MBN: The Monte Bubbles Network

Fireworks originated in China some 2,000 years ago. The most prevalent legend has it that fireworks were discovered or invented by accident by a Chinese cook working in a field kitchen who happened to mix charcoal, sulphur and saltpeter (all commonly found in the kitchen in those days). The mixture burned and when compressed in an enclosure (a bamboo tube), the mixture exploded.

Some sources say that the discovery of fireworks occurred about 2,000 years ago, and other sources place the discovery sometime during the 9th century during the Song dynasty (960-1279), although this could be confusion between the discovery of gunpowder by the cook and the invention of the firecracker.

Some sources suggest that fireworks may have originated in India, but in the October 18, 2003, online edition of The Hindu, an Indian national newspaper, the Chinese are credited with the discovery of gunpowder.

A Chinese monk named Li Tian, who lived near the city of Liu Yang in Hunan Province, is credited with the invention of firecrackers about 1,000 years ago. The Chinese people celebrate the invention of the firecracker every April 18 by offering sacrifices to Li Tian. During the Song Dynasty, the local people established a temple to worship Li Tian.

The firecrackers, both then and now, are thought to have the power to fend off evil spirits and ghosts that are frightened by the loud bangs of the firecrackers. Firecrackers are used for such purposes today at most events such as births, deaths and birthdays. Chinese New Year is a particularly popular event that is celebrated with firecrackers to usher in the new year free of the evil spirits.

To this day the Liu Yang region of Hunan Province remains the main production area in the world for fireworks. It is important to remember the geographic origin of fireworks, because often detractors of the fireworks industry say that fireworks are produced in China to take advantage of cheap labor. But the reality is that the fireworks industry existed in China long before the advent of the modern era and long before the disparity in east-west wage rates, and hopefully the fireworks industry will exist long after the existence of communism has an effect over the Chinese economy.

Generally Marco Polo is credited with bringing the Chinese gunpowder back to Europe in the 13th century, although some accounts credit the Crusaders with bringing the black powder to Europe as they returned from their journeys.

Once in Europe, the black powder was used for military purposes, first in rockets, then in canons and guns. Italians were the first Europeans who used the black powder to manufacture fireworks. Germany was the other European country to emerge as a fireworks leader along with Italy in the 18th century. It is interesting to note that many of the leading American display companies are operated by families of Italian descent such as the Grucci family, Rozzi family, and Zambelli family.

The English were also fascinated with fireworks. Fireworks became very popular in Great Britain during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. William Shakespeare mentions fireworks in his works, and fireworks were so much enjoyed by the Queen herself that she created the position of "Fire Master of England." King James II was so pleased with the fireworks display that celebrated his coronation that he knighted his Fire Master.

In the modern era, the American fireworks industry really began to influence Chinese manufacturers following President Nixon's normalization of relations with the Chinese Communist government in the early 1970s. Prior to that time, business was being done between U.S. and Chinese companies through Hong Kong brokers with little or no direct contact with mainland manufacturers.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the distribution channels in China were essentially state owned factories producing fireworks that were then exported through government owned provincial export corporations. Products produced in Hunan went through the Hunan Export Corporation, and products produced in Jiangxi went through the Jiangxi Export Corporation, and so on. During this period, factories were not required to make a profit, but rather their goal was to keep people working in a region of China where there was no real industry other than agriculture. The Chinese government subsidized these factories to keep production going.

The Provincial Export Corporation in turn sold to Hong Kong brokers who were the link between Mainland China and the foreign business entities. The Hong Kong brokers procured orders, arranged logistics, and helped finance shipments to the U.S. distributors.

It was also during this time period that the first formally educated leader of China, Chairman Deng Xiaoping, saw what his counterparts in the former Soviet Bloc did not see, and that is that Communism simply did not work economically. Chairman Deng began a policy of economic reform that basically set China on the road toward capitalism.

During the 1980s, China opened up dramatically to travel within its borders for visiting U.S. importers. This enabled the first American fireworks buyers to travel to the production regions and establish relations with Hong Kong exporters and the provincial export corporations.

In the late 1980s, consumer fireworks became the focus of intense scrutiny by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Up to this point, most of the fireworks products had old generic export corporation labels that had incorrect warning labels based on item size and performance. To correct the situation, representatives from the CPSC, American Pyrotechnics Association, and Hong Brokers Association spent 10 days in Southern China meeting with representatives from each export corporation and factory managers, on a province by province basis.

The meetings involved shooting each item produced in China and determining what the appropriate and correct warning descriptions and print size should be from the point of view of providing safe warning labels for the American consumers. The Americans involved took on the infamous moniker of "The Shekou Six" by most of the shell shocked Chinese industry people, and from that meeting and a few that followed was born the American Fireworks Standards Laboratory (AFSL) which monitors firework production within China to this day.

In the 1990s, economic reform continued under Chairman Jiang Zemin as Chinese factories were weaned off government funding and forced to turn a profit for the first time. It was during this period that many Provincial Export Corporation personnel left the government owned companies and were permitted to start their own.

Initially these new private companies worked through the established Hong Kong brokers to reach the U.S. market, but within a few years they were selling directly to U.S. importers.

In order to survive, Hong Kong brokers invested money into Chinese factories and joint-ventured with Chinese entrepreneurs to start their own exclusive product lines and for their remaining larger customers. With the loss of key personnel, the government provincial export corporations never quite adapted to economic reform, and today most are gone or left selling to domestic Chinese markets.

The 1990s saw the rapid growth of private labels in order for U.S. companies to differentiate their product lines. In the 2000s, China is a basic "free for all," with small mainland export-broker companies forming and folding each month. Additionally, separate factories are attempting to bypass historical channels and selling directly to U.S. importers. Each week American companies receive a half dozen e-mails or fax communications asking for the American companies to place orders directly with some small new and obscure factories that would like to begin exporting to the United States

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred. to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

— John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Nations come into being in many ways. Military rebellion, civil strife, acts of heroism, acts of treachery, a thousand greater and lesser clashes between defenders of the old order and supporters of the new--all these occurrences and more have marked the emergences of new nations, large and small. The birth of our own nation included them all. That birth was unique, not only in the immensity of its later impact on the course of world history and the growth of democracy, but also because so many of the threads in our national history run back through time to come together in one place, in one time, and in one document: the Declaration of Independence.

The clearest call for independence up to the summer of 1776 came in Philadelphia on June 7. On that date in session in the Pennsylvania State House (later Independence Hall), the Continental Congress heard Richard Henry Lee of Virginia read his resolution beginning: "Resolved: That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."

The Lee Resolution was an expression of what was already beginning to happen throughout the colonies. When the Second Continental Congress, which was essentially the government of the United States from 1775 to 1788, first met in May 1775, King George III had not replied to the petition for redress of grievances that he had been sent by the First Continental Congress. The Congress gradually took on the responsibilities of a national government. In June 1775 the Congress established the Continental Army as well as a continental currency. By the end of July of that year, it created a post office for the "United Colonies."

In August 1775 a royal proclamation declared that the King's American subjects were "engaged in open and avowed rebellion." Later that year, Parliament passed the American Prohibitory Act, which made all American vessels and cargoes forfeit to the Crown. And in May 1776 the Congress learned that the King had negotiated treaties with German states to hire mercenaries to fight in America. The weight of these actions combined to convince many Americans that the mother country was treating the colonies as a foreign entity.

One by one, the Continental Congress continued to cut the colonies' ties to Britain. The Privateering Resolution, passed in March 1776, allowed the colonists "to fit out armed vessels to cruize [sic] on the enemies of these United Colonies." On April 6, 1776, American ports were opened to commerce with other nations, an action that severed the economic ties fostered by the Navigation Acts. A "Resolution for the Formation of Local Governments" was passed on May 10, 1776.

At the same time, more of the colonists themselves were becoming convinced of the inevitability of independence. Thomas Paine's Common Sense, published in January 1776, was sold by the thousands. By the middle of May 1776, eight colonies had decided that they would support independence. On May 15, 1776, the Virginia Convention passed a resolution that "the delegates appointed to represent this colony in General Congress be instructed to propose to that respectable body to declare the United Colonies free and independent states."

It was in keeping with these instructions that Richard Henry Lee, on June 7, 1776, presented his resolution. There were still some delegates, however, including those bound by earlier instructions, who wished to pursue the path of reconciliation with Britain. On June 11 consideration of the Lee Resolution was postponed by a vote of seven colonies to five, with New York abstaining. Congress then recessed for 3 weeks. The tone of the debate indicated that at the end of that time the Lee Resolution would be adopted. Before Congress recessed, therefore, a Committee of Five was appointed to draft a statement presenting to the world the colonies' case for independence.

The committee consisted of two New England men, John Adams of Massachusetts and Roger Sherman of Connecticut; two men from the Middle Colonies, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania and Robert R. Livingston of New York; and one southerner, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. In 1823 Jefferson wrote that the other members of the committee "unanimously pressed on myself alone to undertake the draught [sic]. I consented; I drew it; but before I reported it to the committee I communicated it separately to Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams requesting their corrections. . . I then wrote a fair copy, reported it to the committee, and from them, unaltered to the Congress." (If Jefferson did make a "fair copy," incorporating the changes made by Franklin and Adams, it has not been preserved. It may have been the copy that was amended by the Congress and used for printing, but in any case, it has not survived. Jefferson's rough draft, however, with changes made by Franklin and Adams, as well as Jefferson's own notes of changes by the Congress, is housed at the Library of Congress.)

Jefferson's account reflects three stages in the life of the Declaration: the document originally written by Jefferson; the changes to that document made by Franklin and Adams, resulting in the version that was submitted by the Committee of Five to the Congress; and the version that was eventually adopted.

On July 1, 1776, Congress reconvened. The following day, the Lee Resolution for independence was adopted by 12 of the 13 colonies, New York not voting. Immediately afterward, the Congress began to consider the Declaration. Adams and Franklin had made only a few changes before the committee submitted the document. The discussion in Congress resulted in some alterations and deletions, but the basic document remained Jefferson's. The process of revision continued through all of July 3 and into the late morning of July 4. Then, at last, church bells rang out over Philadelphia; the Declaration had been officially adopted.

The Declaration of Independence is made up of five distinct parts: the introduction; the preamble; the body, which can be divided into two sections; and a conclusion. The introduction states that this document will "declare" the "causes" that have made it necessary for the American colonies to leave the British Empire. Having stated in the introduction that independence is unavoidable, even necessary, the preamble sets out principles that were already recognized to be "self-evident" by most 18th- century Englishmen, closing with the statement that "a long train of abuses and usurpations . . . evinces a design to reduce [a people] under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." The first section of the body of the Declaration gives evidence of the "long train of abuses and usurpations" heaped upon the colonists by King George III. The second section of the body states that the colonists had appealed in vain to their "British brethren" for a redress of their grievances. Having stated the conditions that made independence necessary and having shown that those conditions existed in British North America, the Declaration concludes that "these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved."

Although Congress had adopted the Declaration submitted by the Committee of Five, the committee's task was not yet completed. Congress had also directed that the committee supervise the printing of the adopted document. The first printed copies of the Declaration of Independence were turned out from the shop of John Dunlap, official printer to the Congress. After the Declaration had been adopted, the committee took to Dunlap the manuscript document, possibly Jefferson's "fair copy" of his rough draft. On the morning of July 5, copies were dispatched by members of Congress to various assemblies, conventions, and committees of safety as well as to the commanders of Continental troops. Also on July 5, a copy of the printed version of the approved Declaration was inserted into the "rough journal" of the Continental Congress for July 4. The text was followed by the words "Signed by Order and in Behalf of the Congress, John Hancock, President. Attest. Charles Thomson, Secretary." It is not known how many copies John Dunlap printed on his busy night of July 4. There are 24 copies known to exist of what is commonly referred to as "the Dunlap broadside," 17 owned by American institutions, 2 by British institutions, and 5 by private owners. (See Appendix A.)

On July 9 the action of Congress was officially approved by the New York Convention. All 13 colonies had now signified their approval. On July 19, therefore, Congress was able to order that the Declaration be "fairly engrossed on parchment, with the title and stile [sic] of 'The unanimous declaration of the thirteen United States of America,' and that the same, when engrossed, be signed by every member of Congress."

Engrossing is the process of preparing an official document in a large, clear hand. Timothy Matlack was probably the engrosser of the Declaration. He was a Pennsylvanian who had assisted the Secretary of the Congress, Charles Thomson, in his duties for over a year and who had written out George Washington's commission as commanding general of the ContinentalArmy. Matlack set to work with pen, ink, parchment, and practiced hand, and finally, on August 2, the journal of the Continental Congress records that "The declaration of independence being engrossed and compared at the table was signed." One of the most widely held misconceptions about the Declaration is that it was signed on July 4, 1776, by all the delegates in attendance.

John Hancock, the President of the Congress, was the first to sign the sheet of parchment measuring 24¼ by 29¾ inches. He used a bold signature centered below the text. In accordance with prevailing custom, the other delegates began to sign at the right below the text, their signatures arranged according to the geographic location of the states they represented. New Hampshire, the northernmost state, began the list, and Georgia, the southernmost, ended it. Eventually 56 delegates signed, although all were not present on August 2. Among the later signers were Elbridge Gerry, Oliver Wolcott, Lewis Morris, Thomas McKean, and Matthew Thornton, who found that he had no room to sign with the other New Hampshire delegates. A few delegates who voted for adoption of the Declaration on July 4 were never to sign in spite of the July 19 order of Congress that the engrossed document "be signed by every member of Congress." Nonsigners included John Dickinson, who clung to the idea of reconciliation with Britain, and Robert R. Livingston, one of the Committee of Five, who thought the Declaration was premature.

Over the next 200 years, the nation whose birth was announced with a Declaration "fairly engrossed on parchment" was to show immense growth in area, population, economic power, and social complexity and a lasting commitment to a testing and strengthening of its democracy. But what of the parchment itself? How was it to fare over the course of two centuries?

In the chronicle of the Declaration as a physical object, three themes necessarily entwine themselves: the relationship between the physical aging of the parchment and the steps taken to preserve it from deterioration; the relationship between the parchment and the copies that were made from it; and finally, the often dramatic story of the travels of the parchment during wartime and to its various homes.

Chronologically, it is helpful to divide the history of the Declaration after its signing into five main periods, some more distinct than others. The first period consists of the early travels of the parchment and lasts until 1814. The second period relates to the long sojourn of the Declaration in Washington, DC, from 1814 until its brief return to Philadelphia for the 1876 Centennial. The third period covers the years 1877-1921, a period marked by increasing concern for the deterioration of the document and the need for a fitting and permanent Washington home. Except for an interlude during World War II, the fourth and fifth periods cover the time the Declaration rested in the Library of Congress from 1921 to 1952 and in the National Archives from 1952 to the present.

Once the Declaration was signed, the document probably accompanied the Continental Congress as that body traveled during the uncertain months and years of the Revolution. Initially, like other parchment documents of the time, the Declaration was probably stored in a rolled format. Each time the document was used, it would have been unrolled and re-rolled. This action, as well as holding the curled parchment flat, doubtless took its toll on the ink and on the parchment surface through abrasion and flexing. The acidity inherent in the iron gall ink used by Timothy Matlack allowed the ink to "bite" into the surface of the parchment, thus contributing to the ink's longevity, but the rolling and unrolling of the parchment still presented many hazards.

After the signing ceremony on August 2, 1776, the Declaration was most likely filed in Philadelphia in the office of Charles Thomson, who served as the Secretary of the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1789. On December 12, threatened by the British, Congress adjourned and reconvened 8 days later in Baltimore, MD. A light wagon carried the Declaration to its new home, where it remained until its return to Philadelphia in March of 1777.

On January 18, 1777, while the Declaration was still in Baltimore, Congress, bolstered by military successes at Trenton and Princeton, ordered the second official printing of the document. The July 4 printing had included only the names of John Hancock and Charles Thomson, and even though the first printing had been promptly circulated to the states, the names of subsequent signers were kept secret for a time because of fear of British reprisals. By its order of January 18, however, Congress required that "an authentic copy of the Declaration of Independency, with the names of the members of Congress subscribing to the same, be sent to each of the United States, and that they be desired to have the same put upon record." The "authentic copy" was duly printed, complete with signers' names, by Mary Katherine Goddard in Baltimore.

Assuming that the Declaration moved with the Congress, it would have been back in Philadelphia from March to September 1777. On September 27, it would have moved to Lancaster, PA, for 1 day only. From September 30, 1777, through June 1778, the Declaration would have been kept in the courthouse at York, PA. From July 1778 to June 1783, it would have had a long stay back in Philadelphia. In 1783, it would have been at Princeton, NJ, from June to November, and then, after the signing of the Treaty of Paris, the Declaration would have been moved to Annapolis, MD, where it stayed until October 1784. For the months of November and December 1784, it would have been at Trenton, NJ. Then in 1785, when Congress met in New York, the Declaration was housed in the old New York City Hall, where it probably remained until 1790 (although when Pierre L'Enfant was remodeling the building for the convening of the First Federal Congress, it might have been temporarily removed).

In July 1789 the First Congress under the new Constitution created the Department of Foreign Affairs and directed that its Secretary should have "the custody and charge of all records, books and papers" kept by the department of the same name under the old government. On July 24 Charles Thomson retired as Secretary of the Congress and, upon the order of President George Washington, surrendered the Declaration to Roger Alden, Deputy Secretary of Foreign Affairs. In September 1789 the name of the department was changed to the Department of State. Thomas Jefferson, the drafter of the Declaration, returned from France to assume his duties as the first Secretary of State in March of 1790. Appropriately, those duties now included custody of the Declaration.

In July 1790 Congress provided for a permanent capital to be built among the woodlands and swamps bordering the Potomac River. Meanwhile, the temporary seat of government was to return to Philadelphia. Congress also provided that "prior to the first Monday in December next, all offices attached to the seat of the government of the United States" should be removed to Philadelphia. The Declaration was therefore back in Philadelphia by the close of 1790. It was housed in various buildings--on Market Street, at Arch and Sixth, and at Fifth and Chestnut.

In 1800, by direction of President John Adams, the Declaration and other government records were moved from Philadelphia to the new federal capital now rising in the District of Columbia. To reach its new home, the Declaration traveled down the Delaware River and Bay, out into the ocean, into the Chesapeake Bay, and up the Potomac to Washington, completing its longest water journey.

For about 2 months the Declaration was housed in buildings built for the use of the Treasury Department. For the next year it was housed in one of the "Seven Buildings" then standing at Nineteenth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. Its third home before 1814 was in the old War Office Building on Seventeenth Street.

In August 1814, the United States being again at war with Great Britain, a British fleet appeared in the Chesapeake Bay. Secretary of State James Monroe rode out to observe the landing of British forces along the Patuxent River in Maryland. A message from Monroe alerted State Department officials, in particular a clerk named Stephen Pleasonton, of the imminent threat to the capital city and, of course, the government's official records. Pleasonton "proceeded to purchase coarse linen, and cause it to be made into bags of convenient size, in which the gentlemen of the office" packed the precious books and records including the Declaration.

A cartload of records was then taken up the Potomac River to an unused gristmill belonging to Edgar Patterson. The structure was located on the Virginia side of the Potomac, about 2 miles upstream from Georgetown. Here the Declaration and the other records remained, probably overnight. Pleasonton, meanwhile, asked neighboring farmers for the use of their wagons. On August 24, the day of the British attack on Washington, the Declaration was on its way to Leesburg, VA. That evening, while the White House and other government buildings were burning, the Declaration was stored 35 miles away at Leesburg.

The Declaration remained safe at a private home in Leesburg for an interval of several weeks--in fact, until the British had withdrawn their troops from Washington and their fleet from the Chesapeake Bay. In September 1814 the Declaration was returned to the national capital. With the exception of a trip to Philadelphia for the Centennial and to Fort Knox during World War II, it has remained there ever since.

The Declaration remained in Washington from September 1814 to May 1841. It was housed in four locations. From 1814 to 1841, it was kept in three different locations as the State Department records were shifted about the growing city. The last of these locations was a brick building that, it was later observed, "offered no security against fire."

One factor that had no small effect on the physical condition of the Declaration was recognized as interest in reproductions of the Declaration increased as the nation grew. Two early facsimile printings of the Declaration were made during the second decade of the 19th century: those of Benjamin Owen Tyler (1818) and John Binns (1819). Both facsimiles used decorative and ornamental elements to enhance the text of the Declaration. Richard Rush, who was Acting Secretary of State in 1817, remarked on September 10 of that year about the Tyler copy: "The foregoing copy of the Declaration of Independence has been collated with the original instrument and found correct. I have myself examined the signatures to each. Those executed by Mr. Tyler, are curiously exact imitations, so much so, that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for the closest scrutiny to distinguish them, were it not for the hand of time, from the originals." Rush's reference to "the hand of time" suggests that the signatures were already fading in 1817, only 40 years after they were first affixed to the parchment.

