July 4 Celebrations Produced Enormous
Quantity Of Memorabilia
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This carved wooden figure of Uncle Sam has a blue shirt and red and white striped trousers. The colors are repeated in his top hat.
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The “Glorious Fourth,” Independence Day, was actually first celebrated on July 8, 1776, four days after the actual signing of the Declaration of Independence. The Fourth of July quickly became a nationwide event, and remans so today. It is one of the few holidays that has been saved from being shifted to a Monday to create a three-day weekend.
Parades, dinners, patriotic speeches, picnics, band concerts, parades and FIREWORKS have been a part of the day’s celebrations almost from the beginning. Fortun ately, laws regulating fireworks today help prevent the terrible number of injuries and deaths that occurred with each year’s celebrating in the 19th century.
One of the favorite fourth of July collectibles is the figure of Uncle Sam. Samuel Wilson was a government inspector of supplies for the Army in 1812. He stamped his supplies with the initials U.S. for United States. Later usage changed that to an abbreviation for Uncle Sam.
The conventional figure now associated with him first appeared in the 1850s. By the Centennial in 1876, the figure became a popular souvenir. Milk glass candy containers in the form of his hat, painted with stars and stripes, were one popular item. Small figurines of papier mache, plaster of paris, and lithographed paper on cardboard were used to decorate holiday tables. Uncle Sam invariably wore his tailcoat and striped pants; occasionally, the pants on these figures were of cloth. Whirligigs and small mantel carvings were popular. A lot of folk art featuring Uncle Sam is still being made today.
Another Independence Day collectible is a replica of the Liberty Bell. The original was cast in England in 1751. Although intact when it arrived in this country, it cracked while being tested. It received its name as the bell that was rung on July 8, 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was read to the people.
Collectible Liberty Bells may be found in banks made of cast iron, milk glass, and carnival glass; in candy containers, chocolate molds, platters, souvenir spoons; and a variety of table decoration items made of paper.
Fireworks memorabilia is another area of specialization in the collecting of Fourth of July objects. The brightly colored lithographed labels from the boxes and packages of the early brands are particularly appealing. So are the mail-order catalogs in which their advertisements appear.
Paper goods such as greeting cards and postcards, while not as numerous as those found for Valentine’s Day or Christmas, are still fairly easy to find. Until well into the 20th century, it was traditional for many people to send Fourth of July greetings.
Other collectible items from this holiday from years past are toys (cast iron cap guns were popular,) games (such as Parker Brothers “Old Glory,”) banks, bunting, plates, flags, needlework, sheet music (“Yankee Doodle Dandy, for example,) and plates, to name a few.
A rare find would be an early vigil lamp. Following a tradition established on the first Independence Day, when candles were placed in the windows of the home, the 19th-century Americans placed colored, molded-glass vigil lamps in their windows. They were flat-bottomed, so they could stand on a window sill.
The Bicentennial celebration of 1976 produced a whole new supply of Fourth of July collectibles. That event, which seems very recent to many of us, is already 35 years in the past, and the souvenirs of that year are becoming less common.
One note of caution: do not collect Fourth of July memorabilia unless you like red, white and blue. With the exception of the labels on the fireworks containers, almost all collectibles from this holiday will use one or all of these colors.
Donna Miller
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