> 0:02:53.919 for fear of it being captured and melted from munitions. 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:57.880 It was hidden under the floorboards of a church in Allentown, Pennsylvania. 0:02:58.400 --> 0:03:03.400 In it was raised again, but the bell didn't hold 0:03:03.400 --> 0:03:07.400 any particularly symbolic importance until eighteen twenty four, when the 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:11.160 Marquis de Lafayette, the last surviving French general of the Revolution, 0:03:11.560 --> 0:03:14.360 went on a year long public victory tour of all 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:17.600 twenty four states in the Union. With that grand visit, 0:03:17.800 --> 0:03:22.639 America saw a resurgence in its national pride. Freed said, 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:26.400 the nation first started taking its history seriously, and during 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:30.200 his tour, they started calling the building Independence Hall and 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:33.359 realizing its importance. Along with the importance of the bell, 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:36.640 it wasn't until a decade later that the bell's famous 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:40.920 nickname took hold. Freed explained it began being called Liberty 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:43.760 Bell in eighteen thirty five, when the phrase first appeared 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:46.400 at a pamphlet published by the New York Anti Slavery 0:03:46.480 --> 0:03:49.200 Society as the title of a rant about the bell 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:54.880 never peeling for African Americans. Some historians think that the 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:57.760 newer bell was damaged in eighteen thirty five, when it 0:03:57.840 --> 0:04:00.280 was wrong to mark the death of the then Chief 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:04.000 Justice of the United States, John Marshall. Others believed the 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:07.160 damage occurred in the early eighteen forties, either during the 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:10.480 celebration of the fourth of July or of George Washington's 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:15.240 birthday on February. The crack might have come about from 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:17.920 ninety years of hard use, or it might have been 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:21.760 due to the metallic composition of the bell. In Nive 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:24.280 Researchers at the Winter Third Museum took a closer look 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:27.599 at the bell's makeup using X ray florescent spectroscopy and 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:30.920 determined that its high tin content resulted in a brittle 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:35.640 composition that was prone to cracking. In any case, crack 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:39.839 it did, But in eighteen forty six, the people were 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:43.640 again determined to ring the bell for Washington's birthday, so 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:48.159 they set about making repairs using a method called stop drilling. 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:51.400 They actually widened the crack, which is now twenty one 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:54.000 inches long and nearly an inch wide, which is about 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:57.080 half a meter by two centimeters, so that when the 0:04:57.120 --> 0:05:00.320 bell was rung, the sides of the crack wouldn't much. 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:03.279 If they could touch, they'd vibrate against each other and 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:08.240 generate a terrible buzzing sound. But the repair wasn't successful. 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:13.000 Another crack developed and the bell sounded no more, but 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:16.679 that didn't mean it disappeared quietly. In the late eighteen 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:20.160 and early nineteen hundreds, the bell went on occasional national tours. 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:24.480 In nineteen fifteen, politicians decided to hold a ceremonial ringing 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:26.960 of the broken bell in hopes of drumming up support 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:30.760 for World War One. It wasn't wrung technically, but tapped 0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:33.880 with a mallet. That led to the bell becoming a 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:37.080 symbol of the immense fundraising effort for the war in 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:40.320 the form of buying liberty bonds. In nineteen seventeen and 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:44.600 nineteen eighteen, it was also sent on a national railroad 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:47.479 tour with a new fangled lighting system that kept it 0:05:47.520 --> 0:05:50.560 illuminated each night on its journey aboard the Liberty Bell, 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:55.080 special citizens flocked to see it. By some estimates, nearly 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:58.200 a quarter of the entire country managed to set eyes 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:01.840 on this symbol of freedom, and the Liberty Bond drives 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:05.279 were a smashing success, raising billions of dollars in war 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:08.919 bonds to help the Allied powers win the war. In 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:11.800 two thousand three, the Liberty Bell Center at Independence Hall 0:06:11.839 --> 0:06:15.120 in Philadelphia opened, which is where the bell now resides. 0:06:15.880 --> 0:06:18.520 Over the decades, there have been numerous calls to repair 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:21.440 it and make it whole, or even to melt it down, 0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:25.320 balance its composition, and then recast it to make it usable, 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:29.360 but a representative for the National Park Service, which runs 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:32.159 the center, said that fixing the bell would serve no 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:36.919 purpose as the crack is its most recognizable feature, and furthermore, 0:06:37.080 --> 0:06:42.200 might be legally sticky as it's a historical artifact. Freed said, 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:45.320 of these never attempted repair plans, all of them have 0:06:45.400 --> 0:06:48.520 been ridiculous because the bell is a more perfect symbol 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:51.240 of our desire for a more perfect union than it 0:06:51.240 --> 0:06:56.120 would ever have been unbroken. The bell is the most enduring, powerful, 0:06:56.320 --> 0:07:00.120 yet approachable symbol of our country, even its crack, as 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:04.880 part of our patriotic metaphorical landscape. He then recalled the 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:07.760 lyrics from the song Anthem by the late Leonard Cohen, 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:12.040 ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering. 0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:14.760 There is a crack in everything. That's how the light 0:07:14.800 --> 0:07:22.480 gets in. Today's episode was written by Nathan Chandler and 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:24.920 produced by Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots 0:07:24.960 --> 0:07:27.120 of topics that are exactly what they're cracked up to be, 0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:30.000 what is it how stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:32.160 is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:35.240 for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:37.040 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.