One later theory as to why the Declaration was aging so soon after its creation stems from the common 18th-century practice of taking "press copies." Press copies were made by placing a damp sheet of thin paper on a manuscript and pressing it until a portion of the ink was transferred. The thin paper copy was retained in the same manner as a modern carbon copy. The ink was reimposed on a copper plate, which was then etched so that copies could be run off the plate on a press. This "wet transfer" method may have been used by William J. Stone when in 1820 he was commissioned by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams to make a facsimile of the entire Declaration, signatures as well as text. By June 5, 1823, almost exactly 47 years after Jefferson's first draft of the Declaration, the (Washington) National Intelligencer was able to report "that Mr. William J. Stone, a respectable and enterprising Engraver of this City, has, after a labor of three years, completed a fac simile of the original of the Declaration of Independence, now in the archives of the government; that it is executed with the greatest exactness and fidelity; and that the Department of State has become the purchaser of the plate."

As the Intelligencer went on to observe: "We are very glad to hear this, for the original of that paper which ought to be immortal and imperishable, by being so much handled by copyists and curious visitors, might receive serious injury. The facility of multiplying copies of it now possessed by the Department of State will render further exposure of the original unnecessary." The language of the newspaper report, like that of Rush's earlier comment, would seem to indicate some fear of the deterioration of the Declaration even prior to Stone's work.

The copies made from Stone's copperplate established the clear visual image of the Declaration for generations of Americans. The 200 official parchment copies struck from the Stone plate carry the identification "Engraved by W. J. Stone for the Department of State, by order" in the upper left corner followed by "of J. Q. Adams, Sec. of State July 4th 1823." in the upper right corner. "Unofficial" copies that were struck later do not have the identification at the top of the document. Instead the engraver identified his work by engraving "W. J. Stone SC. Washn." near the lower left corner and burnishing out the earlier identification.

The longest of the early sojourns of the Declaration was from 1841 to 1876. Daniel Webster was Secretary of State in 1841. On June 11 he wrote to Commissioner of Patents Henry L. Ellsworth, who was then occupying a new building (now the National Portrait Gallery), that "having learned that there is in the new building appropriated to the Patent Office suitable accommodations for the safe-keeping, as well as the exhibition of the various articles now deposited in this Department, and usually, exhibited to visitors . . . I have directed them to be transmitted to you." An inventory accompanied the letter. Item 6 was the Declaration.

The "new building" was a white stone structure at Seventh and F Streets. The Declaration and Washington's commission as commander in chief were mounted together in a single frame and hung in a white painted hall opposite a window offering exposure to sunlight. There they were to remain on exhibit for 35 years, even after the Patent Office separated from the State Department to become administratively a part of the Interior Department. This prolonged exposure to sunlight accelerated the deterioration of the ink and parchment of the Declaration, which was approaching 100 years of age toward the end of this period.

During the years that the Declaration was exhibited in the Patent Office, the combined effects of aging, sunlight, and fluctuating temperature and relative humidity took their toll on the document. Occasionally, writers made somewhat negative comments on the appearance of the Declaration. An observer in the United States Magazine (October 1856) went so far as to refer to "that old looking paper with the fading ink." John B. Ellis remarked in The Sights and Secrets of the National Capital (Chicago, 1869) that "it is old and yellow, and the ink is fading from the paper." An anonymous writer in the Historical Magazine (October 1870) wrote: "The original manuscript of the Declaration of Independence and of Washington's Commission, now in the United States Patent Office at Washington, D.C., are said to be rapidly fading out so that in a few years, only the naked parchment will remain. Already, nearly all the signatures attached to the Declaration of Independence are entirely effaced." In May 1873 the Historical Magazine published an official statement by Mortimer Dormer Leggett, Commissioner of Patents, who admitted that "many of the names to the Declaration are already illegible."

The technology of a new age and the interest in historical roots engendered by the approaching Centennial focused new interest on the Declaration in the 1870s and brought about a brief change of home.

In 1876 the Declaration traveled to Philadelphia, where it was on exhibit for the Centennial National Exposition from May to October. Philadelphia's Mayor William S. Stokley was entrusted by President Ulysses S. Grant with temporary custody of the Declaration. The Public Ledger for May 8, 1876, noted that it was in Independence Hall "framed and glazed for protection, and . . . deposited in a fireproof safe especially designed for both preservation and convenient display. [When the outer doors of the safe were opened, the parchment was visible behind a heavy plate-glass inner door; the doors were closed at night.] Its aspect is of course faded and time-worn. The text is fully legible, but the major part of the signatures are so pale as to be only dimly discernible in the strongest light, a few remain wholly readable, and some are wholly invisible, the spaces which contained them presenting only a blank."

Other descriptions made at Philadelphia were equally unflattering: "scarce bears trace of the signatures the execution of which made fifty-six names imperishable," "aged-dimmed." But on the Fourth of July, after the text was read aloud to a throng on Independence Square by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia (grandson of the signer Richard Henry Lee), "The faded and crumbling manuscript, held together by a simple frame was then exhibited to the crowd and was greeted with cheer after cheer."

By late summer the Declaration's physical condition had become a matter of public concern. On August 3, 1876, Congress adopted a joint resolution providing "that a commission, consisting of the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and the Librarian of Congress be empowered to have resort to such means as will most effectually restore the writing of the original manuscript of the Declaration of Independence, with the signatures appended thereto." This resolution had actually been introduced as early as January 5, 1876. One candidate for the task of restoration was William J. Canby, an employee of the Washington Gas Light Company. On April 13 Canby had written to the Librarian of Congress: "I have had over thirty years experience in handling the pen upon parchment and in that time, as an expert, have engrossed hundreds of ornamental, special documents." Canby went on to suggest that "the only feasible plan is to replenish the original with a supply of ink, which has been destroyed by the action of light and time, with an ink well known to be, for all practical purposes, imperishable."

The commission did not, however, take any action at that time. After the conclusion of the Centennial exposition, attempts were made to secure possession of the Declaration for Philadelphia, but these failed and the parchment was returned to the Patent Office in Washington, where it had been since 1841, even though that office had become a part of the Interior Department. On April 11, 1876, Robert H. Duell, Commissioner of Patents, had written to Zachariah Chandler, Secretary of the Interior, suggesting that "the Declaration of Independence, and the commission of General Washington, associated with it in the same frame, belong to your Department as heirlooms.

Chandler appears to have ignored this claim, for in an exchange of letters with Secretary of State Hamilton Fish, it was agreed-with the approval of President Grant-to move the Declaration into the new, fireproof building that the State Department shared with the War and Navy Departments (now the Old Executive Office Building).

On March 3, 1877, the Declaration was placed in a cabinet on the eastern side of the State Department library, where it was to be exhibited for 17 years. It may be noted that not only was smoking permitted in the library, but the room contained an open fireplace. Nevertheless this location turned out to be safer than the premises just vacated; much of the Patent Office was gutted in a fire that occurred a few months later.

On May 5, 1880, the commission that had been appointed almost 4 years earlier came to life again in response to a call from the Secretary of the Interior. It requested that William B. Rogers, president of the National Academy of Sciences appoint a committee of experts to consider "whether such restoration [of the Declaration] be expedient or practicable and if so in what way the object can best be accomplished."

The duly appointed committee reported on January 7, 1881, that Stone used the "wet transfer" method in the creation of his facsimile printing of 1823, that the process had probably removed some of the original ink, and that chemical restoration methods were "at best imperfect and uncertain in their results." The committee concluded, therefore, that "it is not expedient to attempt to restore the manuscript by chemical means." The group of experts then recommended that "it will be best either to cover the present receptacle of the manuscript with an opaque lid or to remove the manuscript from its frame and place it in a portfolio, where it may be protected from the action of light." Finally, the committee recommended that "no press copies of any part of it should in future be permitted."

Recent study of the Declaration by conservators at the National Archives has raised doubts that a "wet transfer" took place. Proof of this occurrence, however, cannot be verified or denied strictly by modern examination methods. No documentation prior to the 1881 reference has been found to support the theory; therefore we may never know if Stone actually performed the procedure.

Little, if any, action was taken as a result of the 1881 report. It was not until 1894 that the State Department announced: "The rapid fading of the text of the original Declaration of Independence and the deterioration of the parchment upon which it is engrossed, from exposure to light and lapse of time, render it impracticable for the Department longer to exhibit it or to handle it. For the secure preservation of its present condition, so far as may be possible, it has been carefully wrapped and placed flat in a steel case."

A new plate for engravings was made by the Coast and Geodetic Survey in 1895, and in 1898 a photograph was made for the Ladies' Home Journal. On this latter occasion, the parchment was noted as "still in good legible condition" although "some of the signatures" were "necessarily blurred."

On April 14, 1903, Secretary of State John Hay solicited again the help of the National Academy of Sciences in providing "such recommendations as may seem practicable . . . touching [the Declaration's] preservation." Hay went on to explain: "It is now kept out of the light, sealed between two sheets of glass, presumably proof against air, and locked in a steel safe. I am unable to say, however, that, in spite of these precautions, observed for the past ten years, the text is not continuing to fade and the parchment to wrinkle and perhaps to break."

On April 24 a committee of the academy reported its findings. Summarizing the physical history of the Declaration, the report stated: "The instrument has suffered very seriously from the very harsh treatment to which it was exposed in the early years of the Republic. Folding and rolling have creased the parchment. The wet press-copying operation to which it was exposed about 1820, for the purpose of producing a facsimile copy, removed a large portion of the ink. Subsequent exposure to the action of light for more than thirty years, while the instrument was placed on exhibition, has resulted in the fading of the ink, particularly in the signatures. The present method of caring for the instrument seems to be the best that can be suggested."

The committee added its own "opinion that the present method of protecting the instrument should be continued; that it should be kept in the dark and dry as possible, and never placed on exhibition." Secretary Hay seems to have accepted the committee's recommendation; in the following year, William H. Michael, author of The Declaration of Independence (Washington, 1904), recorded that the Declaration was "locked and sealed, by order of Secretary Hay, and is no longer shown to anyone except by his direction."

World War I came and went. Then, on April 21, 1920, Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby issued an order creating yet another committee: "A Committee is hereby appointed to study the proper steps that should be taken for the permanent and effective preservation from deterioration and from danger from fire, or other form of destruction, of those documents of supreme value which under the law are deposited with the Secretary of State. The inquiry will include the question of display of certain of these documents for the benefit of the patriotic public."

On May 5, 1920, the new committee reported on the physical condition of the safes that housed the Declaration and the Constitution. It declared: "The safes are constructed of thin sheets of steel. They are not fireproof nor would they offer much obstruction to an evil-disposed person who wished to break into them." About the physical condition of the Declaration, the committee stated: "We believe the fading can go no further. We see no reason why the original document should not be exhibited if the parchment be laid between two sheets of glass, hermetically sealed at the edges and exposed only to diffused light."

The committee also made some important "supplementary recommendations." It noted that on March 3, 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt had directed that certain records relating to the Continental Congress be turned over by the Department of State to the Library of Congress: "This transfer was made under a provision of an Act of February 25, 1903, that any Executive Department may turn over to the Library of Congress books, maps, or other material no longer needed for the use of the Department." The committee recommended that the remaining papers, including the Declaration and the Constitution, be similarly given over to the custody of the Library of Congress. For the Declaration, therefore, two important changes were in the offing: a new home and the possibility of exhibition to "the patriotic public."

There was no action on the recommendations of 1920 until after the Harding administration took office. On September 28, 1921, Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes addressed the new President: "I enclose an executive order for your signature, if you approve, transferring to the custody of the Library of Congress the original Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the United States which are now in the custody of this Department. . . . I make this recommendation because in the Library of Congress these muniments will be in the custody of experts skilled in archival preservation, in a building of modern fireproof construction, where they can safely be exhibited to the many visitors who now desire to see them."

President Warren G. Harding agreed. On September 29, 1921, he issued the Executive order authorizing the transfer. The following day Secretary Hughes sent a copy of the order to Librarian of Congress Herbert Putnam, stating that he was "prepared to turn the documents over to you when you are ready to receive them."

Putnam was both ready and eager. He presented himself forthwith at the State Department. The safes were opened, and the Declaration and the Constitution were carried off to the Library of Congress on Capitol Hill in the Library's "mail wagon," cushioned by a pile of leather U.S. mail sacks. Upon arrival, the two national treasures were placed in a safe in Putnam's office.

On October 3, Putnam took up the matter of a permanent location. In a memorandum to the superintendent of the Library building and grounds, Putnam proceeded from the premise that "in the Library" the documents "might be treated in such a way as, while fully safe-guarding them and giving them distinction, they should be open to inspection by the public at large." The memorandum discussed the need for a setting "safe, dignified, adequate, and in every way suitable . . . Material less than bronze would be unworthy. The cost must be considerable."

The Librarian then requested the sum of $12,000 for his purpose. The need was urgent because the new Bureau of the Budget was about to print forthcoming fiscal year estimates. There was therefore no time to make detailed architectural plans. Putnam told an appropriations committee on January 16, 1922, just what he had in mind. "There is a way . . . we could construct, say, on the second floor on the western side in that long open gallery a railed inclosure, material of bronze, where these documents, with one or two auxiliary documents leading up to them, could be placed, where they need not be touched by anybody but where a mere passer-by could see them, where they could be set in permanent bronze frames and where they could be protected from the natural light, lighted only by soft incandescent lamps. The result could be achieved and you would have something every visitor to Washington would wish to tell about when he returned and who would regard it, as the newspapermen are saying, with keen interest as a sort of 'shrine.'" The Librarian's imaginative presentation was successful: The sum of $12,000 was appropriated and approved on March 20, 1922.

Before long, the "sort of 'shrine'" was being designed by Francis H. Bacon, whose brother Henry was the architect of the Lincoln Memorial. Materials used included different kinds of marble from New York, Vermont, Tennessee, the Greek island of Tinos, and Italy. The marbles surrounding the manuscripts were American; the floor and balustrade were made of foreign marbles to correspond with the material used in the rest of the Library. The Declaration was to be housed in a frame of gold-plated bronze doors and covered with double panes of plate glass with specially prepared gelatin films between the plates to exclude the harmful rays of light. A 24-hour guard would provide protection.

On February 28, 1924, the shrine was dedicated in the presence of President and Mrs. Calvin Coolidge, Secretary Hughes, and other distinguished guests. Not a word was spoken during a moving ceremony in which Putnam fitted the Declaration into its frame. There were no speeches. Two stanzas of America were sung. In Putnam's words: "The impression on the audience proved the emotional potency of documents animate with a great tradition."

With only one interruption, the Declaration hung on the wall of the second floor of the Great Hall of the Library of Congress until December 1952. During the prosperity of the 1920s and the Depression of the 1930s, millions of people visited the shrine. But the threat of war and then war itself caused a prolonged interruption in the steady stream of visitors.

On April 30, 1941, worried that the war raging in Europe might engulf the United States, the newly appointed Librarian of Congress, Archibald MacLeish, wrote to the Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, Jr. The Librarian was concerned for the most precious of the many objects in his charge. He wrote "to enquire whether space might perhaps be found" at the Bullion Depository in Fort Knox for his most valuable materials, including the Declaration, "in the unlikely event that it becomes necessary to remove them from Washington." Secretary Morgenthau replied that space would indeed be made available as necessary for the "storage of such of the more important papers as you might designate."

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. On December 23, the Declaration and the Constitution were removed from the shrine and placed between two sheets of acid-free manilla paper. The documents were then carefully wrapped in a container of all-rag neutral millboard and placed in a specially designed bronze container. It was late at night when the container was finally secured with padlocks on each side. Preparations were resumed on the day after Christmas, when the Attorney General ruled that the Librarian needed no "further authority from the Congress or the President" to take such action as he deemed necessary for the "proper protection and preservation" of the documents in his charge.

The packing process continued under constant armed guard. The container was finally sealed with lead and packed in a heavy box; the whole weighed some 150 pounds. It was a far cry from the simple linen bag of the summer of 1814.

At about 5 p.m. the box, along with other boxes containing vital records, was loaded into an armed and escorted truck, taken to Union Station, and loaded into a compartment of the Pullman sleeper Eastlake. Armed Secret Service agents occupied the neighboring compartments. After departing from Washington at 6:30 p.m., the Declaration traveled to Louisville, KY, arriving at 10:30 a.m., December 27, 1941. More Secret Service agents and a cavalry troop of the 13th Armored Division met the train, convoyed its precious contents to the Bullion Depository at Fort Knox, and placed the Declaration in compartment 24 in the outer tier on the ground level.

The Declaration was periodically examined during its sojourn at Fort Knox. One such examination in 1942 found that the Declaration had become detached in part from its mount, including the upper right corner, which had been stuck down with copious amounts of glue. In his journal for May 14, 1942, Verner W. Clapp, a Library of Congress official, noted: "At one time also (about January 12, 1940) an attempt had been made to reunite the detached upper right hand corner to the main portion by means of a strip of 'scotch' cellulose tape which was still in place, discolored to a molasses color. In the various mending efforts glue had been splattered in two places on the obverse of the document."

The opportunity was taken to perform conservation treatment in order to stabilize and rejoin the upper right corner. Under great secrecy, George Stout and Evelyn Erlich, both of the Fogg Museum at Harvard University, traveled to Fort Knox. Over a period of 2 days, they performed mending of small tears, removed excess adhesive and the "scotch" tape, and rejoined the detached upper right corner.

Finally, in 1944, the military authorities assured the Library of Congress that all danger of enemy attack had passed. On September 19, the documents were withdrawn from Fort Knox. On Sunday, October 1, at 11:30 a.m., the doors of the Library were opened. The Declaration was back in its shrine.

With the return of peace, the keepers of the Declaration were mindful of the increasing technological expertise available to them relating to the preservation of the parchment. In this they were readily assisted by the National Bureau of Standards, which even before World War II, had researched the preservation of the Declaration. The problem of shielding it from harsh light, for example, had in 1924 led to the insertion of a sheet of yellow gelatin between the protective plates of glass. Yet this procedure lessened the visibility of an already faded parchment. Could not some improvement be made?

Following reports of May 5, 1949, on studies in which the Library staff, members of the National Bureau of Standards, and representatives of a glass manufacturer had participated, new recommendations were made. In 1951 the Declaration was sealed in a thermopane enclosure filled with properly humidified helium. The exhibit case was equipped with a filter to screen out damaging light. The new enclosure also had the effect of preventing harm from air pollution, a growing peril.

Soon after, however, the Declaration was to make one more move, the one to its present home. (See Appendix B.)

In 1933, while the Depression gripped the nation, President Hoover laid the cornerstone for the National Archives Building in Washington, DC. He announced that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution would eventually be kept in the impressive structure that was to occupy the site. Indeed, it was for their keeping and display that the exhibition hall in the National Archives had been designed. Two large murals were painted for its walls. In one, Thomas Jefferson is depicted presenting the Declaration to John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress while members of that Revolutionary body look on. In the second, James Madison is portrayed submitting the Constitution to George Washington.

The final transfer of these special documents did not, however, take place until almost 20 years later. In October 1934 President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed the first Archivist of the United States, Robert Digges Wimberly Connor. The President told Connor that "valuable historic documents," such as the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, would reside in the National Archives Building. The Library of Congress, especially Librarian Herbert Putnam, objected. In a meeting with the President 2 months after his appointment, Connor explained to Roosevelt how the documents came to be in the Library and that Putnam felt another Act of Congress was necessary in order for them to be transferred to the Archives. Connor eventually told the President that it would be better to leave the matter alone until Putnam retired.

When Herbert Putnam retired on April 5, 1939, Archibald MacLeish was nominated to replace him. MacLeish agreed with Roosevelt and Connor that the two important documents belonged in the National Archives. Because of World War II, during much of which the Declaration was stored at Fort Knox, and Connor's resignation in 1941, MacLeish was unable to enact the transfer. By 1944, when the Declaration and Constitution returned to Washington from Fort Knox, MacLeish had been appointed Assistant Secretary of State.

Solon J. Buck, Connor's successor as Archivist of the United States (1941-48), felt that the documents were in good hands at the Library of Congress. His successor, Wayne Grover, disagreed. Luther Evans, the Librarian of Congress appointed by President Truman in June 1945, shared Grover's opinion that the documents should be transferred to the Archives.

In 1951 the two men began working with their staff members and legal advisers to have the documents transferred. The Archives position was that the documents were federal records and therefore covered by the Federal Records Act of 1950, which was "paramount to and took precedence over" the 1922 act that had appropriated money for the shrine at the Library of Congress. Luther Evans agreed with this line of reasoning, but he emphasized getting the approval of the President and the Joint Committee on the Library.

Senator Theodore H. Green, Chairman of the Joint Committee on the Library, agreed that the transfer should take place but stipulated that it would be necessary to have his committee act on the matter. Evans went to the April 30, 1952, committee meeting alone. There is no formal record of what was said at the meeting, except that the Joint Committee on the Library ordered that the documents be transferred to the National Archives. Not only was the Archives the official depository of the government's records, it was also, in the judgment of the committee, the most nearly bombproof building in Washington.

