How the Liberty Bell Became a Beacon of Freedom

The Liberty Bell has rung out as an icon of American independence for more than two centuries. The widely recognized patriotic symbol joins the likes of the bald eagle and the White House in conveying the nation’s ideals. Each year, nearly 2 million people flock to glimpse the cracked bell.

Yet, its origins are ordinary. It functioned like many other bells of its era and was known as the State House Bell for around 80 years. Starting in the 1830s, abolitionists adopted it as a symbol of the antislavery movement, popularizing the name Liberty Bell. Here’s how the abolitionist movement transformed the bell into a historic landmark.

Long before the United States was home to the Statue of Liberty and even before the first stripes were sewn on the American flag, the bell that would become synonymous with freedom was cast in 1752 for the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia. The State House Bell, as it was known, served as a tool of communication for more than 90 years. When rung, it called lawmakers and Continental Congress delegates to their meetings. Other times, it summoned local citizens for public readings of the news.

During the upheaval of the Revolutionary War, the State House Bell was transported north under armed guard to Allentown, Pennsylvania. The British had occupied Philadelphia, and Patriots feared they would melt the bell down to make artillery. It remained hidden under a church basement’s floorboards for the better part of a year before returning to what is now Independence Hall in June 1778.

“The Bell served as a reminder of the nation’s origins in the American Revolution before evolving into the call to freedom voiced during America’s early-19th century’s antislavery movement,” says Karie Diethorn, supervisory museum curator at Independence National Historical Park.

The Liberty Bell’s nickname stems from an inscription that was added when the bell was first cast. A bible verse from Leviticus, it reads, “Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land Unto All the Inhabitants thereof.” In the mid-1830s, evangelical abolitionists started using the inscription as a slogan in abolitionist newspapers and magazines to support the idea of liberty for “all,” says Manisha Sinha, the Draper Chair in American History at the University of Connecticut and author of The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition. When the Declaration of Independence was written, “all men are created equal” referred to only white men. Abolitionists aimed to use the bell’s inscription to further their antislavery cause.

The term “Liberty Bell” first appeared in The Anti-Slavery Record in 1835 and soon took off among abolitionists publications. In Boston, Maria Weston Chapman published an antislavery magazine called The Liberty Bell, which she sold to raise money for the abolitionist movement.

“By the end of the 1830s, 1840s, using that term ‘Liberty Bell’ was very common in the abolition movement, and then it kind of spread,” Sinha says. “Today, we all call it the Liberty Bell, but few people are aware that it is really the abolitionists who first called it the Liberty Bell.”

In 1839, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison’s antislavery publication, The Liberator, which was also printed in Boston, republished a poem from Chapman’s publication titled “The Liberty Bell.” Sinha says this likely helped the nickname stick. The bell became a “clarion call to freedom,” Diethorn says.

Abolitionist publications began regularly featuring bell symbols, too. Sometimes, a bell bore the title “Liberty Bell.” While some depictions included the Liberty Bell’s iconic crack (which first developed in the 1840s), others showed uncracked or more generic bell shapes. Abolitionists hoped the bell, as a well-known symbol of communication and attention-gathering, would draw focus to their movement.

Abolitionists also made pronouncements and discussed freedom in the shadow of the actual Liberty Bell during events at Independence Hall.

After the Civil War, abolitionist ties to the Liberty Bell began fading from public memory. This was partially by design. To heal the rift in the United States after the war, leaders knew Americans needed a universal symbol. From the 1880s to 1915, the Liberty Bell became just that.

“The Liberty Bell, which has sort of a friendly connotation to it, and is instantly recognizable because of its shape and the crack, begins to travel to celebratory events across the country,” Diethorn says.

In that four-decade span, the bell traversed thousands of miles across the country on seven promotional tours. Destinations included New Orleans, Chicago for the 1893 World’s Fair and Charleston, South Carolina. Its final trip came in 1915 when the aging bell traveled to San Francisco. These tours emphasized the Liberty Bell’s status as a relic of the American Revolution rather than its role as an antislavery symbol.

Still, the success of the abolitionist movement encouraged other people to adopt the Liberty Bell as a symbol in subsequent efforts to secure their own liberty, Diethorn says. Eventually, it became a national symbol of individual and collective efforts to fulfill the promise of freedom for all Americans.

“Ultimately, the Liberty Bell’s universal appeal as a symbol of freedom is manifest in the bell’s very appearance, cracked through hardship but surviving,” Diethorn says. “A reminder of the price for freedom.”