At 11 a.m., December 13, 1952, Brigadier General Stoyte O. Ross, commanding general of the Air Force Headquarters Command, formally received the documents at the Library of Congress. Twelve members of the Armed Forces Special Police carried the 6 pieces of parchment in their helium-filled glass cases, enclosed in wooden crates, down the Library steps through a line of 88 servicewomen. An armored Marine Corps personnel carrier awaited the documents. Once they had been placed on mattresses inside the vehicle, they were accompanied by a color guard, ceremonial troops, the Army Band, the Air Force Drum and Bugle Corps, two light tanks, four servicemen carrying submachine guns, and a motorcycle escort in a parade down Pennsylvania and Constitution Avenues to the Archives Building. Both sides of the parade route were lined by Army, Navy, Coast Guard, Marine, and Air Force personnel. At 11:35 a.m. General Ross and the 12 special policemen arrived at the National Archives Building, carried the crates up the steps, and formally delivered them into the custody of Archivist of the United States Wayne Grover. (Already at the National Archives was the Bill of Rights, protectively sealed according to the modern techniques used a year earlier for the Declaration and Constitution.)

The formal enshrining ceremony on December 15, 1952, was equally impressive. Chief Justice of the United States Fred M. Vinson presided over the ceremony, which was attended by officials of more than 100 national civic, patriotic, religious, veterans, educational, business, and labor groups. After the invocation by the Reverend Frederick Brown Harris, chaplain of the Senate, Governor Elbert N. Carvel of Delaware, the first state to ratify the Constitution, called the roll of states in the order in which they ratified the Constitution or were admitted to the Union. As each state was called, a servicewoman carrying the state flag entered the Exhibition Hall and remained at attention in front of the display cases circling the hall. President Harry S. Truman, the featured speaker, said:

"The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are now assembled in one place for display and safekeeping. . . . We are engaged here today in a symbolic act. We are enshrining these documents for future ages. . . . This magnificent hall has been constructed to exhibit them, and the vault beneath, that we have built to protect them, is as safe from destruction as anything that the wit of modern man can devise. All this is an honorable effort, based upon reverence for the great past, and our generation can take just pride in it."

Senator Green briefly traced the history of the three documents, and then the Librarian of Congress and the Archivist of the United States jointly unveiled the shrine. Finally, Justice Vinson spoke briefly, the Reverend Bernard Braskamp, chaplain of the House of Representatives gave the benediction, the U.S. Marine Corps Band played the "Star Spangled Banner," the President was escorted from the hall, the 48 flagbearers marched out, and the ceremony was over. (The story of the transfer of the documents is found in Milton O. Gustafson, " The Empty Shrine: The Transfer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to the National Archives," The American Archivist 39 (July 1976): 271-285.)

The present shrine provides an imposing home. The priceless documents stand at the center of a semicircle of display cases showing other important records of the growth of the United States. The Declaration, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights stand slightly elevated, under armed guard, in their bronze and marble shrine. The Bill of Rights and two of the five leaves of the Constitution are displayed flat. Above them the Declaration of Independence is held impressively in an upright case constructed of ballistically tested glass and plastic laminate. Ultraviolet-light filters in the laminate give the inner layer a slightly greenish hue. At night, the documents are stored in an underground vault.

In 1987 the National Archives and Records Administration installed a $3 million camera and computerized system to monitor the condition of the three documents. The Charters Monitoring System was designed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to assess the state of preservation of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights. It can detect any changes in readability due to ink flaking, off-setting of ink to glass, changes in document dimensions, and ink fading. The system is capable of recording in very fine detail 1-inch square areas of documents and later retaking the pictures in exactly the same places and under the same conditions of lighting and charge-coupled device (CCD) sensitivity. (The CCD measures reflectivity.) Periodic measurements are compared to the baseline image to determine if changes or deterioration invisible to the human eye have taken place.

The Declaration has had many homes, from humble lodgings and government offices to the interiors of safes and great public displays. It has been carried in wagons, ships, a Pullman sleeper, and an armored vehicle. In its latest home, it has been viewed with respect by millions of people, everyone of whom has had thereby a brief moment, a private moment, to reflect on the meaning of democracy. The nation to which the Declaration gave birth has had an immense impact on human history, and continues to do so. In telling the story of the parchment, it is appropriate to recall the words of poet and Librarian of Congress Archibald MacLeish. He described the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as "these fragile objects which bear so great a weight of meaning to our people." The story of the Declaration of Independence as a document can only be a part of the larger history, a history still unfolding, a "weight of meaning" constantly, challenged, strengthened, and redefined.

The 25 copies of the Dunlap broadside known to exist are dispersed among American and British institutions and private owners. The following are the current locations of the copies.

National Archives, Washington, DC
Library of Congress, Washington, DC (two copies)
Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, MD
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA (two copies)
Independence National Historic Park, Philadelphia, PA
American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, PA
Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
Scheide Library, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ [The Library is privately owned.]
New York Public Library, New York
Pierpont Morgan Library, New York
Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, MA
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Chapin Library, Williams College, Williamstown, MA
Yale University, New Haven, CT
American Independence Museum, Exeter, NH
Maine Historical Society, Portland, ME
Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
Chicago Historical Society, Chicago, IL
City of Dallas, City Hall, Dallas, TX
Declaration of Independence Road Trip [Norman Lear and David Hayden]
Private collector
Public Record Office, United Kingdom (two copies)

The locations given for the Declaration from 1776 to 1789 are based on the locations for meetings of the Continental and Confederation Congresses:

Philadelphia: August-December 1776
Baltimore: December 1776-March 1777
Philadelphia: March-September 1777
Lancaster, PA: September 27, 1777
York, PA: September 30, 1777-June 1778
Philadelphia: July 1778-June 1783
Princeton, NJ: June-November 1783
Annapolis, MD: November 1783-October 1784
Trenton, NJ: November-December 1784
New York: 1785-1790
Philadelphia: 1790-1800
Washington, DC (three locations): 1800-1814
Leesburg, VA: August-September 1814
Washington, DC (three locations): 1814-1841
Washington, DC (Patent Office Building): 1841-1876
Philadelphia: May-November 1876
Washington, DC (State, War, and Navy Building): 1877-1921
Washington, DC (Library of Congress): 1921-1941
Fort Knox*: 1941-1944
Washington, DC (Library of Congress): 1944-1952
Washington, DC (National Archives): 1952-present

*Except that the document was displayed on April 13, 1943, at the dedication of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC.

Bailyn, Bernard. The Origins of Independence. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968.

Becker, Carl L. The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1942.

Ferris, Robert G., ed. Signers of the Declaration: Historic Places Commemorating the Signing of the Declaration of Independence. Washington, DC: National Park Service, 1973.

Goff, Frederick, R. The John Dunlap Broadside: The First Printing of the Declaration of Independence. Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1976.

Gustafson, Milton O. "The Empty Shrine: The Transfer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to the National Archives." The American Archivist 39 (July 1976): 271-285.

Lucas, Stephen E. "The Stylistic Artistry of the Declaration of Independence." Prologue: Quarterly of the National Archives 22 (Spring 1990): 25-43.

Malone, Dumas. The Story of the Declaration of Independence. New York: Oxford University Press,

Why did yankee doodle stick a feather in his hat and call it macaroni? Back in Pre-Revolutionary America when the song "Yankee Doodle" was first popular, the singer was not referring to the pasta "macaroni" in the line that reads "stuck a feather in his hat and called it macaroni". "Macaroni" was a fancy ("dandy") style of Italian dress widely imitated in England at the time. So by just sticking a feather in his cap and calling himself a "Macaroni" (a "dandy"), Yankee Doodle was proudly proclaiming himself to be a country bumpkin, because that was how the English regarded most colonials at that time. But times have long since changed, and it is important to reflect on the fact that despite the turbulent early relationship between England and the American colonists, our two countries are strongly united.

Yankee Doodle went to town
A-riding on a pony
Stuck a feather in his hat
And called it macaroni.

Yankee Doodle, keep it up
Yankee Doodle dandy
Mind the music and the step
And with the girls be handy.

Father and I went down to camp
Along with Captain Gooding
And there we saw the men and boys
As thick as hasty pudding.

Yankee Doodle, keep it up
Yankee Doodle dandy
Mind the music and the step
And with the girls be handy

There was Captain Washington
Upon a slapping stallion
A-giving orders to his men
I guess there was a million.

Yankee Doodle, keep it up
Yankee Doodle dandy
Mind the music and the step
And with the girls be handy.

You're a grand old flag,
You're a high flying flag
And forever in peace may you wave.
You're the emblem of
The land I love.
The home of the free and the brave.
Ev'ry heart beats true
'neath the Red, White and Blue,
Where there's never a boast or brag.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
Keep your eye on the grand old flag.

Music and lyrics by George M. Cohan

With the help of her 13-year-old daughter, Caroline, Mrs. Pickersgill spent several weeks measuring, cutting, and sewing the 15 stars and stripes. When the time came to sew the elements of the flag together, they realized that their house was not large enough. Mrs. Pickersgill thus asked the owner of nearby Claggett's brewery for permission to assemble the flag on the building's floor during evening hours. He agreed, and the women worked by candlelight to finish it. Once completed, the flag was delivered to the committee, and Mrs. Pickersgill was paid $405.90. In August 1813, it was presented to Major Armistead, but, as things turned out, more than a year would pass before hostile forces threatened Baltimore.

After capturing Washington, D.C., and burning some of its public buildings, the British headed for Baltimore. On the morning of September 13, 1814, British bomb ships began hurling high-trajectory shells toward Fort McHenry from positions beyond the reach of the fort's guns. The bombardment continued throughout the rainy night.

Anxiously awaiting news of the battle's outcome was a Washington, D.C., lawyer named Francis Scott Key. Key had visited the enemy's fleet to secure the release of a Maryland doctor, who had been abducted by the British after they left Washington. The lawyer had been successful in his mission, but he could not escort the doctor home until the attack ended. So he waited on a flag-of-truce sloop anchored eight miles downstream from Fort McHenry.

During the night, there had been only occasional sounds of the fort's guns returning fire. At dawn, the British bombardment tapered off. Had the fort been captured? Placing a telescope to his eye, Key trained it on the fort's flagpole. There he saw the large garrison flag catch the morning breeze. It had been raised as a gesture of defiance, replacing the wet storm flag that had flown through the night.

Thrilled by the sight of the flag and the knowledge that the fort had not fallen, Key took a letter from his pocket, and began to write some verses on the back of it. Later, after the British fleet had withdrawn, Key checked into a Baltimore hotel, and completed his poem on the defense of Fort McHenry. He then sent it to a printer for duplication on handbills, and within a few days the poem was put to the music of an old English song. Both the new song and the flag became known as "The Star-Spangled Banner." 

For his leadership in defending the fort, Armistead was promoted to brevet Lieutenant Colonel and acquired the garrison flag sometime before his death in 1818. A few weeks after the battle, he had granted the wishes of a soldier's widow for a piece of the flag to bury with her husband. In succeeding years, he cut off additional pieces to gratify the similar wishes of others; the flag itself was seen only on rare occasions.

When Commodore George H. Preble, U.S. Navy, was preparing a history of the American flag, he borrowed the Star-Spangled Banner from a descendant of Colonel Armistead, and, in 1873, photographed it for the first time. In preparation for that event, a canvas backing was attached to it; soon thereafter, it was put in storage until the Smithsonian borrowed it and placed it on exhibit in 1907.

The flag had become a popular attraction; in 1912, the owner, Eben Appleton, of New York, believing that the flag should be kept in the National Museum, donated it to the Smithsonian on the condition that it would remain there forever. Once in its possession, the Smithsonian hired an expert flag restorer to remove the old backing and sew on a new one to prevent damage during display.

The Star-Spangled Banner remained in the Arts and Industries Building (the old National Museum) as the new National Museum was constructed across the Mall. In 1964, when the Museum of American History opened, the flag was moved to a prominent place inside the museum's Mall entrance, an awe-inspiring testament to our nation's independence.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash'd out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand,
Between their lov'd homes and the war's desolation;
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserv'd us as a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

History of the Flag

The United States Flag is the third oldest of the National Standards of the world; older than the Union Jack of Britain or the Tricolor of France.

The flag was first authorized by Congress June 14, 1777. This date is now observed as Flag Day throughout America.

The flag was first flown from Fort Stanwix, on the site of the present city of Rome, New York, on August 3, 1777. It was first under fire for three days later in the Battle of Oriskany, August 6, 1777.

It was first decreed that there should be a star and a stripe for each state, making thirteen of both; for the states at the time had just been erected from the original thirteen colonies.

The colors of the Flag may be thus explained: The red is for valor, zeal and fervency; the white for hope purity, cleanliness of life, and rectitude of conduct; the blue, the color of heaven, for reverence to God, loyalty, sincerity, justice and truth.

The star (an ancient symbol of India, Persia and Egypt) symbolized dominion and sovereignty, as well as lofty aspirations. The constellation of the stars within the union, one star for each state, is emblematic of our Federal Constitution, which reserves to the States their individual sovereignty except as to rights delegated by them to the Federal Government.

The symbolism of the Flag was thus interpreted by Washington: "We take the stars from Heaven, the red from our mother country, separating it by white stripes, thus showing that we have separated from her, and the white stripes shall go down to posterity representing Liberty."

In 1791, Vermont, and in 1792, Kentucky were admitted to the Union and the number of stars and stripes was raised to fifteen in correspondence. As other states came into the Union it became evident there would be too many stripes. So in 1818 Congress enacted that the number of stripes be reduced and restricted henceforth to thirteen representing the thirteen original states; while a star should be added for each succeeding state. That law is the law of today.

The name "Old Glory" was given to our National Flag August 10, 1831, by Captain William Driver of the brig Charles Doggett.

The Flag was first carried in battle at the Brandywine, September 11, 1777. It first flew over foreign territory January 28, 1778, at Nassau, Bahama Islands; Fort Nassau having been captured by the American in the course of the war for independence. The first foreign salute to the flag was rendered by the french admiral LaMotte Piquet, off Quiberon Bay, February 13, 1778.

The United States Flag is unique in the deep and noble significance of its message to the entire world, a message of national independence, of individual liberty, of idealism, of patriotism.

It symbolizes national independence and popular sovereignty. It is not the Flag of a reigning family or royal house, but of 205 million free people welded into a Nation, one and inseparable, united not only by community of interest, but by vital unity of sentiment and purpose; a Nation distinguished for the clear individual conception of its citizens alike of their duties and their privileges, their obligations and their rights.

It incarnates for all mankind the spirit of Liberty and the glorious ideal of human Freedom; not the freedom of unrestraint or the liberty of license, but an unique ideal of equal opportunity for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, safeguarded by the stern and lofty principles of duty, of righteousness and of justice, and attainable by obedience to self-imposed laws.

Floating from lofty pinnacle of American Idealism, it is a beacon of enduring hope, like the famous Bartholdi Statue of Liberty enlightening the World to the oppressed of all lands. It floats over a wondrous assemblage of people from every racial stock of the earth whose united hearts constitute an indivisible and invincible force for the defense and succor of the downtrodden.

It embodies the essence of patriotism. Its spirit is the spirit of the American nation. Its history is the history of the American people. Emblazoned upon its folds in letters of living light are the names and fame of our heroic dead, the Fathers of the Republic who devoted upon its altars their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. Twice told tales of National honor and glory cluster thickly about it. Ever victorious, it has emerged triumphant from eight great National conflicts. It flew at Saratog, at Yorktown, at Palo Alto, at Gettysburg, at Minala bay, at Chateau-Thierry, at Iwo Jima. It bears witness to the immense expansion of our national boundaries, the development of our natural resources, and the splendid structure of our civilization. It prophesies the triumph of popular government, of civic and religious liberty and of national righteousness throughout the world.

The flag first rose over thirteen states along the Atlantic seaboard, with a population of some three million people. Today it flies over fifty states, extending across the continent, and over great islands of the two oceans; and two hundred and five million owe it allegiance. It has been brought to this proud position by love and sacrifice. Citizens have advanced it and heroes have died for it. It is the sign made visible of the strong spirit that has brought liberty and prosperity to the people of America. It is the flag of all us alike. Let us accord it honor and loyalty.

Independence Day celebrations can be great fun if they're held with safety considerations and awareness in mind. Because July 4th celebrations are often held outdoors, barbecues and fireworks can raise some major safety concerns. Knowing how to minimize risky behaviors will keep you, your family and friends happy and healthy this Independence Day.

Firework Displays
Every year, millions of Americans turn out to revel in dazzling fireworks displays. But these shows are far more complicated than meets the naïve eye. Often, planning for the variety of fireworks used is an involved process. These pyrotechnic displays generally demand careful choreography and technical expertise. Learn more about facts and trivia about fireworks used in commercial displays.

Consumer Fireworks
Although most states allow the use of various types of fireworks, some have restricted or completely banned their use. If you live in a firework friendly location, be aware of the different types of fireworks. Knowing the difference between a flying spinner and a parachute will help you determine which fireworks are safest for you and your party guests.

Fireworks Safety
If you plan to light fireworks this year at your July 4th festivities, make sure to read up on these do’s and don’ts of fireworks safety. You should make sure, for example, that only adults are handling the fireworks and avoid lighting fireworks in windy weather. Of all the injuries people incur from being irresponsible with fireworks, hand and finger injuries are the most common. In 2003, emergency rooms treated about 9,300 burns and injuries related to firework misuse

Katharine Lee Bates wrote the original version in 1893. She wrote the 2nd version in 1904. Her final version was written in 1913.

Here is a note from Katharine Lee Bates:

"One day some of the other teachers and I decided to go on a trip to 14,000-foot Pikes Peak. We hired a prairie wagon. Near the top we had to leave the wagon and go the rest of the way on mules. I was very tired. But when I saw the view, I felt great joy. All the wonder of America seemed displayed there, with the sea-like expanse."

America the Beautiful - 1913

God Bless America.
Land that I love
Stand beside her, and guide her
Thru the night with a light from above.
From the mountains, to the prairies ,
To the oceans, white with foam
God bless America
My home sweet home.

God Bless America,
Land that I love
Stand beside her,
And guide her,
Through the night
With the light from above,
From the mountains,
To the prairies,
To the ocean,
White with foam,
God bless America,
My home sweet home.
God bless America,
My home sweet home.

by Samuel F. Smith

My country, 'tis of Thee,
Sweet Land of Liberty
Of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims' pride,
From every mountain side
Let Freedom ring.

My native country, thee,
Land of the noble free,
Thy name I love;
I love thy rocks and rills,
Thy woods and templed hills,
My heart with rapture thrills
Like that above.

Let music swell the breeze,
And ring from all the trees
Sweet Freedom's song;
Let mortal tongues awake;
Let all that breathe partake;
Let rocks their silence break,
The sound prolong.

Our fathers' God to Thee,
Author of Liberty,
To thee we sing,
Long may our land be bright
With Freedom's holy light,
Protect us by thy might
Great God, our King.

Our glorious Land to-day,
'Neath Education's sway,
Soars upward still.
Its hills of learning fair,
Whose bounties all may share,
Behold them everywhere
On vale and hill!

Thy safeguard, Liberty,
The school shall ever be,
Our Nation's pride!
No tyrant hand shall smite,
While with encircling might
All here are taught the Right
With Truth allied.

Beneath Heaven's gracious will
The stars of progress still
Our course do sway;
In unity sublime
To broader heights we climb,
Triumphant over Time,
God speeds our way!

Grand birthright of our sires,
Our altars and our fires
Keep we still pure!
Our starry flag unfurled,
The hope of all the world,
In peace and light impearled,
God hold secure!

From the Halls of Montezuma
To the shores of Tripoli
We fight our country's battles
On the land as on the sea.
First to fight for right and freedom
And to keep our honor clean;
We are proud to claim the title
Of United States Marines.

Our flag's unfurled to every breeze
From dawn to setting sun;
We have fought in every clime and place
Where we could take a gun.
In the snow of far-off Northern lands
And in sunny tropic scenes;
You will find us always on the job --
The United States Marines.

Here's health to you and to our Corps
Which we are proud to serve;
In many a strife we've fought for life
And never lost our nerve.
If the Army and the Navy
Ever look on Heaven's scenes,
They will find the streets are guarded
By United States Marines.

The U.S. Field Artillery March:
The Caissons Go Rolling Along

Words by Lt. Edmund L. Gruber & men
Popularized by John Philip Sousa

Over hill, over dale
As we hit the dusty trail,
And the Caissons go rolling along.
In and out, hear them shout,
Counter march and right about,
And the Caissons go rolling along.

Refrain: Then it's hi! hi! hee!
In the field artillery,
Shout out your numbers loud and strong,
For where'er you go,
You will always know
That the Caissons go rolling along.

In the storm, in the night,
Action left or action right
See those Caissons go rolling along
Limber front, limber rear,
Prepare to mount your cannoneer
And those Caissons go rolling along.

Refrain: Then it's hi! hi! hee!
In the field artillery,
Shout out your numbers loud and strong,
For where'er you go,
You will always know
That the Caissons go rolling along.

Was it high, was it low,
Where the hell did that one go?
As those Caissons go rolling along
Was it left, was it right,
Now we won't get home tonight
And those Caissons go rolling along.

Refrain: Then it's hi! hi! hee!
In the field artillery,
Shout out your numbers loud and strong,
For where'er you go,
You will always know
That the Caissons go rolling along.
That the Caissons go rolling along.
That the Caissons go rolling along

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History of  'The Caissons Go Rolling Along'

In April 1908, while in the 2nd Battalion of Fifth Field Artillery in the Philippines, Lieutenant Gruber was asked to write a song which would "symbolize the spirit of the reunited regiment" as they waiting for the arrival of relief in the form of the 1st Battalion..  He and six young lieutenants sat down and worked out the melody and penned the words to the Field Artillery March.  Needing an official marching song for the field artillery in those last days of World War I, an artillery officer suggested 'The Caissons Go Rolling Along' to John Philip Sousa as something he could fix up although this officer had thought erroneously that it had been composed and used during the Civil War.  Sousa innocently added a few bars to Gruber's original piece and called it his own. The song was a hit and sold more than 750,000 copies near the end of World War I. Later, when Lt. Gruber braced Mr. Sousa on this, Sousa who had been ignorant of the true origins, shared the royalties with Lt. Gruber.

Lt. Gruber had pulled his inspiration for the words to the song from an incident during a difficult march across the Zambales Mountains. He had been sent ahead with a detachment to scout out the best route and repair stream crossings.  In the afternoon, when he and a scout sergeant went to check on the progress of the main battalion from a high peak, they could even see the battalion.  However, they were able to dimly make out the rumble of the wheels from the wagons.

"The sergeant turned to Lieutenant Gruber and said, "They’ll be all right, lieutenant, if they keep ‘em rolling." As the battalion neared camp on the other side of the divide, Lieutenant Gruber heard one of the chiefs of sections call out to his drivers, "Come on, keep ‘em rolling!" That expression seemed to characterize the spirit of the battalion

[Verse 2]
Get underway, Navy, Decks cleared for the fray,
We'll hoist true Navy Blue So Army down your Grey-y-y-y.
Full speed ahead, Navy; Army heave to,
Furl Black and Grey and Gold and hoist the Navy, hoist the Navy Blue

[Verse 3]
Blue of the Seven Seas; Gold of God's great sun
Let these our colors be Till all of time be done-n-n-ne,
By Severn shore we learn Navy's stern call:
Faith, courage, service true With honor over, honor over all.

Revised Lyricsby George D. Lottman
It is Verse 2 that is most widely sung.

[Verse 1]
Stand, Navy, out to sea, Fight our battle cry;
We'll never change our course, So vicious foe steer shy-y-y-y.
Roll out the TNT, Anchors Aweigh. Sail on to victory
And sink their bones to Davy Jones, hooray!

[Verse 2]
Anchors Aweigh, my boys, Anchors Aweigh.
Farewell to college joys, we sail at break of day-ay-ay-ay.
Through our last night on shore, drink to the foam,
Until we meet once more. Here's wishing you a happy voyage home 

Original Versions and Changes

Many common Fourth of July traditions today have their roots in the celebrations of the early republic. On July 25, 1776, citizens of Williamsburg, Virginia celebrated the colonists' victory with military parades and cannons firing. One year to the day after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Philadelphians participated in a huge birthday bash complete with fireworks, parades, music and the firing of cannons.

The first official Fourth of July celebration, as affirmed by a legislative act, occurred in Massachusetts in 1781. By the mid-1800s, commemorating Independence Day became a custom in US states and territories. Today, we put on parades, picnics and fireworks to honor our country's victory in the fight for freedom.

Parades, Marching Bands and Music
Parades, which usually begin mid-morning, are the first tradition followed each Fourth of July. The small-town parade with baseball teams, baton twirlers and the high school marching band is a common sight in cities across the country. Fathers hoist toddlers up on their shoulders for a clear view, while children munch popcorn and wave small flags. It's a fun, inspiring way to get into a patriotic mood.

Picnics and Family Get-Togethers
After the parade, folks usually head home or to a relative's house for a family reunion or get-together. Although many families stay home and enjoy a relaxing day inside or in the backyard, it's also customary to spend the day at the beach or lake. Many public beaches have built in barbecues, so family and friends can enjoy hot barbecued ribs or chicken with fresh potato salad and sodas packed in the cooler.

Fireworks
When the parades are over and everyone's fingers are licked clean, the best is still yet to come—the fireworks display.

Fireworks are one of the oldest and most stunning ways to commemorate America's birthday. Frequently the nation's colors—red, white and blue—are used in these spectacular displays of patriotism.

Most large cities in the United States have at least one, if not several, fireworks displays on the night of the Fourth. Although watching the display from an apartment or office is likely to provide a clear view, most agree that the loud booms and crackles are necessary for proper fireworks enjoyment. For a real treat, relax on a blanket and snack on some munchies.

The crowds, the noise and the spectacular displays all combine to provide an exciting evening for children and adults alike. Fireworks are a remarkable and satisfying conclusion to the Fourth of July holiday.

If you have small children, consider bringing ear mufflers to the fireworks display. The loud noises can damage their ears. Also, if you have dogs or cats, don't forget that they react to fireworks, too. Close the gate to your house so they don't jump the fence, or have a family member stay at home with them. For especially sensitive animals, consult your veterinarian for advice

Planning your July 4th celebration can become a family event. Make July 4th crafts and decorations such as party invitations, festive flags and table centerpieces a project that everyone will not only enjoy constructing but also relish at your party.

Create the "Star" of Your Party
Your July 4th decorations will revolve around the theme of your party. Whether you host a traditional patriotic party or an alternatively themed celebration, you can spice up your gathering with a dazzling décor. Start with a centerpiece for your dining table that highlights Independence Day: create a patriotic star centerpiece.

To create the centerpiece you will need:

card stock or other stiff paper

crayons, markers, buttons, glitter and any other decorating supply that inspires you

scissors

a computer printer (optional).

Once you have your supplies, you're ready to create your centerpiece.

Either draw or print (from a computer template) two identical stars on the card stock.

Decorate both sides of each star in whatever patriotic design you want.

Cut out the stars. (Adults should oversee scissor use or safety scissors should be used.)

Cut slits into each star. One star should be slit from the bottom towards the top. The other should be cut from the top center of the star. (Be sure not to completely cut the stars in half.)

Using the slits cut in the previous step, slide the two stars together so they create a three dimensional design. (If the design is not as sturdy as you like, use tape to strengthen the connections between the stars where the slits meet.)

Make many stars to use at each table at your July 4th party. If your want to complement your centerpieces, hang the extra stars from thread or thin string.

One of the most appealing aspects of this July 4th crafts is that, with proper adult supervision, this craft can be completed by children of all ages. If your children can use crayons, they can help with this project. Watch their pride as they point out that they helped with the July 4th party decorations!

Flag Down Your Guests with July 4th Invitations
Another fun July 4th craft project is creating memorable invitations for your Independence Day celebration.

To create unique July 4th invitations, you will need:

crayons, markers or whatever other coloring and decorating supplies you prefer

popsicle sticks (the same number as the index cards)

standard 3" x 5" Index cards (at least as many as your guests)

tape or glue

a set time, date and place for your party.

With your supplies ready in an adequate work space, you and your family are ready to create your flag invitations.

Using the preprinted lines as guides, color stars and stripes in the pattern of the American flag on the index cards.

On the reverse side of the card, address the invitation to the individual guest, including the date, time, location and what to bring (if necessary) to the July 4th celebration.

Glue or tape the popsicle sticks to the back left-hand side (left when the flag print is facing you) to create mini flags.

Hand-deliver (or carefully mail) your flag invitations.

These July 4th invitations can be made by all members of the family who are preschool-age or older. Of course, you should leave the writing of the party information to one of the adults, a child who is proud to show off her good penmanship or the family's printer.

Creating these homemade decorations is a fun family craft project that is sure to impress your July 4th party guests.

Use the upcoming July 4th holiday as an excuse for you and your family to get creative. Making your own homemade July 4th decorations and invitations will give your holiday celebration a personal touch while allow you to spend some quality time with your family.

Other Ways to Decorate for Independence Day
If you're pressed for time when decorating for your July 4th celebration, try using some of the following ideas to decorate for your party:

Chinese lanterns

colored Christmas lights

sparklers in pails of sand (placed a considerable distance from anything that might be flammable)

tea lights

tiki torches.

As excitement over July 4th celebrations increases, so does the need for great party ideas. No matter where you live in the United States, you can commemorate this country's freedom with a fantastic celebration. Read on to find out more about great party ideas for your July 4th celebration.

July 4th wouldn't be the same without fireworks. Instead of competing with the local firework display, plan your party around it. Many communities host their firework shows in an area that lends itself to picnics, barbecues and/or beach parties, depending on your location.

Take advantage of the free patriotic firework spectacular by inviting friends and family to join you earlier in the day at the site of the fireworks. This party idea will allow you to have a great July 4th celebration while getting prime seating for the fireworks show.

Bring a blanket, a portable radio, outdoor games and, of course, July 4th food and drinks. If city ordnances allow, bring a portable barbecue and cook your favorite dish. Celebrating Independence Day around a pre-arranged firework show means that you'll have one less thing to plan! Focus on family, friends and food instead of fireworks.

If the weather's bad and you're stuck indoors on July 4th, you can still have a good time. Get creative: all you need are good friends, good food and good music.

Here are some great indoor party ideas for July 4th:

back yards

beaches

summer cottages

RV parks and campgrounds

lakes

community parks

pools.

Having your celebration outdoors allows you to add fun party favors and activities that may not necessarily work indoors. If you want to spice up your outdoor July 4th party, try some of the following:

egg tossing

piñatas

squirt gun fights

water balloons

pie eating contests (or any eating contest for that matter!)

watermelon seed-spitting contests

three-legged or sack races

water slides.

Whether you throw a luau or a fiesta themed party, your guests can commemorate Independence Day while reveling in the sun and getting some rays! No matter where you choose to celebrate this July 4th, make the most of your get-together by incorporating popular July 4th party food. For more on July 4th food, see our food section on this site. Whatever type of party ideas you use on July 4th, remember to have fun and to be safe!

Taxation without representation! That was the battle cry of the 13 colonies in America that were forced to pay taxes to England's King George III with no representation in Parliament. As dissatisfaction grew, British troops were sent in to quell any signs of rebellion, and repeated attempts by the colonists to resolve the crisis without war proved fruitless.

On June 11, 1776, the colonies' Second Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia formed a committee with the express purpose of drafting a document that would formally sever their ties with Great Britain. The committee included Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman and Robert R. Livingston. The document was crafted by Jefferson, who was considered the strongest and most eloquent writer. (Nevertheless, a total of 86 changes were made to his draft.) The final version was officially adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4.

The following day, copies of the Declaration of Independence were distributed and, on July 6, The Pennsylvania Evening Post became the first newspaper to print the extraordinary document.

The Declaration of Independence has since become our nation's most cherished symbol of liberty.

On July 8, 1776, the first public readings of the Declaration were held in Philadelphia's Independence Square to the ringing of bells and band music. One year later, on July 4, 1777, Philadelphia marked Independence Day by adjourning Congress and celebrating with bonfires, bells and fireworks.

The custom eventually spread to other towns, both large and small, where the day was marked with processions, oratory, picnics, contests, games, military displays and fireworks. Observations throughout the nation became even more common at the end of the War of 1812 with Great Britain.

On June 24, 1826, Thomas Jefferson sent a letter to Roger C. Weightman, declining an invitation to come to Washington, D.C., to help celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. It was the last letter that Jefferson, who was gravely ill, ever wrote. In it, Jefferson says of the document:

"May it be to the world, what I believe it will be ... the signal of arousing men to burst the chains ... and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form, which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. ... For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them."

Congress established Independence Day as a holiday in 1870, and in 1938 Congress reaffirmed it as a holiday, but with full pay for federal employees. Today, communities across the nation mark this major midsummer holiday with parades, fireworks, picnics and the playing of the "Star Spangled Banner" and marches by John Philip Sousa.

The Ballad of the Green Beret
By Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler and Robin Moore, Copyright 1966

Fighting soldiers from the sky 
Fearless men who jump and die 
Men who mean just what they say 
The brave men of the Green Beret 

Silver wings upon their chest 
These are men, America's best 
One hundred men will test today 
But only three win the Green Beret 

Trained to live off nature's land 
Trained in combat, hand-to-hand 
Men who fight by night and day 
Courage peak from the Green Berets 

Silver wings upon their chest 
These are men, America's best 
One hundred men will test today 
But only three win the Green Beret 

Back at home a young wife waits 
Her Green Beret has met his fate 
He has died for those oppressed 
Leaving her his last request 

Put silver wings on my son's chest 
Make him one of America's best 
He'll be a man they'll test one day 
Have him win the Green Beret.

Sausage is one of the oldest forms of processed food, having been mentioned in Homer's Odyssey as far back as the 9th Century B.C.

Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, is traditionally credited with originating the frankfurter. However, this claim is disputed by those who assert that the popular sausage - known as a "dachshund" or "little-dog" sausage - was created in the late 1600's by Johann Georghehner, a butcher, living in Coburg, Germany. According to this report, Georghehner later traveled to Frankfurt to promote his new product.

In 1987, the city of Frankfurt celebrated the 500th birthday of the hot dog in that city. It's said that the frankfurter was developed there in 1487, five years before Christopher Columbus set sail for the new world. The people of Vienna (Wien), Austria, point to the term "wiener" to prove their claim as the birthplace of the hot dog.

As it turns out, it is likely that the North American hot dog comes from a widespread common European sausage brought here by butchers of several nationalities. Also in doubt is who first served the dachshund sausage with a roll. One report says a German immigrant sold them, along with milk rolls and sauerkraut, from a push cart in New York City's Bowery during the 1860's. In 1871, Charles Feltman, a German butcher opened up the first Coney Island hot dog stand selling 3,684 dachshund sausages in a milk roll during his first year in business.

The year, 1893, was an important date in hot dog history. In Chicago that year, the Colombian Exposition brought hordes of visitors who consumed large quantities of sausages sold by vendors. People liked this food that was easy to eat, convenient and inexpensive. Hot dog historian Bruce Kraig, Ph.D., retired professor emeritus at Roosevelt University, says the Germans always ate the dachshund sausages with bread. Since the sausage culture is German, it is likely that Germans introduced the practice of eating the dachshund sausages, which we today know as the hot dog, nestled in a bun.

Also in 1893, sausages became the standard fare at baseball parks. This tradition is believed to have been started by a St. Louis bar owner, Chris Von de Ahe, a German immigrant who also owned the St. Louis Browns major league baseball team.

Many hot dog historians chafe at the suggestion that today's hot dog on a bun was introduced during the St. Louis "Louisiana Purchase Exposition" in 1904 by Bavarian concessionaire, Anton Feuchtwanger. As the story goes, he loaned white gloves to his patrons to hold his piping hot sausages and as most of the gloves were not returned, the supply began running low. He reportedly asked his brother-in-law, a baker, for help. The baker improvised long soft rolls that fit the meat - thus inventing the hot dog bun. Kraig says everyone wants to claim the hot dog bun as their own invention, but the most likely scenario is the practice was handed down by German immigrants and gradually became widespread in American culture.

Another story that riles serious hot dog historians is how term "hot dog" came about. Some say the word was coined in 1901 at the New York Polo Grounds on a cold April day. Vendors were hawking hot dogs from portable hot water tanks shouting "They're red hot! Get your dachshund sausages while they're red hot!" A New York Journal sports cartoonist, Tad Dorgan, observed the scene and hastily drew a cartoon of barking dachshund sausages nestled warmly in rolls. Not sure how to spell "dachshund" he simply wrote "hot dog!" The cartoon is said to have been a sensation, thus coining the term "hot dog." However, historians have been unable to find this cartoon, despite Dorgan's enormous body of work and his popularity.

Kraig, and other culinary historians, point to college magazines where the word "hot dog" began appearing in the 1890s. The term was current at Yale in the fall of 1894,when "dog wagons" sold hot dogs at the dorms. The name was a sarcastic comment on the provenance of the meat. References to dachshund sausages and ultimately hot dogs can be traced to German immigrants in the 1800s. These immigrants brought not only sausages to America, but dachshund dogs. The name most likely began as a joke about the Germans' small, long, thin dogs. In fact, even Germans called the frankfurter a "little-dog" or "dachshund" sausage, thus linking the word "dog" to their popular concoction.

The History of the Potato Chip

1853, Saratoga Springs, New York

As a world food, potatoes are second in human consumption only to rice. And as thin, salted, crisp chips, they are America's favorite snack food. Potato chips originated in New England as one man's variation on the French-fried potato, and their production was the result not of a sudden stroke of culinary invention but of a fit of pique.

In the summer of 1853, American Indian George Crum was employed as a chef at an elegant resort in Saratoga Springs, New York. On Moon Lake Lodge's restaurant menu were French-fried potatoes, prepared by Crum in the standard, thick-cut French style that was popularized in France in the 1700s and enjoyed by Thomas Jefferson as ambassador to that country. Ever since Jefferson brought the recipe to America and served French fries to guests at Monticello, the dish was popular and serious dinner fare.

At Moon Lake Lodge, one dinner guest found chef Crum's French fries too thick for his liking and rejected the order. Crum cut and fried a thinner batch, but these, too, met with disapproval. Exasperated, Crum decided to rile the guest by producing French fries too thin and crisp to skewer with a fork.

The plan backfired. The guest was ecstatic over the browned, paper-thin potatoes, and other diners requested Crum's potato chips, which began to appear on the menu as Saratoga Chips, a house specialty. Soon they were packaged and sold, first locally, then throughout the New England area. Crum eventually opened his own restaurant, featuring chips. At that time, potatoes were tediously peeled and sliced by hand. It was the invention of the mechanical potato peeler in the 1920s that paved the way for potato chips to soar from a small specialty item to a top-selling snack food.

For several decades after their creation, potato chips were largely a Northern dinner dish. In the 1920s, Herman Lay, a traveling salesman in the South, helped popularize the food from Atlanta to Tennessee. Lay peddled potato chips to Southern grocers out of the trunk of his car, building a business and a name that would become synonymous with the thin, salty snack. Lay's potato chips became the first successfully marketed national brand, and in 1961 Herman Lay, to increase his line of goods, merged his company with Frito, the Dallas-based producer of such snack foods as Fritos Corn Chips.

Americans today consume more potato chips (and Fritos and French fries) than any other people in the world; a reversal from colonial times, when New Englanders consigned potatoes largely to pigs as fodder and believed that eating the tubers shortened a person's life—not because potatoes were fried in fat and doused with salt, today's heart and hypertension culprits, but because the spud, in its unadulterated form, supposedly contained an aphrodisiac which led to behavior that was thought to be life shortening. Potatoes of course contain no aphrodisiac, though potato chips are frequently consumed with passion and are touted by some to be as satisfying as sex

The Chinese brewed beer called ‘Kui' some 5,000 years ago. In Mesopotamia, a 4,000 year-old clay tablet indicates that brewing was a highly respected profession - and the master brewers were women.

In ancient Babylon, the women brewers were also priestesses. The goddesses Siris and Nimkasi were patronesses of beer, and certain types of beer were reserved exclusively for temple ceremonies.

In 2,100 BC Hammuabi, the 6th King of Babylonia, included provisions regulating the business of tavern keepers in his great law code. These provisions covered the sale of beer and were designed to protect the consumer. The punishment of short measure by an innkeeper was drowning, which was an effective way to prevent any repetition of the offence!

An ancient tablet now in New York's Metropolitan Museum lists Babylonian beers as: dark beer, pale beer, red beer, three fold beer, beer with a head, without a head etc. It also records that beer was sipped through a straw - in the case of royalty a golden straw, long enough to reach from the throne to a large container of beer kept nearby.

3,000 year old beer mugs were uncovered in Israel in the 1960s. Archaeologists said that their find at Tel Isdar indicated that beer drinking in Israel went back to the days of King Saul and King David. An Assyrian tablet of 2,000 BC lists beer among the foods that Noah used to provision the ark.

Some 5,000 years ago in the Imperial Egypt of the Pharaohs, beer was already an important food item in the daily diet. It was made from lightly baked barley bread, and also was used as a sacrament.

People gathered in the evening to drink at a ‘house of beer'. Beer was the natural drink of the country, a basic in the diet of the nobility and of the fellah (the peasant). As well as being a drink, beer was also used as medicine. A medical document which was written in about 1,600 BC lists about 700 prescriptions of which about 100 contained the word ‘beer'.

The Egyptians also provided their dead with food and beer. An old Egyptian tomb bears the inscription: "....satisfy his spirit with beef and fowl, bread and beer". In the taverns or houses of beer in Egypt, the favourite toast was "Here's to your ghost".

Beer also had status - a keg of beer was considered the only proper gift to be offered to the Pharaoh by a suitor seeking the hand of a royal princess. 30,000 gallons a year was also offered as a fitting gift to the Gods by Pharaoh Rameses II (1,200 BC). It is recorded that a similar amount was also offered to appease the gods when they became angry.

Isis, the nature goddess, was Egypt's patroness of beer brewing and an important civic official was charged with the task of maintaining the quality of beer, an integral part of everyday life and religion.

Other references to beer from Egyptian times include mention of beer brewed from barley in the Egyptian's Book of the Dead, and many ancient Egyptian wall hangings also depict the brewing of beer.

It was the Egyptians who reputedly taught the Greeks how to brew beer.

In fact it has been suggested by historians that Dionysus, the wine-god of Greek mythology, was actually a superimposition of Dionysis, the beer-god from pre-historic times.

The famous Greek writer Sophocles (450 BC) stressed moderation, and suggested a diet of "bread, meat, green vegetables and zythos (beer)". Other early Greek writers, Xenophon and Herodotus, also mention beer.

The Greeks in turn taught the Romans to brew, and Julius Caesar, following the fateful crossing in 49 BC of the River Rubicon, toasted his officers with beer.

The Romans then showed the savage tribes in Britain the art of brewing.

Pliny and Tacitus are among the classical writers who record the development of the brewing art among the Celtic and Teutonic peoples of Britain and Central Europe.

Beer really came into its own with the advent of the Christian era, largely through the influence of the monasteries which brewed and improved the beer. Monks often built the first breweries as pioneers of the hotel business, providing shelter, food and drink to pilgrims and other travellers.

Three Christian saints are listed as patrons of brewing, all distinguished members of the Christian faith: Saint Augustine of Hippo, author of the confessions; Saint Luke the Evangelist; and Saint Nicholas of Myra, better known as Santa Claus.

Other saints also had links with brewing. Saint Columban, doing missionary work in Germany, found people preparing to consume a cask of beer in a ceremony to a pagan god. He blew upon the case, which fell apart, and when the crowd became penitent he miraculously increased the small amount of beer left. Saint Bright is credited with changing water into beer to feed lepers. She personally brewed ale each Easter time to supply all of the churches in the neighbourhood.

Saint Mungo, the patron saint of Scotland's oldest city, Glasgow, established a religious brotherhood there in 540 AD, and one of the brothers started brewing to supply the others. Brewing is still regarded as the oldest industry in Glasgow. Saint Patrick, according to Senchus Mor, the book of the ancient laws of Ireland (438-441 AD), numbered among his household a brewer - a priest called Mescan.

The Emperor Charlemagne (AD 742-814), the great Christian ruler, considered beer as essential for moderate living, and personally trained the realm's brewmasters. King Arthur served his Knights of the Round Table with beer called bragget.

Even in medieval times, beer was generally brewed by women. Being the cooks, they had responsibility for beer which was regarded as ‘food-drink'. After the monasteries had established the best methods of brewing, the ‘ale-wives' took the responsibility for further brewing.

In England at this time a chequered flag indicated a place where ale and beer could be purchased.

Of course few people other than the clergy could read or write, and a written sign would have been of little use.

Many events of this era incorporate the word ‘ale', reflecting its importance in society. Brides traditionally sold ale on their wedding day to defray the expenses - hence ‘bride-ale' which became 'bridal'. The Christmas expression ‘yule-tide' actually means ‘ale-tide'.

Saint Thomas A'Becket, martyred archbishop of Canterbury, was selected as patron saint of one of the London Guilds, the Brewers' Company. When he went to France in 1158 to seek the hand of a French princess for Prince Henry of England, he took several barrels of British ale as gifts.

Beer was also handed out free of charge to weary travellers when the Wayfarer Dole was established in England. A Pilgrim's Dole of ale and bread can still be claimed by all wayfarers at the Hospital of St Cross, Winchester, England. This is said to have been founded by William of Wykeham, (1367-1404), and was claimed by Emerson, the American essayist, when visiting Winchester.

Today, "ale" and "beer" are used as interchangeable terms. However, ale, which consisted of malt (usually made from barley although other grains were used), water and yeast, was replaced at the start of the 15th century by beer. Introduced from Flanders, beer was bittered with hops and kept better than English ale because of the preservative quality of the hops.

By the end of the century, beer had almost completely replaced the old English sweet ale, and was being exported to Europe. Records dating back to the 15th century show that almost half of the ships' cargoes taken across the North Sea and the Baltic Sea were barrels of beer.

Until the middle of the 16th century, beer making was mainly a family operation and had little commercial application. However, it was certainly an integral part of everyday diet.

Ladies-in-waiting at the court of Henry VII were allowed a gallon of beer for breakfast alone.

Queen Elizabeth, when travelling through the country, always sent couriers ahead to taste the local ale. If it didn't measure up to the quality required a supply would be shipped from London for her.

William Shakespeare's father was an ale-tester or "conner". The "conner" tested the ale by pouring some upon a bench and sitting on it while drinking the rest. If there was sugar in the ale, or it was impure, their leather breeches would stick after sitting for half an hour or so.

The Dean of St Pauls, in the 16th century, is credited with the invention of bottled ale. Dr Alexander Norwell put ale in a bottle when he went fishing and left the bottle in the grass. Returning some years later he found the cork came away with an explosion but the taste and quality of the ale was still good.

European beer first arrived in America with Christopher Columbus' ships. On his last voyage to America in 1502, Columbus found the natives of Central America making a first-rate brew "of maize, resembling English beer". The Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth Rock, instead of further south as planned, partly because they were out of beer.

A journal entry dated December 19, 1620 said: "We could not take time for further search or consideration; our victuals being much spent, especially our beer".

At the end of the 17th century, the weekly allowance for pupils of all ages at one English school was two bottles a day. Beer was a good deal safer and more palatable than the available drinking water which was often drawn from polluted rivers. And beer was also common in the workplace. The American scientist and statesman, Benjamin Franklin, who lived in London from 1757-1774, recorded the daily beer consumption in a London printing house which he visited. The employees each had a pint before breakfast, a pint between breakfast and dinner, a pint at dinner, a pint at six o'clock and a pint when they finished work

From those experimental beginnings, soft drinks have emerged as America's favorite refreshment: more popular than coffee, tea and juice combined. As soft drinks have grown in popularity they have become much more than the country's favorite beverage; they have contributed to the growth and prosperity of America.

More than 110,000 Americans now earn a living directly from the soft drink industry; that adds up to more than $5 billion in payroll dollars spread over towns and cities in every state across America.

But the soft drink industry is more than liquid refreshment and jobs and dollars. It is an industry that strongly believes in preserving the ideals and principles that helped it prosper from the early days to the present. During World War II, bottlers throughout the nation donated time, manpower and equipment to support the war effort. Their work resulted in the collection of more than 50 million pounds of scrap metal for manufacturing into armaments. The industry set an example for the nation in conserving precious resources by drastically changing delivery methods to save millions of gallons of crucial fuel supplies.

And during World War II, the soft drink industry donated its products to American troops serving on the front lines.

Supporting America's interests is a tradition that continues for the soft drink industry.

Soft drink companies give back to their communities in peacetime, too. The industry is a world leader in actively promoting recycling and conservation, fostering teenage drug awareness programs, supporting anti-drunk driving efforts, funding school programs, providing safe water to people in natural disaster areas through use of their water treatment systems, and organizing events to protect and improve the lives of all Americans. The soft drink industry recognizes its responsibilities to America and welcomes the opportunity to meet them.

Soft drinks are much more than America's favorite refreshment. They are a good part of America.

In America, the transition resulted from the discovery of the natural springs in New York. Many legends and myths developed about the earth's mysterious waters, believed to be cures for everything from arthritis to indigestion. The claims attracted physicians and scientists who began studying the tiny bubbles fizzing from these waters.

Scientists eventually proclaimed the air being released as gas carbonium -- simple carbon dioxide. Soon after they perfected a way of producing artificially carbonated water in the laboratory. With that development, it was only a matter of time before soft drinks made it into the hands of the American public.

By the 1830's, both artificial and natural mineral waters were considered healthy and refreshing products in America. But pharmacists, believing they could improve upon their curative properties, experimented with a multitude of ingredients from birch bark to dandelions. And while no miracle cures developed, some very interesting flavors and tastes were discovered. Ginger ale, root beer, sarsaparilla, lemon and strawberry were among the most popular of the early flavors.

The soft drink industry was a seasonal business in the early days, operating primarily during the summer months. Sales were limited by few outlets for the new carbonated beverages, and by the consumer's restricted mobility.

For many years, America's pharmacists were the driving force behind the refinement of soft drinks and many of the flavors and combinations. Their association with chemistry and medicine made them ideally suited for this business, still part pharmacology and part refreshment.

The local pharmacy was the center attraction in many American towns in the mid-1800's. It was customary to gather around the new soda fountains and enjoy one's favorite refreshment mixed on the spot. However, as the corner drugstore grew in popularity, the soft drink bottling industry was taking shape.

Gradually, demand grew for soft drinks to be consumed in the home. Bottling the product proved difficult at first, since pressure from the carbon dioxide forced corks right out of the bottles. Clearly, if soft drinks were ever to be sold for consumption beyond the corner pharmacy, there would have to be a way to keep them corked. Inventors worked for years to develop a solution, patenting some 1,500 different corks, caps and lids for soft drink bottles.

Then, in 1892, the "crown cap" was invented. Tiny in design, the crown completely revolutionized the soft drink industry by preventing the escape of carbon dioxide from bottled beverages. In fact, it was the dominant soft drink closure for more than 70 years.

Soon the crown cap's success was being felt at the corner pharmacy. As home consumption of soft drinks grew, demand at the corner drug store began to dwindle. Many pharmacists, realizing the promising future of soft drinks, abandoned their trade to become full-time bottlers. Others began stocking soft drinks in their stores. Horse drawn wagons traveled America's streets, loaded with brand-name soft drinks and headed for growing retail outlets.

While the crown cap helped lead the way to soft drinks in the home, it was not until the 1920's that the trend took hold. The invention of "Hom-Paks," the first six-pack cartons, made it more convenient to carry products back to the house. Their use resulted in the increased availability and the growing popularity of soft drinks across America.

The appearance of the automobile heralded a new era for the soft drink industry. Roadside stands appeared across the country. Service stations became major outlets for bottled refreshment, and large motorized delivery trucks were better able to satisfy the country's growing taste for liquid refreshment.

Automatic vending machines began to appear in the 1920's, once again changing the business of soft drinks. Vending machines and fountain dispensers led the way to the expansion of soft drinks to industrial outlets. Americans could now consume the popular beverage at home or at work. Today, there are more than 2.5 million soft drink vending machines in the U.S.

The mushrooming demand for product resulted in the growth of the soft drink industry, from pharmacies into a national industry. Inventors of soft drinks spread their products across America by opening a few strategically placed bottling facilities through franchise agreements. Eventually it became clear that supplying a growing nation's thirst for soft drinks would require more than a few additional bottling plants. But until the 1890's, the industry was primarily one of manual operations. Glass bottles were blown individually, while filling, sealing, mixing, and packaging were almost totally manual operations. Expansion could not occur without a more mechanized process.

That changed between 1890 and 1910. New, automated machinery was developed, making the soft drink industry more efficient and productive. The number of plants bottling soft drinks increased from 1,377 to 4,916, as sales soared.

The industrial age was in full swing, America's population was exploding and soft drink demand was booming. Together, the industry and the nation entered the era of mass production and national marketing.

New, modern machinery turned out uniform products and significantly increased the production of soft drinks. By the time The Great Depression hit, carbonated beverages already were established as part of the American way of life. Even in hard economic times, consumers were unwilling to give up soft drinks--one of the small pleasures they could still afford to enjoy.

The Depression witnessed the creation of innovative new soft drink brands and containers, which continued during the 1940's and 50's.

Responding to consumer demand, the industry rolled out soft drinks in cans and introduced diet beverages to the market. Carriers were developed for convenience and ease in taking soft drinks from the store to the home.

Together, America and its soft drink industry suffered hardships caused by World War II. Shortages of cork, sugar and steel significantly impacted the manufacturing process, but soft drinks continued to be available to the public. The soft drink industry participated in scrap metal collection drives and made significant efforts to conserve natural resources in order to support the war effort. Soft drinks were classified as "essential to soldier morale" by the U.S. War Department and both the soft drink industry and federal government made every effort to provide troops with products. When unable to ship soft drinks directly to the soldiers, the government sent machinery and materials so they could be made on the spot.

Since that time, the country has experienced significant progress--a man on the moon, color TV, computers and compact disc players. For the soft drink industry, it has meant the development of new flavors, the sale of canned products in vending machines, and the invention of Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) bottles.

Soft drink companies have kept pace with the nation's endless thirst for refreshment. While many things have changed throughout the years, soft drinks continue to be America's beverage of choice. Soft drinks are a good part of America.

Anteadote products:

Black Tea

Green Tea

Jasmine Tea

White Tea

Cereser

Goody

Adirondack Seltzer

Adirondack Sparkling Water

Adirondack Clear'n'Natural

Adirondack Spring Water

Adirondack Fruit Flavored Spring Water

Adirondack Soda

Dr. Radical

Yellow Lighting

Citrus Frost

Waist Watchers

Ale-8-One

Aloe’ha Drink Products (ABA Member) (713) 978-6359

Aloe'ha Appletar

Aloe'ha Blackberry

Aloe'ha Cherry Lemon Lime

Aloe'ha Kiwi Strawberry

Aloe'ha Lemon Lime

Aloe'ha Peach

Aloe'ha Raspberry

All American Shirley Temple (with a cherry inside)

All American Diet Shirley Temple

Fruit Concentrates:

Organic and non organic Juice Drinks:

Apple

Cherry

Gava Strawberry

Pomogrante

Tropical fruits

airforce Nutrisoda products:

Calm

Energize

Flex

Focus

Immune

Radiant

Slender

Big Red

Big Peach

CF Diet Big Red

Diet Big Red

Diet NuGrape

NuGrape

Nesbitt’s Flavors

Nesbitt's Honey Lemonade

Red jak

Apple juice

Decadent Hot Chocolate & Teas

Wolfgang Puck Gourmet Lattes

Yummer Hot Chocolate

Buffalo Rock Grapico

Mountain Valley

Cheerwine Diet Cheerwine Blue Mist

Cool Moon Citrus Soda

Cawy Lemon-Lime

Cawy Watermelon

Materva (Yerba Mate Soda)

Diet Materva (Yerba Mate Soda)

Quinabeer

Jupiña (Pineapple Soda)

Coco Solo (Coconut Soda)

Champ's Cola (Champagne Cola)

Fruti Cola

Nica (Nicaraguan Red Cola)

Malta Cawy

Trimalta Rica Malt Tonic

Rica Orange

Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola Classic

Cherry Coke

TAB

TAB Clear

Sprite Remix

Fanta

Fresca

Frutopia

Mr. PiBB

Mello Yello

Barq's Root Beer

Barq's Floatz

Powerade

Surge

Delaware Punch

Dasani

Inca Kola (see also Inca Kola (973) 680-9700)

Vanilla Coke

KMX

Nestea

Sparkletts Water

Simply Orange

Cott Stars and Stripes

Vess

Vintage

Private Label

Fruitful Sport Drink

Fruitful Syrups

Double-Cola

Jumbo Ski

Double Dry Ginger Ale

dnL

Canada Dry

Diet Rite

Deja Blue

Raging Cow

Sunkist

Crush

A&W Brands

Hires Root Beer

Hawaiian Punch

Tahitian Treat

Cactus Cooler

Red Fusion

Sundrop

Vernors

Squirt

Welch's

Country Time Lemonade

Nehi

Schweppes

Slush Puppie

FUZE EAST COAST (ABA Member) (201) 461-6640

Energize

Essentials

Fuze Green Tea

Fuze White Tea

Refresh

Slenderize

Gourmet Punch Ready to Serve & More (ABA Member) (904) 768-0251

Party Punch for all occasions

Steaz Original Green Tea Soda & Diet

Hobarama Corporation (ABA Member) (305) 531-9708

Assam Black Forest Berry

Decaf Ceylon

First Nation

Gold Rush

Jakarta Ginger

Moroccan Mint

Kashmiri Chai

Jiangxi Green

Earl Grey

Community Green

Lori's Lemon

Peach Oo-la-long

Green Dragon

No-Cal

IBC Diet Root Beer

IBC Cream Soda

IBC Black Cherry

IBC Cherry Cola

Bellywashers

Tummyticklers

WaterPop

Capri Sun

Crystal Light RTD

Fruit 2O

Kool-Aid Jammers

Tazo Tea RTD

Tampico

AquaCal

Fruit Craze

Meridian Clear

Minute Maid Company (ABA Member) (713) 888-5003 See also The Coca-Cola Company

Minute Maid

Frutopia Hi-C

Disney Beverages

Mott's Juices

Tasty

National

Odwalla

Orangina

Pepsi (and Diet)

Pepsi Edge

Mountain Dew Live Wire

Lipton Lemonade

Mr. Green

Slice (Mandarin Orange and Lemon-Lime)

Frappuccino

Dole Juices

Milk Chillers (Chocolate and Vanilla)

PepsiCo Beverages and Food North America (ABA Member) (312) 222-7111

Polar Flavors

Mixers/Selzters

Silver Spring

Cape Cod Dry

RC Cola

Diet Rite

Nehi

Kick

RC Edge

Seagram Beverage Company (ABA Member) See also The Coca-Cola Company

Seagram's

Snapple

Snapple a Day

Orangina

Elements

Stewart's Soda

South Beach Beverage Company (ABA Member) (800) 588-0548 See also Pepsi-Cola Company

SoBe Teas and Fruit Juices

SoBe Lean

SoBe Power

SoBe Adrenaline Rush

SoBe Sports System

SoBe Energy Slurpee

SoBe Synergy

SoBe No Fear

Southern Beverage Packers (ABA Member) (706) 541-9222

Springtime Natural Artesian

Crystalline Natural Artesian

Crystalline Soft Drinks and Fruit Drinks

Glen Falls Natural Artesian

Sprecher Root Beer

Sprecher Cream Soda

Sprecher Grand Cola

Sprecher Ginger Ale

Sprecher Low Cal RB

Sprecher Ravin Red Soda

Sprecher Orange Dream Soda

WNG Bottling Company, LLC (ABA Member) (775) 853-9649

Zone H2O Plus

Tropicana

Non-ABA Member Companies and Their Brands

A-Treat Bottling Company (610) 434-6139

A-Treat Flavors

Big Blue

Clear Cola

Green Spot

Metro

Treat-Up

Amazing Beverages, Inc. (215) 886-9356

Old Original Levis

Second Wind

Rodeo Root Beer

Sedona Red

Fruit Buddies

Onyx

Thinsations

Champ Cherry

Apple Beer

Barrel Brothers

Arizona Iced Teas

Arizona Sparkling Sodas

Rx Herbal Teas

Rx Total Trim Cocktail

Rx Extreme Energy Shot

Water Aid

Blenheim Bottlers (800) 270-9344

Blenheim Ginger Ale

Blenheim Spring Water

Old # 3 Hot

# 5 Not as Hot

# 9 Diet

# 11 Ginger Beer

Bee Gees Orange

Bee Gees Grape

Bee Gees Strawberry

Blue Sky Organic Soda

Blue Sky All Natural Soda

Blue Sky True Seltzer Sparkling Water

Blue Sky Premium Ginsing Soda

Blue Sky Gensing-Ginko Sod

a Blue Sky Artesian Water

Blue Sky Blue Energy

Bottlers International, Ltd. (540) 667-9533

Tru-Ade

HoKo

Chips

Cruzan Punch

Tasty

Tastywine

Deri Del

Moonshine

Boylan Bottling Company (800) 289-7978

Birch Beer

Creamy Red Birch Beer

Black Cherry

Root Beer

Ginger Ale

Orange Grape

Cream

Six-Gun Sarsaparilla, Root Beer, Orange, Cream, Birch Beer, Original

Red Birch Beer

Black Cherry

Lemon Cream

Bulldog Root Beer

C-B Beverage Corporation (952) 935-9905

Cock n Bull Ginger Beer

Kansas City Sarsaparilla

Sparkling Jungle Juice

Desert Cooler

Clearly Canadian

Clearly Canadian O+2

Tre Limone

Reebok Fitness Water

Clover Club Bottling Corporation (773) 261-7100

Clover Club

Clover Cream Soda

Clover Club Root Beer

Berghoff Root Beer

Green River

Black Cherry

Strawberry

Peach

Grape

Lime

Mango

Watermelon

Blue Razzberry

Cream

Green Apple

Orange

Root beer

Honey Lemonade

Kiwi Ginger Ale

Tangerine

Cosco International Inc. (773) 889-1400

Apple Sidra

Cosco Flavors

Black Cherry

Cream

Celery

Ginger Ale

Orange

Root Beer

uberfizz

Eastern Brewing Corp. (609) 561-2700

Malta El Sol

Malta Dukesa

Jeff’s Sodas

Amazing N.Y. Egg Cream

Amazing N.Y. Egg Cream Chocolate

Amazing N.Y. Vanilla (and Diet)

Amazing N.Y. Orange Cream

Amazing N.Y. Berry Dream

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January 6, 1941

Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the Seventy-seventh Congress:

I address you, the Members of the Seventy-seventh Congress, at a moment unprecedented in the history of the Union. I use the word "unprecedented," because at no previous time has American security been as seriously threatened from without as it is today.

Since the permanent formation of our Government under the Constitution, in 1789, most of the periods of crisis in our history have related to our domestic affairs. Fortunately, only one of these--the four-year War Between the States--ever threatened our national unity. Today, thank God, one hundred and thirty million Americans, in forty-eight States, have forgotten points of the compass in our national unity.

It is true that prior to 1914 the United States often had been disturbed by events in other Continents. We had even engaged in two wars with European nations and in a number of undeclared wars in the West Indies, in the Mediterranean and in the Pacific for the maintenance of American rights and for the principles of peaceful commerce. But in no case had a serious threat been raised against our national safety or our continued independence.

What I seek to convey is the historic truth that the United States as a nation has at all times maintained clear, definite opposition, to any attempt to lock us in behind an ancient Chinese wall while the procession of civilization went past. Today, thinking of our children and of their children, we oppose enforced isolation for ourselves or for any other part of the Americas.

That determination of ours, extending over all these years, was proved, for example, during the quarter century of wars following the French Revolution.

While the Napoleonic struggles did threaten interests of the United States because of the French foothold in the West Indies and in Louisiana, and while we engaged in the War of 1812 to vindicate our right to peaceful trade, it is nevertheless clear that neither France nor Great Britain, nor any other nation, was aiming at domination of the whole world.

In like fashion from 1815 to 1914-- ninety-nine years-- no single war in Europe or in Asia constituted a real threat against our future or against the future of any other American nation.

Except in the Maximilian interlude in Mexico, no foreign power sought to establish itself in this Hemisphere; and the strength of the British fleet in the Atlantic has been a friendly strength. It is still a friendly strength.

Even when the World War broke out in 1914, it seemed to contain only small threat of danger to our own American future. But, as time went on, the American people began to visualize what the downfall of democratic nations might mean to our own democracy.

We need not overemphasize imperfections in the Peace of Versailles. We need not harp on failure of the democracies to deal with problems of world reconstruction. We should remember that the Peace of 1919 was far less unjust than the kind of "pacification" which began even before Munich, and which is being carried on under the new order of tyranny that seeks to spread over every continent today. The American people have unalterably set their faces against that tyranny.

Every realist knows that the democratic way of life is at this moment being' directly assailed in every part of the world--assailed either by arms, or by secret spreading of poisonous propaganda by those who seek to destroy unity and promote discord in nations that are still at peace.

During sixteen long months this assault has blotted out the whole pattern of democratic life in an appalling number of independent nations, great and small. The assailants are still on the march, threatening other nations, great and small.

Therefore, as your President, performing my constitutional duty to "give to the Congress information of the state of the Union," I find it, unhappily, necessary to report that the future and the safety of our country and of our democracy are overwhelmingly involved in events far beyond our borders.

Armed defense of democratic existence is now being gallantly waged in four continents. If that defense fails, all the population and all the resources of Europe, Asia, Africa and Australasia will be dominated by the conquerors. Let us remember that the total of those populations and their resources in those four continents greatly exceeds the sum total of the population and the resources of the whole of the Western Hemisphere-many times over.

In times like these it is immature--and incidentally, untrue--for anybody to brag that an unprepared America, single-handed, and with one hand tied behind its back, can hold off the whole world.

No realistic American can expect from a dictator's peace international generosity, or return of true independence, or world disarmament, or freedom of expression, or freedom of religion -or even good business.

Such a peace would bring no security for us or for our neighbors. "Those, who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

As a nation, we may take pride in the fact that we are softhearted; but we cannot afford to be soft-headed.

We must always be wary of those who with sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal preach the "ism" of appeasement.

We must especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American eagle in order to feather their own nests.

I have recently pointed out how quickly the tempo of modern warfare could bring into our very midst the physical attack which we must eventually expect if the dictator nations win this war.

There is much loose talk of our immunity from immediate and direct invasion from across the seas. Obviously, as long as the British Navy retains its power, no such danger exists. Even if there were no British Navy, it is not probable that any enemy would be stupid enough to attack us by landing troops in the United States from across thousands of miles of ocean, until it had acquired strategic bases from which to operate.

But we learn much from the lessons of the past years in Europe-particularly the lesson of Norway, whose essential seaports were captured by treachery and surprise built up over a series of years.

The first phase of the invasion of this Hemisphere would not be the landing of regular troops. The necessary strategic points would be occupied by secret agents and their dupes- and great numbers of them are already here, and in Latin America.

As long as the aggressor nations maintain the offensive, they-not we--will choose the time and the place and the method of their attack.

That is why the future of all the American Republics is today in serious danger.

That is why this Annual Message to the Congress is unique in our history.

That is why every member of the Executive Branch of the Government and every member of the Congress faces great responsibility and great accountability.

The need of the moment is that our actions and our policy should be devoted primarily-almost exclusively--to meeting this foreign peril. For all our domestic problems are now a part of the great emergency.

Just as our national policy in internal affairs has been based upon a decent respect for the rights and the dignity of all our fellow men within our gates, so our national policy in foreign affairs has been based on a decent respect for the rights and dignity of all nations, large and small. And the justice of morality must and will win in the end.
Our national policy is this:

First, by an impressive expression of the public will and without regard to partisanship, we are committed to all-inclusive national defense.

Second, by an impressive expression of the public will and without regard to partisanship, we are committed to full support of all those resolute peoples, everywhere, who are resisting aggression and are thereby keeping war away from our Hemisphere. By this support, we express our determination that the democratic cause shall prevail; and we strengthen the defense and the security of our own nation.

Third, by an impressive expression of the public will and without regard to partisanship, we are committed to the proposition that principles of morality and considerations for our own security will never permit us to acquiesce in a peace dictated by aggressors and sponsored by appeasers. We know that enduring peace cannot be bought at the cost of other people's freedom.

In the recent national election there was no substantial difference between the two great parties in respect to that national policy. No issue was fought out on this line before the American electorate. Today it is abundantly evident that American citizens everywhere are demanding and supporting speedy and complete action in recognition of obvious danger.

Therefore, the immediate need is a swift and driving increase in our armament production.

Leaders of industry and labor have responded to our summons. Goals of speed have been set. In some cases these goals are being reached ahead of time; in some cases we are on schedule; in other cases there are slight but not serious delays; and in some cases--and I am sorry to say very important cases--we are all concerned by the slowness of the accomplishment of our plans.

The Army and Navy, however, have made substantial progress during the past year. Actual experience is improving and speeding up our methods of production with every passing day. And today's best is not good enough for tomorrow.

I am not satisfied with the progress thus far made. The men in charge of the program represent the best in training, in ability, and in patriotism. They are not satisfied with the progress thus far made. None of us will be satisfied until the job is done.

No matter whether the original goal was set too high or too low, our objective is quicker and better results. To give you two illustrations:

We are behind schedule in turning out finished airplanes; we are working day and night to solve the innumerable problems and to catch up.

We are ahead of schedule in building warships but we are working to get even further ahead of that schedule.

To change a whole nation from a basis of peacetime production of implements of peace to a basis of wartime production of implements of war is no small task. And the greatest difficulty comes at the beginning of the program, when new tools, new plant facilities, new assembly lines, and new ship ways must first be constructed before the actual materiel begins to flow steadily and speedily from them.

The Congress, of course, must rightly keep itself informed at all times of the progress of the program. However, there is certain information, as the Congress itself will readily recognize, which, in the interests of our own security and those of the nations that we are supporting, must of needs be kept in confidence.

New circumstances are constantly begetting new needs for our safety. I shall ask this Congress for greatly increased new appropriations and authorizations to carry on what we have begun.

I also ask this Congress for authority and for funds sufficient to manufacture additional munitions and war supplies of many kinds, to be turned over to those nations which are now in actual war with aggressor nations.

Our most useful and immediate role is to act as an arsenal for them as well as for ourselves. They do not need man power, but they do need billions of dollars worth of the weapons of defense.

The time is near when they will not be able to pay for them all in ready cash. We cannot, and we will not, tell them that they must surrender, merely because of present inability to pay for the weapons which we know they must have.

I do not recommend that we make them a loan of dollars with which to pay for these weapons--a loan to be repaid in dollars.

I recommend that we make it possible for those nations to continue to obtain war materials in the United States, fitting their orders into our own program. Nearly all their materiel would, if the time ever came, be useful for our own defense.

Taking counsel of expert military and naval authorities, considering what is best for our own security, we are free to decide how much should be kept here and how much should be sent abroad to our friends who by their determined and heroic resistance are giving us time in which to make ready our own defense.

For what we send abroad, we shall be repaid within a reasonable time following the close of hostilities, in similar materials, or, at our option, in other goods of many kinds, which they can produce and which we need.

Let us say to the democracies: "We Americans are vitally concerned in your defense of freedom. We are putting forth our energies, our resources and our organizing powers to give you the strength to regain and maintain a free world. We shall send you, in ever-increasing numbers, ships, planes, tanks, guns. This is our purpose and our pledge."

In fulfillment of this purpose we will not be intimidated by the threats of dictators that they will regard as a breach of international law or as an act of war our aid to the democracies which dare to resist their aggression. Such aid is not an act of war, even if a dictator should unilaterally proclaim it so to be.

When the dictators, if the dictators, are ready to make war upon us, they will not wait for an act of war on our part. They did not wait for Norway or Belgium or the Netherlands to commit an act of war.

Their only interest is in a new one-way international law, which lacks mutuality in its observance, and, therefore, becomes an instrument of oppression.

The happiness of future generations of Americans may well depend upon how effective and how immediate we can make our aid felt. No one can tell the exact character of the emergency situations that we may be called upon to meet. The Nation's hands must not be tied when the Nation's life is in danger.

We must all prepare to make the sacrifices that the emergency-almost as serious as war itself--demands. Whatever stands in the way of speed and efficiency in defense preparations must give way to the national need.

A free nation has the right to expect full cooperation from all groups. A free nation has the right to look to the leaders of business, of labor, and of agriculture to take the lead in stimulating effort, not among other groups but within their own groups.

The best way of dealing with the few slackers or trouble makers in our midst is, first, to shame them by patriotic example, and, if that fails, to use the sovereignty of Government to save Government.

As men do not live by bread alone, they do not fight by armaments alone. Those who man our defenses, and those behind them who build our defenses, must have the stamina and the courage which come from unshakable belief in the manner of life which they are defending. The mighty action that we are calling for cannot be based on a disregard of all things worth fighting for.

The Nation takes great satisfaction and much strength from the things which have been done to make its people conscious of their individual stake in the preservation of democratic life in America. Those things have toughened the fibre of our people, have renewed their faith and strengthened their devotion to the institutions we make ready to protect.

Certainly this is no time for any of us to stop thinking about the social and economic problems which are the root cause of the social revolution which is today a supreme factor in the world.

For there is nothing mysterious about the foundations of a healthy and strong democracy. The basic things expected by our people of their political and economic systems are simple. They are:

Equality of opportunity for youth and for others.
Jobs for those who can work.
Security for those who need it.
The ending of special privilege for the few.
The preservation of civil liberties for all.

The enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living.

These are the simple, basic things that must never be lost sight of in the turmoil and unbelievable complexity of our modern world. The inner and abiding strength of our economic and political systems is dependent upon the degree to which they fulfill these expectations.

Many subjects connected with our social economy call for immediate improvement.
As examples:

We should bring more citizens under the coverage of old-age pensions and unemployment insurance.

We should widen the opportunities for adequate medical care.

We should plan a better system by which persons deserving or needing gainful employment may obtain it.

I have called for personal sacrifice. I am assured of the willingness of almost all Americans to respond to that call.

A part of the sacrifice means the payment of more money in taxes. In my Budget Message I shall recommend that a greater portion of this great defense program be paid for from taxation than we are paying today. No person should try, or be allowed, to get rich out of this program; and the principle of tax payments in accordance with ability to pay should be constantly before our eyes to guide our legislation.

If the Congress maintains these principles, the voters, putting patriotism ahead of pocketbooks, will give you their applause.

In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression--everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way--everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want--which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants-everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear--which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor--anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.

To that new order we oppose the greater conception--the moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear.

Since the beginning of our American history, we have been engaged in change -- in a perpetual peaceful revolution -- a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly adjusting itself to changing conditions--without the concentration camp or the quick-lime in the ditch. The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society.

This nation has placed its destiny in the hands and heads and hearts of its millions of free men and women; and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights or keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose. To that high concept there can be no end save victory.

The potato seems to us today to be such a staple food that it is hard to believe that it has only been accepted as edible by most of the Western world for the past 200 years. Our story begins thousands of years ago, in South America—Peru, Ecuador, and the Northern part of Chile, to be exact—where the Andean Incas

first discovered potatoes growing wild in the highlands, and were cultivating them as early as 750 BC. As well as being their staple source of food, the Incas also used potatoes for telling time, treating illness and injury, and divination. They worshipped potato deities, and when potato crops failed, the noses and lips of a few unlucky Incas would be mutilated in ceremonies designed to appease the potato gods. Although the Incas did many things with their potatoes, they did not fry them. Instead, their most popular potato dish involved laying them out in the sun for a period of weeks, then trampling on them with their bare feet to get all of the liquids out. Yummy.

Potatoes were a well-kept Incan secret for thousands of years, as were the Incas themselves, until, in the early decades of the sixteenth century, the Spanish conquered the Incan empire and brought some of the strange little tubers back to Spain with them. The Spaniards, however, were not too keen on consuming what they called an "edible stone." Nevertheless, the invading soldiers in South America used the vegetable as emergency provisions, and it was there that the English were introduced to the charming spud. In 1596, Englishman Sir Francis Drake, setting sail for England after having successfully battled the Spanish in the Caribbean, grabbed up some potatoes for the trip, and made a stopover in Virginia to pick up some homesick British colonialists. One of these passengers took a sample of this intriguing plant to his horticulturist friend, John Gerard. Gerard mistakenly believed the potatoes to have come from Virginia, and, described them to the world in his 1597 Herball as Virginia potatoes. In fact, it was not for another century and a half that the potato would even set foot in Virginia, which it did only after having crossed the Atlantic ocean once more, finally arriving in North America in the hands of Irishmen settling in New Hampshire.

In fact, overseas, nobody but the Irish were willing to actually eat this hearty little vegetable. Sir Walter Raleigh was cultivating potatoes on the Emerald Isles as early as 1576, but when he presented them to Queen Elizabeth, it was a disaster: the cook served the greens to the Queen and threw away the tubers. She was not pleased, and rejected the disgusting meal. Although this was bad news for the struggling staple, it was not the only negative publicity it was to receive in Europe. The Scots found no mention of the potato in the Bible and deemed the vegetable unholy; horticulturists discovered it to be in the same family as such plants as belladonna and feared that it was poisonous; the innocent potato was even thought to be a cause of leprosy when it was found that a substance in the tuber (solanine) could result in a skin-rash. The Irish, however, could not afford to be so cautious. They were suffering from inadequate food supplies, and the tuber grew fabulously in their climate. Possibly as a result of it's popularity in Ireland and concurrent population explosion, the misunderstood potato even became known as an aphrodisiac. In 1733, the English seedsman Stephen Switzer summed up popular opinion of the potato as "that which was heretofore reckon'd a food fit only for Irishmen and clowns."

The potato arrived in Germany in 1588 and was considered suitable only for livestock and prisoners, until 1744 when King William ordered peasants to plant potatoes to save them from famine. He distributed potatoes and instructions for planting them to the lowly folk, and threatened to cut off the nose of anyone who disobeyed.

It was in Germany, too, that the potato met it's greatest ally. Antoine August Parmentier was a French chemist who served as a soldier in the Seven Years War, and was fed only potatoes while in captivity there. When he returned to France, he made it his mission to popularize the tuber, which he felt had been

unjustly rejected by his countrymen. A skillful public relations man, Parmentier published a thesis, "Inquiry into nourishing vegetables that at times of necessity could be substituted for ordinary food" in 1773, and soon afterwards brought a bouquet of potato flowers to the birthday party of King Louis XVI. Graciously accepting the gift, the King promptly placed the flower in his lapel, and his wife, Queen Marie Antoinette, wore them in her hair, and potato flowers quickly became a fashion among the aristocracy. Still, Legrand d'Aussy wrote of the potato, in his 1783 Histoire de la Vie Privee des Francais (History of the Private Life of the French) "The pasty taste, the natural insipidity, the unhealthy quality of this food, which is flatulent and indigestible, has caused it to be rejected from refined households."

Parmentier, however, was on a roll. He began throwing parties for the French upper-class, at which he served as many as twenty dishes at a time, all containing potatoes. Then, in a display of marketing genius, Parmentier obtained permission to plant an acre of potatoes in the French countryside. He had the plot fastidiously guarded by day, but at night left the land unsupervised. Acting exactly according to his predictions, the peasants assumed that anything watched so closely must be valuable, and they stole the plants by night. Soon, potatoes were being planted all over France. It became a staple food as well as a status symbol, and by 1813, almost one hundred and fifty years since it's introduction, the potato finally gained acceptance in Scotland, Holland, Austria, Switzerland, Germany and Italy. Thanks to the French, potatoes were finally deemed chic enough to eat.

The Irish dependence on potatoes not only accounts for their great immigration to the United States after the potato famines of 1845, but also resulted in Irishmen making their way to these shores in the mid 1700's, when a crop failure resulted in the deaths of one fifth of the Irish population. These earlier immigrants brought their beloved spud to America but it received little attention. It was not until an adventurous farmer and admitted Francophile—Thomas Jefferson—began to cultivate them that Americans developed a taste for the tuber, although some were still insisting that they were poisonous.

It was not long after this widespread embracing of the potato that some genius decided to drop slices of it into a pot of boiling fat. The identity of this individual is unknown; the

French claim it was one of their countrymen, while the Belgians fiercely hold that it was one of their own who first frenched a fry. Expert opinion on this matter is divided as well. Whatever the case, by the 1830's deep fried potatoes had become a popular taste sensation in both France and Belgium. It took another hundred years for them to become a fast-food staple in the United States. Although Thomas Jefferson is rumored to have served them in Monticello as early as 1802—a daring thing to do at the time, since tubers were still believed to lead to death unless the poisons were boiled out of them—it was American soldiers, having been stationed in France (or Belgium, depending on who you ask) during World War I who brought back a hunger for the fried potatoes they had eaten while overseas. Although today fries are commonly eaten in many other countries, they are only associated with the Gallic culture here in the U.S.

French fries were born to be fast food. Deep frying foods in large vats of (expensive) fat is a smelly and messy task that was impossible for most people to carry out in their humble

kitchens. At the beginning of their popularity, one's only chance to obtain the delectable treat was at a restaurant, whose cooking facilities were better equipped to handle such a procedure, or from street vendors in Paris and Brussels. (The first place in Paris to do this was by the bridge Pont Neuf, and thick-cut fries in France are still known as pommes de terre Pont Neuf). To this day, in Belgium, where pomme frites are considered a national treasure, they are still prepared from fresh potatoes and sold on the streets from numerous french-fry shacks, known as a fritures or frietkoets.

Given the difficulty of preparing the perfect fry, it is truly a wonder that McDonald's manages to turn out millions of them each day. But that, too, was a process that took decades to perfect. A long, long time ago, when the McDonald brothers opened their first restaurant in Des Plaines, Iowa, the fries they served were made from fresh potatoes, but unlike today, they were not all uniformly yummy. Sometimes limp, sometimes greasy, sometimes too dark on the outside and not cooked enough on the inside, the path to total fry perfection constantly eluded them. The little restaurant quickly developed into a large food chain, but the brothers remained frustrated with their fries. They began pouring millions of dollars into research. At first, they tried to establish the perfect temperature for frying. What they found was that different batches of potatoes would reduce the temperature of the oil they were hurled into by different amounts. Fixing the frying equipment was not going to help this problem. Instead, they discovered that the variance was due to how long the potatoes had been stored before they met their fate in the fryer. The spuds that had been waiting for longer periods cooked up better than those that went immediately into the fryer. Curing potatoes for exactly three weeks prior to frying them became standard practice, allowing for enough of the spuds sugars to be converted into starches. Without this waiting period, the sugars in the potato make the fry turn brown too quickly.

But McDonald's potato predicament was far from over. There were questions about the best shortening to use, how to cultivate the right breed of potato that would contain the

perfect amount of solids to water ratio, and whether to switch over to the two-step frying method (which had been used in Belgium for years). In 1957, the company even opened a research lab dedicated to turning the production of fries from an art into a science. The labs developed a potato computer, used to this day, which could monitor the temperature of the frying oil and notify the operator when a batch of fries was perfectly cooked. Flawless French fries had finally become a reality.

Today, French fries account for more than one-fourth of all potatoes sold in the U.S. market—over six million pounds of potatoes are processed into frozen fries annually. Twenty-five percent of kids report eating French fries instead of other vegetables, and the average American eats thirty pounds of the greasy things in a year. The potato has come from being reviled to being revered, and is now the second most popular staple food in the world. So the next time someone says, "You want fries with that?", take a moment to remember the long, hard journey of the poor little spud. And answer, "Yes, thank you."

Debbie Stoller, under the alias Celina Hex, is a coeditor of BUST magazine. She's never met a fry she didn't like.

http://www.stim.com/Stim-x/9.2/fries/fries-09.2.html

Food historians tell us the history of ice cream begins with ancient flavored ices. The Chinese are generally credited for creating the first ice creams, possibly as early as 3000 BC. Marco Polo is popularly cited for introducing these tasty concoctions to Italy. This claim (as well as his introducing pasta to Italy) are questionable. The ice creams we enjoy today are said to have been invented in Italy during the 17th century. They spread northward through Europe via France. "French-style" ice cream and its American counterpart, "Philadelphia-style," are egg-yolk enriched products made with the finest ingredients. The egg yolk/custard base creates a richer flavor and creamier texture. Vanilla is the most popular flavor of this genre. Food historians tell us this type of ice cream originated in the 17th century and proliferated in the early 18th.

"...the Chinese may be credited with inventing a device to make sorbets and ice cream. They poured a mixture of snow and saltpetre over the exteriors of containers filled with syrup, for, in the same way as salt raises the boiling-point of water, it lowers the freezing-point to below zero. It is said that Marco Polo observed the practice and brought it home to Italy, traditionally a country that specializes in making ices. But all manner of things are said of Marco Polo....Francois I's daughter-in-law, Catherine de Medici, brought the fashion for sorbets to France. It soon spread from privileged tables to the middle classes when coffee houses became popular in the eighteenth century, and the ingenious Italian Procope made ice cream one of his cafe's specialties...At the end of the eighteenth century ice cream was made at home, in those households that owned an ice-cream maker, and Menon gives some recipes which are still very good."
---History of Food, Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat, translated by Anthea Bell [Barnes & Noble Books:New York] 1992 (p. 749-50)

"Ice cream is reputed to have been made in China as long ago as 3000 BC, but it did not arrive in Europe (via Italy) until the thirteenth century, and Britain had to wait until the late seventeenth century to enjoy it (hitherto, iced desserts had been only of the sorbet variety)... by the time Hannah Glasse and Elizabeth Raffald were giving recipes for it in the mid-eighteenth century, it was evidently well established. At first, ice cream was simply as its name suggests: cream, perhaps sweetened, set in a pot nestling in ice to cool it down. But before long recipes became more sophisticated, and the technique of periodic stirring to prevent the formation of ice crystals was introduced, and ice cream was set on a career of unbroken popularity. As early as 1821 we find mention of "ice-cream gardens' in New York....Since introducing ice cream to Europe in the Middle Ages, Italy has never relinquished its lead in theis field, and over the centuries the manufacture of ice cream has in many countries been the province of Italian emigres."
---An A to Z of Food and Drink, John Ayto [Oxford Univeristy Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 167)

"Italians were the undisputed master in developing methods of chilling a freezing drinks...The creation of sorbet resulted from experiments in chilling drinks, and it too became a matter of myth. Supposedly, sorbet was also brought to France by Catherine de'Medici...There is no documentary evidence to support this hypothesis, however and we cannot prove that the art of sorbet making was already practiced in Italy in the middle of the sixteenth century...Latini's... Treatise on Various Kinds of Sorbets, or Water Ices...composed between 1692 and 1694...contains the first written recipes on how to mix sugar, salt, snow, and lemon juice, strawberrries, sour cherries, and other fruit, as well as chocolate, cinnamon water, and different flavorings. There is also a description of a "milk sorbet that is first cooked," which we could regard as the birth certificate of ice cream. De'sorbetti, the first book entirely dedicated to the art of making frozen confections, was published in Naples in 1775. Its author, Filippo Baldini, discusses different types of sorbets...A separate chapter deals with "milky sorbets," meaning ice creams, whose medical properties are vigorouly proclaimed."
---Italian Cuisine: A Cultural History, Alberto Capatti & Massimo Montanari [Columbia University Press:New York] 1999 (p. 110-1)

"The first ice creams, in the sense of an iced and flavoured confection made from full milk or cream, are thought to have been made in Italy and then in France in the 17th century, and to have been diffused from the French court to other European countries...The first recorded English use of the term ice cream (also given as iced cream) was by Ashmore (1672), recording among dishes served at the Feast of St. George at Windsor in May 1671 One Plate of Ice Cream'. The first published English recipe was by Mrs. Mary Eales (1718)...Mrs. Eales was a pioneer with few followers; ice cream recipes remained something of a rarity in English-language cookery books...As for America, Stallings observes that ice cream is recorded to have been served as early as 1744 (by the lady of Governor Blandon of Maryland, nee Barbara Jannsen, daughter of Lord Baltimore), but it does not appear to have been generally adopted until much later in the century. Although its adoption then owed much to French contacts in the period following the American Revolution, Americans shared 18th century England's tastes and the English preference for ice creams over water ices, and proceeded enthusiastically to make ice cream a national dish."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 392-3)
NOTE: These passages illustrate the conflicting data cited by food historians regarding the "first" mention of the phrase ice cream'.

RECOMMENDED READING:
The Great American Ice Cream Book, Paul Dickson [Atheneum:New York] 1972

ON THE WEB:
History of Ice Cream, International Dairy Foods Association
Ice Cream, University of Guelph

The history of Baked Alaska is an interesting study of food evolution and culinary folklore. Most food historians generally agree this confection originated in the 19th century. None of them are willing to commit with regards to "absolute" credit. Why? There are (at least) four popular stories regarding the "invention/evolution" of this dessert:

Thomas Jefferson
---served minister Manasseh Cutler a puddinglike dish that included "ice cream very good, crust wholly dried, crumbled into thin flakes. [1802]

Chinese Chef
---unnamed, in Paris, no references made to his professional training or this being a Chinese dish. Pastry shell is used.

Benjamin Thompson
---aka Count Rumford, in Monaco, claim to fame is discovering meringue doesn't melt

Charles Ranhofer
---Delmonico's most famous chef, New York City, said to have served this to mark the occasion of Seward's Alaska purchase.

Culinary evidence confirms the concept of this recipe (cream and cake, without the ice or heat) dates to the Renaissance. Fancy molded bombes combining frozen cream and cake/biscuits were perfected in 18th-19th century Europe. Desserts approximating "Baked Alaska" began to appear in the middle of the 19th century. The name, however, belongs to the early years of the 20th. Today? We have Mexican fried ice cream served with cornflake crusts and Japanese ice cream tempura.

"Baked Alaska. A dessert made of sponge cake covered with ice cream in a meringue that is browned in the oven, but the ice cream remains frozen...The idea of baking ice cream in some kind of crust so as to create a hot-cold blend of textures occurred to Thomas Jefferson, who in 1802 served minister Manasseh Cutler a puddinglike dish that included "ice cream very good, crust wholly dried, crumbled into thin flakes," And a report in the French journal Liberte for June 1866 indicates that the master cook of the Chinese mission in Paris imparted a technique for baking pastry over ice cream to the French chef Balzac of the Grand Hotel. But baked Alaska as we know it today may be traced to the experiments in heating and cooking conducted by Benjamin Thompson (1753-1814), born in Woburn Massachusetts, who became a celebrated scientist both at home and in England, where he was awarded the title of Count Rumford for his work...His studies of the resistance of egg whites to heat resulted in the browned topping that eventually became the crown for what came to be called "Baked Alaska." Patricia M. Tice in Ice Cream for All (1990) asserted that Delmonico's chef, Charles Ranhofer, created "Baked Alaska" in 1869 to commemorate the purchase of Alaska by the United States, although in his own cookbook, the Epicurean (1893), Ranhofer calls the dish "Alaska, Florida," The term "Baked Alaska" dates in print at least to 1905 and was used by Fannie Merritt Farmer in the 1909 edition of her cookbook."
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 16-7)
[NOTE: A Dictionary of Americanisms (c. 1951) provides exact cites for the 1802 and 1909 references. ]

"A baked Alaska is a pudding consisting of a block of ice cream surrounded with meringue and then baked for a short time in a very hot oven. The notion of cooking an ice dessert within an insulating covering seems to have originated with the Chinese, who used pastry for the casing. It was apparently introduced to Europe in the mid-nineteenth century when a Chinese delegation visited Paris. The French took up the idea, substituting meringue for pastry (beaten egg whites are a poor conductor of heat) and naming the dish omelette norvegienne, Norwegian omelet' for its arctic appearance and cold centre. The English name baked Alaska originated in America around the turn of the twentieth centuury, the allusion being to Alaska's icy cold weather."
---An A to Z of Food and Drink, John Ayto [Oxford Univeristy Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 16)

"The original recipe is said to have been perfected or rather brought back into fashion, at the Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo, by the chef Jean Giroix. An American doctor, and investor, honoured as Count Rumford, is credited with the invention of this dessert, which is based on the principle that beaten egg white is a poor conductor of heat. However, according to Baron Brisse, in his cookery column in La Liberte (6 June 1866), a chef to a Chinese delegation visting Paris introduced this dessert to the French. During the stay of the Chinese delegation in Paris, the chefs of the Celestial Empire exchanged courtesies and recipes with the chefs at the Grand Hotel. The French dessert chef was delighted at this opportunity: his Chinese colleague taught him the art of cooking vanilla and ginger ices in the oven. This is how the delicate operation was performed: very firm ice cream is enveloped in an extremely light pastry crust and baked in the oven. The crust insulated the interior and is cooked before the ice cream can melt. Gourmand can then enjoy the twofold pleasure of biting into a crisp crust and at the same time referencing the palate with the flavoured ice cream."
---Larousse Gastronomique, Completely Revised and Updated Edition [Clarkson Potter:New York] 2001 (p. 65)

"Baked Norvegienne, or baked Alaska, was a favorite gourmet dish in the Fifties. It appealed on a number of levels: (1) it tasted good; (2) it was easy to make (at least so long as it was made quickly); (3) it looked as though it must be difficult; (4) with its simple meringue, ice cream, and cake base it was a safe dessert to serve to even the stodgiest guests; and (5) it was both festive and fancy. Everyone seems to agree that a dish something like baked Alaska appeared in France in the mid-1800s. Whether it was invented earlier by an American scientist named Benjamin Thompson (1753-1814) who was experimenting with the insulating properties of egg whites of by a Chinese chef in Paris who baked ice cream in an insulating pastry shell in the 1860s is debated. Personally I prefer John Mariani's explanation that Dr. Thompson's experiments resulted in a dessert called "Alaska-Florida" that was popular at the famous Delmonico's restaurant in New York on the 1800s. For all its French pretentions, baked Alaska has always seemed like an American dish. The French name omelette a al Norvegienne refers to the fact that the cake base is traditionally cut into an omelette shape. Presumably Norvegienne alludes to its chilly interior, although Francois Rysavy, President Eisenhower's chef, said that baked Alaska is a "Scandinavian delicacy." There seems to be no evidence for his statement, however...The Chinese chef how may have invented baked Alaska (but probably didn't) baked his ice cream in pastry shells. That idea was also a popular one in the 1950s. Ice cream pies were very chic then, and baked Alaska ice cream pie was too soigne for words."
---Fashionable Food: Seven Decades of Food Fads, Sylvia Lovegren [MacMillan:New York] 1995 (p. 200-1)

Related food? Fried ice cream.

Two American towns claim the banana split as their own: Latrobe PA and Wilmington OH. Which one deserves the honor? You decide...

According to The Food Chronology, James Trager [Henry Holt:New York] 1995 "The banana split was created [in 1904] by Latrobe, Pa., pharmacy apprentice David Strickler, 23, who had returned from a visit to Atlantic City, where he was inspired by watching a soda jerk. He placed three scoops of ice cream on a split banana, topped it with chocolate syrup, marshmallow, nuts, whipped cream, and a cherry, sold it for a dime, and was soon imitated by other soda jerks, who generally used three different ice cream flavors-chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla-topped with chocolate, strawberry, and pineapple, nuts, whipped cream, a cherry, but no marshmallow. Strickler eventually took of the pharmacy and continued making banana splits until he sold the place in 1965." (page 380)

Food historians tell us bananas were introduced to the American public in the 1880s. These exotic fruits were actively promoted and quickly embraced. Late 19th and early 20th century American cookbooks contain an interesting variety of banana recipes. Many of these simly added bananas to extant recipes: banana ice cream, banana ambrosia, banana cake, etc. Antiques catalogs confirm glass serving dishes were manufacutered to accomodate this odd, new shape. About banana cookery.

The general concensus of the food historians are with regards to egg creams, as Americans know them today, are:

Egg creams were invented at the beginning of the 20th century.

They originated in New York City [Brooklyn].

The have never contained eggs or cream.

Debates regarding the exact genesis and "true recipe" of this confection are intense. The same holds true for many beloved foods we eat today, esp. those born of the soda fountain era. Culinary evidence confirms egg-based soda recipes with chocolate syrup did exist, under different names. They descended from early egg nog recipes. "Egg Drin", a popular early 20th century soda fountain concoction, is strikingly similar to the classic egg cream.

"By 1891, there were more soda fountins than bars in New York according to On the Town in New York by Michael and Ariane Batterberry. In the 1920s, the "egg cream," an eggless, creamless libation was invented in a New York soda fountain...The annals of time have obscured inventor and the rational and philosophical underpinnings of the drink's name."
---New York Cook Book, Molly O'Neill [Workman Publishing:New York] 1992 (p. 197)

"Egg cream. A New York City soda-fountain confection made from chocolate syrup, milk, and seltzer. The simplicity of the egg cream is deceptive, for its flavor and texture depend entirely on the correct preparation. There is no egg in an egg cream, but if the ingredients are mixed properly, a foamy, egg-white-like head tops the drink. Nevertheless, as David Shulman pointed out in American Speech (1987), there was a confection, called an "egg cream" syrup listed in W.A. Bonham's Modern Guide for Soda Dispensers (1896) that was made with both eggs and cream, but no chocolate. This was probably not the egg cream that gained legendary fame in eastern cities. Also, Lettice Bryan in The Kentucky Housewife (1839) gives a recipe for an orange-flavored custard dessert called "egg cream." There seems no basis to believe the legend the Yiddish actor Boris Thomashefsky brought the idea for the egg cream back from Paris after having tasted a drink called chocolate et creme. Indeed the unchallenged claim for the invention of the egg cream is that Louis Auster, a Jewish immigrant who came to the United States about 1890 and opened a candy store at Stanton and Avenue D. According to Auster's grandson...the egg cream was a matter of happenstance. "My [grandfather] was fooling around, and he started mixing water and cocoa and sugar and so on, and somehow or other, eureka, he hit on something which seemed to be just perfect for him." Auster's egg creams became famous...and were based on a secret formula that has never been revealed...The chocolate syrup used was made in the rear of the store, and windows were blacked out for privacy. "The name of the egg cream was really a misnomer, " recalled Stanley Auster. "People thought there was cream in it, and they would like to think there was egg in it becuase egg meant something that was really good and expensive. There was never any egg, and there never was any cream." Auster also insisted a glass, not a paper cup, and ice-cold milk were basic to the success of a good egg cream. After Louis Auster died...the recipe passed to his family, with the last batch of the secret syrup made up...around 1974. The first printed reference to the egg cream was in 1950. Without accesss to Auster's syrup, other soda fountains and candy stores made the drink with "Fox's u-bet Chocolate Flavor Syrup," Created by Herman Fox some time before 1920 in Brooklyn, now considered the most widely accepted ingredient in the mix."
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 120)

"Fox's U-Bet Chocolate Syrup is a classic. You absolutely cannot make an egg cream without [it]...The firm, founded sometime between 1910 and 1920...began in a Brownsville basement...The recipe for U-Bet remains the same: Brooklyn water, sugar, corn sweeteners, cocoa, and some "secret things." The name "U-Bet dates from the late 20s when Fox's grandfather got wildcatting fever and headed to Texas to drill for oil. "You bet" was a friendly term the oilmen used. His oil venture a failure, he returend to the old firm, changing Fox's Chocolate Syrup to Fox's U-Bet...Fox has fan letters form Mel Brooks, Don Rickles...You shouldn't have to ask, but there is no egg or cream in an egg cream. Just milk, seltzer, and U-Bet."
---The Brooklyn Cookbook, Lyn Stallworth and Rod Kennedy Jr [Alfred A. Knopf:New York] 1994 (p. 358).]
[NOTE: this book contains a recipe for the "correct" Brooklyn egg cream.]
Fox is still in business. Company history here.

French-style ice creams descended from medieval custards and creams. Freezing them was an idea made possible by advances in technology. A survey of old French, English, and American cookbooks confirms this recipe was well known, although it was known by many different names.

"About 1700 a pamphlet of ice-cream and sherbet reciepes was published entitled L'Art de Faire des Glaces, and by then the major capitals of Europe were well familiar with the dish...Thomas Jefferson, who wrote extensive notes on making the confection, has been credited with bringing "French-style" ice cream, made with egg yolks, to America. He also had an ice-ream-making machine he called a "sorbetiere" at Monticello, where he followed a recipe that called for a stick of vanilla...two bottles of cream, and an egg-custard mixture, boiled, stirred, reheated, strained, and put in an ice pail'."
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 163-4)

Thomas Jefferson's ice cream (included eggs); manuscript recipe

As time and technology progressed, ice cream flavors (Pistachio, Rocky Road, Chunky Monkey) , complicated confections (19th century Neapolitan bricks, English bombes & American cakes), and novelty concoctions (hokey-pokey treats, ice cream bars, popsicles, sundaes, sodas & banana splits), proliferated.

While recipes for fried, coated dairy products are ancient, food historians tell us the concept of encasing fozen ice cream in a hot edible shell dates back (at least) to the 19th century. Think baked Alaska.

Fried ice cream does not appear in Mexican cookbooks, posssibly meaning it is not a "traditional" Mexican recipe. Most likely? It is a contemporary ethnic interpretation of Baked Alaska, a popular upscale hot/cold ice cream dessert developed in the last quarter of the 19th century. This dessert employed meringue as the insulating agent between hot and cold. References to fried ice cream begin to appear in the second half of the 20th century. The insulating agent is (All-American) corn flakes. Perhaps this dish is TexMex?

Helen Brown's West Coast Cook Book [1952] contains a recipe for fried cream which discusses the concept of hot cream coated in cracker crumbs.

"Fried cream.
Gourmets who visit San Francisco enthuse about this dessert, which is to be found at a few of the best hotels and restaurants. It's not ovent served at home, apparentlyy becuase most cooks don't dare risk it, but it's really very simplet ot make. It turns up in a San Diego cook book, under then name of "Bonfire Entre." It was called that becuase the fried cream was cut in sticklike pieces and stacked up on individual plates like miniature and roofless log cabins. A couple of lumps of sugar, brandy-soaked, went into the center of each pile of "logs," and matches graced the side of each plate."
---West Coast Cook Book, Helen Evans Brown [Cookbook Collectors Library reprint edition] (p. 66)
[NOTE: Recipe follows this description. It includes Jamaica rum.]

Some Japanese-American restaurants offer a similar dessert...ice cream tempura. Likewise, this is not a traditional Asian meal item. It is the product of saavy restauranteurs adjust menus seeking to meet to American expectations.

The first reference to fried ice cream in The New York Times was an article on food offerings of the resort town of Cape May, New Jersey ("In Cape May, the Summer Stroller May Shop and Snack, Away from Traffic," Fred Ferrettis, July 3, 1972 (p. 6)). This article refers specifically to "French fried ice cream (vanilla, frozen, dipped in batter, rolled in crushed corn flake crumbs, then fried to order.) This article does not connect fried ice cream with Latin American cuisine. A letter to the NYT editor published August 2, 1981 (p. XX24) notes a recipe for this item was published in the Los Angeles Times California Cookbook [1981], and reprints the recipe.

Food historians generally agree the origin of the term "hokey pokey" as it relates to food is traced to Italian street vendors who sold inexpensive goods in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. "Hokey pokey" is an English interpretation of the Italian phrase "O che poco," meaning how Oh, how little." This "little" in this phrase related to price, as these street goods (ice cream treats of all kinds in America/England, toffee flavored ice cream treats in New Zealand) were tasty and cheap. As such, they held great appeal to children and working class people.

The Oxford English Dictionary traces the term "hokey-pokey" in print as it relates to ice cream to 1884. They oldest mention it cites for a toffee-like sweet (as it is known in New Zealand) is 1939: Katherine Mansfield Scrapbook 3 "We always gave him the same presents...three cakes of hoky-poky." Of course, spoken words often predate their printed cousins by several years.

"Hokey-pokey
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries hokey-pokey was a British English term for a cheap sort of ice cream sold by street vendors ("Three hokey-pokey ice-cream hand-carts, one aftern another, turned the corner of 'Trafalgar Road,' Arnold Bennett, Clayhanger, 1910). It presumably came from the cry with which the vendors hawked it, although what this originally was is not known (one suggestion put forward in the 1880s was Italian O che poco! 'Oh how little!'--a reference to price, presumably, rather than quantity--which is given some plausibility by the fact that many ice-cream sellers at that time were Italian). Nowadays the word is used in New Zealand for a sort of crunchy toffee bar, and also for ice cream containing liggle pieces of such toffee."
---An A-Z of Food & Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 160)

HOKEY POKEY & ICE CREAM TREATS
Ice cream, ices and other frosty treats were sold in cities, amusement parks, boardwalks and and resort areas in the late 19th/early 20th centuries by a number of portable vehicles. These ranged from hand-pushed carts to goat-pulled mini-wagons to bicycle-propelled carts to horsedrawn/electric trucks. Folks who make a living selling ice treats from carts were known as "hokey pokey" men.

"A good deal of American ice cream was sold by street vendors in large cities. The slang term for their product as of the 1880s was "hokey pokey," which may derive from the Italian "O che poco!" ("Oh, here's a little!") or occi-pocci (mixed colors or flavors) because the "hokey-pokey man" who sold this cheap ice cream was often of Italian descent."
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 165)

Related foods? Ice cream novelties.

The idea of ice cream and cake evolved from Renaissance-era desserts composed of cream and biscuits. These were called trifles. These fancy desserts were enjoyed by middle class and wealthy people. Food historians tell us ice cream, as we know it, was "invented" in the 17th century and proliferated in the 18th. These early recipes were generally based on the same creams used for trifles. The difference? Freezing technique. Victorians prided themselves on fancy ice cream "bombes" (ice cream molded into special shapes). A survey of old cookbooks confirms biscuits (Savoy, sponge) were sometimes used to line the mold that held the ice cream. Voila! Ice cream cake.16th century English trifle, although not frozen, presents the same basic concept of laying sweet foods of different textures and tastes. About English trifle.

In the 1800s ice cream served at fancy parties was often molded into festive shapes. This was a borrowed tradition from molded puddings and custards. By the Victorian era, ice cream was often pressed into molds which produced elegant, elaborate frozen desserts. Some of the ice cream creations (bombes, etc.) had fillings, usually fruit. Many of these combined biscuits and other cakes. In 19th century American cookbooks, "ice cream cake" had several definitions.

Italian water ice (also known as granita and sorbetto) has a long and ancient history:

"The Greeks and Romans employed lumps of Etna's snow to chill their wine; the Arabs used it instead to chill their sarbat. The Italian word sorbetto and the English sherbert come from these sweet fruit syrups that the Arabs once drank diluted with ice water. The passage from sarbat and water, chilled in a container of ice, to granita was only a question of time, perhaps the chance invention of a housewife distracted by a passing vendor or a crying child. Sicilians always claim an Arabic origin for their ices, although in her book on Middle Eastern food Claudia Roden cites neither an Arabic name nor a Levantine history for the granita recipes she gives. In any case, whether it was in Damascus or in Catania that the sarbat stayed too long on ice, Sicily is the home of ices as far as the Western world is concerned, and Araby their inspiration. The flavors most common to the western part of Sicily are those that by now are most famous elsewhere in Italy and in America as well, lemon and coffee..."
---Pomp and Sustenance:Twenty-Five Centuries of Sicilian Food, Mary Taylor Simeti [Ecco Press:Hopewell NJ] 1989 (p. 283-4)

"For thousands of years people saved ice to satisfy their desire for cool drinks. The earliest icehouses existed in Mesopotamia, beside the Euphrates River, about 4,000 years ago. The rich used the ice in these puts to cool their wines. Alexander the Great dug pits and filled them with snow so that his army could have cool wine in the summer. Roman emperors had ice brought from the mountains, and the kings of Egypt had snow shipped to them from Lebanon...Easterners, especially in the Turkish Empire, frequently consumed iced fruit drinks, and the people of Greece sold snow in the markets of Athens from as early as the fifth century BC. Today's sherberts and wine coolers likely originated with the wine-flavored ices consumed by early peoples, and today's snow cones likely originated with the ices made long ago form real snow mixed with honey and fruit."
---Nectar and Ambrosia:An Encyclopedia of Food in World Mythology, Tamra Andrews [ABC-CLIO:Santa Barbara] 2000 (p. 121)

"Water ices seem to have come into being, in Europe, at about the same time in the second half of the 17th century as ice cream. The same technique is used for both products...It has been suggested that ices (whether water ices or ice cream) were made much earlier in China. This seems not impossible, and would be difficult to disprove. However, the further idea that they were introduced to Europe by Marco Polo, returning to Venice from China in the 13th century, is unsupported and is best counted as a piece of culinary mythology...As for precedence in Europe...no one can say whether true water ices were first prepared in Italy of France or Spain. Whatever the point of origin, their use spread quickly between the more sophisticated cities of Europe, although there is no sure evidence of then they first crossed the Channel to London...Water ices may be served as a stand-alone refereshment, as a dessert, or as a means of refreshing the palate about halfway through a meal of many courses...Italian sorbetto, and Spanish sorbete, belong to the sherbet group. Antoher Italian term, granita, refers to a water ice with a more granular texture than the standard kind."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 838)

"Sorbet. A type of water ice that is softer and more granular than ice cream as it does not contain any fat or egg yolk. The basic ingredient of a sorbet is fruit juice or puree, wine, spirit or liqueur, or an infusion (tea or mint). A sugar syrup, sometimes with addtional glucose or one or two invert sugars is added. The mixture should not be beaten during freezing. When it has set, some Italian meringue can be added to give it volume. Historically, sorbets were the first iced desserts (ice creams did not appear until ith 18th century). The Chinese introduced them to the Persians and Arabs who introduced them to the Italians. The word sorbet is a gallicazation of the Italian sorbetto, derived from Turkish chobet and Arab charah, which simply meant drink. Sorbets were originally made of fruit, honey, aromatic substances and snow. Today, the sorbet is served as a dessert or as a refreshment between courses; at large formal dinners in France, sorbets with an alcoholic base are served between the main courses, taking the place of the liqueur...formerly served in the middle of the meal..."
---Larousse Gastronomique, completely revised and updated [Clarkson Potter:New York] 2001 (p. 1108)

Sorbet today? Notes from the National Restaurant Association:

Would like to see 19th century recipes and/or try making your own water ice? Ask your librarian to help you find this book: Victorian Ices & Ice Cream: 117 delicious and unusual recipes updated for the modern kitchen. This facsimile cookbook was reprinted by the Metropolitan Museum of Art & Charles Scribner's Sons in 1976. The original book was titled The Book of Ices, A.B. Marshall, London, 1885.

Did you know that malteds, milk shakes and other soda fountain treats were originally concocted as health foods? The history of malted milk and milk shakes are interesting and interconnected:

"Malted milk...Originally created in 1887 as an easily digested infant's food made from an extract of wheat and malted barley combined with milk and made into a powder called "diastoid" by James and William Horlick of Racine, Wisconsin, this item, under the name "Horlick's Malted Milk," was featured by the Walgreen drugstore chain as part of a chocolate milk shake, which itself became known as a "malted" and became one of the most popular soda-fountain drinks."
---The Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 196-197)

"1883...English-American inventor William Horlick, 37, produces the first "malted milk" (he will coin the phrase in 1886) at Racine, Wis. He has combined dried whole milk with extract of wheat and malted barley in powder and tablet form, and his "diastoid" is the first dried whole milk that will keep...."
---The Food Chronology, James L.Trager [Henry Holt:New York] 1995 (p. 317)

"Milk shake...When the term first appeared in print in 1885, milk shakes may have contained whiskey of some kind, but by the turn of the century they were considered wholesome drinks made with chocolate, strawberry, or vanilla syrups. In different parts of the country they went by different names...A "malted" is made with malted milk powder-invented in 1887 by William Horlick of Racine Wisconsin, and made from dried milk, malted barley, and wheat flour-promoted at first as a drink for invalids and children. By the 1930s a malt shop' was a soda fountain not attached to a pharmacy."
---The Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 206)

"Milk shake also appeared in the late 1880s, but the term then usually meant a sturdy, healthful eggnog type of drink, with eggs, whiskey, etc., served as a tonic as well as a treat. Since malted milk was also considered a tonic, the combined malted milk shake was a logical step and in the early 1900s people were asking for the new treat, often with ice cream, and before 1910 were using the shorter terms shake and malt (the longer word malted being somewhat more common in the Eastern states). Malt shop was a term of the late 1930s, usually being a typical soda fountain of the period, especially one used by students as a meeting place or hangout."
---Listening to America, Stuart Berg Flexner [Simon & Schuster:New York] 1982 (p. 178)

If you need additional information on the history of soda fountains & other ice cream products ask your librarian to help you find this book:
The Great American Ice Cream Book, Paul Dickson
& check out: The history of soft drinks (ie soda fountains!)

A survey of historic cookbooks confirms the term "Neapolitan," as it relates to ice cream, denotes both a recipe (for ice cream) and method (combining several flavors in a mold). It also reveals there is no "official" triumvirate of flavors. Most often cited are vanilla, chocolate, strawberry and pistachio. It is not unusual to include a sherbet or fruit-flavored ice as well.

This is what the food historians have to say:
"Neapolitan slice. A slice of ice-cream cake made with mousse mixture and ordinary ice cream, presented in a small pleated paper case. Neapolitan ice cream consists of three layers, each of a different color and flavor (chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla), moulded into a block and cut into slices. Neapolitan ice-cream makers were famous in Paris at the beginning of the 19th century, especially Tortoni, creator of numerous ice-cream cakes."
---Larousse Gastronomique, Jenifer Harvey Lang [Crown:New York] 1988 (p. 718)

"[18th century] confectioners's shops [were] very often run by Italians. Consequently ice creams were often called "Italian ice creams" or "Neapolitan ice creams" throughout the nineteenth century, and the purveying of such confections became associated with Italian immigrants."
---The Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 163)

"Neapolitan ice cream, different flavored layers frozen together....[was] being first being talked about in the 1870s."
---I Hear America Talking, Stuart Berg Flexner [Simon & Schuster:New York] 1979 (p. 191)

The oldest reference to Neapolitan ice cream in The New York Times appeared in 1887. The context? A costume description. While is does not shed light on the origins of the dessert, it does prove the term was understood by the people of the day:

"...in a dress of pink and white stripes, strongly resembling Neapolitan ice cream."
---"Thespians on a Frolic," The New York Times, June 27, 1887 (p. 8)

In America, the term "novelty" as it applies to food, is often connected with manufactured portable/individual ice cream treats. Ice cream bars and popsicles were intoduced in the 1920s. They were "novel" (dictionary definition is "new") because they were pre-made. Prior to this time, ice cream was scooped fresh by street/fair vendors, hokey pokey men, soda jerks, and restauranteurs.

The orginal parfait was 19th century frozen coffee-flavoured French ice dessert constructed in parfait-shaped (tall and thin) ice cream molds. This dessert was not served in tall, thin glassware as we know today. It was extracted from the mold (of similar shape) and served on decorated plates.

Layered, molded ice cream treats (with fruits, syrups & liqueurs) were quite popular by the mid-19th century both in Europe and America. They were presented in many fabulous shapes much to the delight of diners of all ages. Parfait, as is currently known by Americans is a multi-layered ice cream treat presented in "parfait" glasses. These glasses are typically thin and tall. The parfait is usually made with rich vanilla ice cream accented with liqueur or other other syrup (chocolate, strawberry) . The most notable difference between an American parfait and the ever popular Ice Cream Sundae is the dish. The parfait is presented tall & thin; the sundae is most often served in a wide-mouth glass that may or may not have a stem. The use of liqueur is generally relegated to the parfait. Did you know? Parfait is the French word for "perfect."

"Parfait. An iced dessert made with double (heavy) cream, which gives it smoothness, prevents it from melting too quickly and enables it to be cut into slices. Originally the parfait was a coffee-flavoured ice cream; today, the basic mixture is a flavoured custard-cream, a flavoured syrup mixed with egg yolks or a fruit puree, which is blended with whipped ccream and then frozen. There is a special parfait mould in the shape of a cylindar with one slightly rounded end...In Britain and the United States a parfait is also the name of a whipped dessert."
--Larousse Gastonomique, Completely revised and updated [Clarkson Potter:New York] 2001 (p. 840)

"Parfait. A name properly used of a rich frozen dessert, similar to a bombe and often made in a bombe mold. A typical parfait is composed of two or several elements (a lining for the mould and a filling, which may itself be layered) and is flavoured with a liqueur, or with coffee, chocolate, praline, etc. In North America, the term has come to mean something different, namely a combination of fruit and ice cream, served in a tall narrow glass which exposes to view the various layers of the confection. This sort of parfait is not a frozen dessert. However, the frozen dessert version can be frozen in individual parfait glasses, rather than in a single mould, so there is a relationship between the two different things."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 575)

The oldest recipe we have with the name parfait is from a French cookbook dated 1869. It is for a coffee-ice confection.

Mrs. D. A. Lincoln's recipe for parfait...also a coffee concoction (Boston, 1884)

Ice cream, ices and other frosty treats were sold in cities, amusement parks, boardwalks and and resort areas in the during WWI by a number of portable vehicles. These ranged from hand-pushed carts to goat-pulled mini-wagons to bicycle-propelled carts to horsedrawn/electric trucks. Folks who make a living selling ice treats from carts were known as "hokey pokey" men. How long before these treats would melt? That would be determined by the quality of the cart and the temperature of the day. The history of the popsicle is a fascnating topic unto itself. Like the history of many popular frozen treats, it is full of conflicting claims and culinary folklore. While Frank Epperson is generally credited for "inventing" the popsicle (first called the Epsicle, after himself), there is ample evidence that frozen fruit treats and juice bars existed in the late 19th century. These treats were often hawked by people of Italian descent, who were versed in the fine art of granita. Even the Epperson story has many "versions." The Epperson story sticks not because he was the first, but because he was the first to mass market this product.

About Frank Epperson's popsicle

"The third member of the great novelty trimuvirate of the 1920s was born on a cold eureka-shouting morning in New Jersey in 1923. The inventor was Frank Epperson, who made lemonade from a specially prepared powder that he sold at an Oakland, California, amusement park. While visiting friends in New Jersey, he prepared a batch of special lemonade and inadvertantly left a glass of it on a windowsill with a spoon in it. The temperature went down below zero during the night and in the morning Epperson saw the glass. He picked it up by the spoon handle and ran hot water over the glass freeing the frozen mass. In his hand was the first Epsicle, later to be known as the Popsicle. Epperson saw immediately the potential of what he held in his hand and applied for a patent, which was granted in 1924. He was fortunate, because research conducted by The Ice Cream Review in 1925 revealed that a major ice cream company was experimenting with "frozen suckers" at the time of the windowsill incident, and as far back as 1872 two men doing business as Ross and Robbins sold a frozen-fruit confection on a stick, which they called the Hokey-Pokey."
---Great American Ice Cream Book, Paul Dickson [Atheneum:New York] 1972 (p. 83)

"In 1905 an eleven-year-old boy named Frank Epperson, of Oakland, California, accientally left a mixing stick in a glass of juice on a windowsill while visiting friends in New Jersey. The juice froze with the stick in it, enabling the ice to be held in the hand and licked.In 1922 Epperson introduced this new "icelollipop" at a fireman's ball in Oakland, California, and called it an "Epsicle," then later "Popsicle." (Frozen "juice bars" had been known in the nineteenth century, including one called the "Hokey Pokey," but none was marketed well until the Popsicle in 1923.)"
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman] 1999 (p. 165-6)

Potatoes (a new world food) were introduced to Europe by Spanish explorers in the 16th century. By the end of the century many countries had adopted this new vegetable and integrated it into their cuisines. Preparation methods and recipes were developed according to local culinary traditions. About potato history.

Arnold Shircliffe, primary chef of Chicago's legendary Edgewater Beach Hotel, traced the origin of the potato salad to the 16th century. These are his notes:
"Early potato salad: John Gerrard in 1597 writes about potatoes and their virtues and said that "they are sometimes boiled and sopped in wine, by others boiled with prunes, and likewise others dress them (after roasting them in the ashes) in oil, vinegar and salt, every man according to his own taste. However they be dressed, they comfort, nourish and strengthen the body." This is one of the first potato salads mentioned in any book."
---Edgewater Beach Hotel Salad Book, Arnold Shircliffe [Hotel Monthly Press:Evanston IL] 1928 (p. 231)

Potato salad-type recipes were introduced to America by European settlers, who again adapted traditional foods to local ingredients. This accounts for regional potato salad variations in the United States. Potato salad, as we know it today, became popular in the second half of the 19th century. Cold potato salads evolved from British and French recipes. Warm potato salads followed the German preference for hot vinegar and bacon dressings served over vegetables.

Print evidence confirms recipes for potato salads were often included in 19th century American cooking texts. These recipes had many different names. The Cassells Dictionary of Cookery [London:1875?] contains three recipes for potato salad, one without notes [presumably British or American], a French recipe and a German recipe.The French recipe is very similar to the first and is also served cold. The German recipe required bacon. Early cold potato salad recipes often called for "French dressing" (Our notes on French dressing here ). Some recipes specifically indicate this is an economy dish, "a good way to dispose of leftover potatoes." During the 1940s mayonnaise began to supplant French dressing as the congealer of choice. It is interesting to note that during both World Wars recipes for German-style potato salad did not bear that country's moniker. They were simply listed as "hot potato salad."

"Potato salad. A cold or hot side dish made with potatoes, mayonnaise, and seasonings. It became very popular in the second half of the nineteenth century and is a staple of both home and food-store kitchens. Hot potato salad, usually made with bacon, onion, and vinegar dressing, was associated with German immigrants and therefore often called "German potato salad."
---Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 253)

"There seems to be no dogma concerning the origins of potato salad, but Germany is a good place to begin. As a country with lots of potatoes and lots of recipes for potatoes, Germany almost certainly was among the first to look at cooked small new potatoes or cut chunks of larger spuds and imagine them blanketed with dressing. The dressing they came up with was a classic. Kin to the heated dressing used to wilt spinach salad, this one thrilled German taste buds, raised as they were on sauerkraut and sauerbraten with vinegar bite. Some versions featured a little coarse mustard, others cut the sour with a little sugar, and most added bacon and even its flavorful drippings. By the time the notion of potato salad reached France, vinegar wasn't quite good enough. The French demanded full-scale vinaigrette, and it was no sweat to satisfy their demands. Whenever you see something called "French potato salad," it's a safe bet you're in for potatoes (and probably other vegetables, too) in a light vinaigrette, with Dijon mustard and sweet tarragon.

When potato salad caught on in the United States, in the second half of the 19th century, it was probably by way of German immigrants. To this day, most people who know how to cook, or at least know how to eat, understand that "German potato salad" will be served warm, will feature no mayonnaise, and will be pleasantly tart with vinegar.The American idea of making potato salad with mayonnaise has no recorded history - but then again, neither does the idea of mayonnaise itself. Clearly a sauce created in France using egg yolks, oil and either lemon juice or vinegar, little is clear after that. Virtually every French bible of cuisine explains the name differently, ranging from a link to "Magon," the Carthaginian general who helped his brother Hannibal battle the Romans," to a possible misspelling of "Bayonnaise," hailing from the town of Bayonne in France - and later, less romantically, New Jersey.

However it got the name, mayonnaise became the favored dressing for American potato salad for more "There seems to be no dogma concerning the origins of potato salad, but Germany is a good place to begin. As a country with lots of potatoes and lots of recipes for potatoes, Germany almost certainly was among the first to look at cooked small new potatoes or cut chunks of larger spuds and imagine them blanketed with dressing. The dressing they came up with was a classic. Kin to the heated dressing used to wilt spinach salad, this one thrilled German taste buds, raised as they were on sauerkraut and sauerbraten with vinegar bite. Some versions featured a little coarse mustard, others cut the sour with a little sugar, and most added bacon and even its flavorful drippings. By the time the notion of potato salad reached France, vinegar wasn't quite good enough. The French demanded full-scale vinaigrette, and it was no sweat to satisfy their demands. Whenever you see something called "French potato salad," it's a safe bet you're in for potatoes (and probably other vegetables, too) in a light vinaigrette, with Dijon mustard and sweet tarragon.

When potato salad caught on in the United States, in the second half of the 19th century, it was probably by way of German immigrants. To this day, most people who know how to cook, or at least know how to eat, understand that "German potato salad" will be served warm, will feature no mayonnaise, and will be pleasantly tart with vinegar.The American idea of making potato salad with mayonnaise has no recorded history - but then again, neither does the idea of mayonnaise itself. Clearly a sauce created in France using egg yolks, oil and either lemon juice or vinegar, little is clear after that. Virtually every French bible of cuisine explains the name differently, ranging from a link to "Magon," the Carthaginian general who helped his brother Hannibal battle the Romans," to a possible misspelling of "Bayonnaise," hailing from the town of Bayonne in France - and later, less romantically, New Jersey. However it got the name, mayonnaise became the favored dressing for American potato salad for more than a century. Its sweet, creamy mouthfeel served up just the right delight when wrapped around solid, dependable American potatoes."
---"A world of potato salads; Labor Day tradition gets global makeover," John DeMers, The Houston Chronicle, August 29, 2001 (Food: p. 1)

"Despite its popularity in this country, potato salad is not an all-American creation. Potato salad is said to be of Teutonic origin, prepared when boiled potatoes were tossed with oil, vinegar and seasonings, a dish known now as German potato salad. The French, Norwegians, Swedes, Russians and Italians all have their own versions. Germans make a marvelous warm potato salad to which they add tiny bits of fresh tomato and red and green bell peppers, then toss the whole concoction with a warm bacon and onion dressing. The Greeks also prefer warm potato salad, with garlic, olive oil and lemon. Italian potato salad is apt to have ample amounts of fresh parsley, often chunks of salami and is dressed with an olive oil and vinegar dressing. American potato salad is heavier and heartier than European versions. Some people like lots of additions such as onion, sweet pickles, celery, hard-cooked eggs, pimento, chives, olives and parsley."
---"Potato salad revisited," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, August 28, 1989 (Food p. 1)

Recommended reading: The Potato: How the Humble Spud Rescued the Western World, Larry Zukerman [North Point Press:New York] 1998