Commemoration of the American Revolution typifies the patriotic sentiment surrounding the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...

and the desire to preserve and honor the " Spirit of '76". As the founding story of the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, it is covered in the schools, memorialized by a national holiday, and commemorated in monuments, artwork, and in popular culture.

Independence Day An independence day is an annual event commemorating the anniversary of a nation's independence or statehood, usually after ceasing to be a group or part of another nation or state, or more rarely after the end of a military occupation. Many ...

(the "Fourth of July") is a major national holiday celebrated annually. Besides local sites such as Bunker Hill, one of the first national pilgrimages for memorial tourists was

Mount Vernon Mount Vernon is an American landmark and former plantation of Founding Father, commander of the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War, and the first president of the United States George Washington and his wife, Martha. The estate is on ...

George Washington George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Continental Congress as commander of ...

's estate, which attracted ten thousand visitors a year by the 1850s.

Memory

Every nation constructs and honors the memory of its founding, and following generations use it to establish its identity and define patriotism. The memory of the Founding and the Revolution has long been used as a political weapon. For example, the right-wing "

Tea Party movement The Tea Party movement was an American fiscally conservative political movement within the Republican Party that began in 2009. Members of the movement called for lower taxes and for a reduction of the national debt and federal budget def ...

" of the 21st century explicitly memorialized the Boston Tea Party as a protest against intrusive government. In the 1850s, editors and orators both North and South claimed their region was the true custodian of the legacy of 1776, as they used the Revolution symbolically in their rhetoric. David Ryan, noting that the Bicentennial was celebrated a year after the United States' humiliating 1975 withdrawal from Vietnam, says the Ford administration stressed the themes of renewal and rebirth based on a restoration of traditional values, and presented a nostalgic approach to 1776 that made it seem eternally young and fresh. The Revolution became the main source of the non-denominational "

American civil religion American civil religion is a sociological theory that a nonsectarian quasi-religious faith exists within the United States with sacred symbols drawn from national history. Scholars have portrayed it as a cohesive force, a common set of values that ...

" that has shaped patriotism, and the memory and meaning of the nation's birth ever since. Specific battles are not central (as they are for the Civil War) but rather certain events and people have been celebrated as icons of certain virtues (or vices). The American Revolution is remembered for its

Moses Moses hbo, מֹשֶׁה, Mōše; also known as Moshe or Moshe Rabbeinu ( Mishnaic Hebrew: מֹשֶׁה רַבֵּינוּ, ); syr, ܡܘܫܐ, Mūše; ar, موسى, Mūsā; grc, Mωϋσῆς, Mōÿsēs () is considered the most important pr ...

-like leader (

), its

prophet In religion, a prophet or prophetess is an individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divine being and is said to speak on behalf of that being, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings from the ...

s (

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 18 ...

Thomas Paine Thomas Paine (born Thomas Pain; – In the contemporary record as noted by Conway, Paine's birth date is given as January 29, 1736–37. Common practice was to use a dash or a slash to separate the old-style year from the new-style year. In th ...

), disciples (

Alexander Hamilton Alexander Hamilton (January 11, 1755 or 1757July 12, 1804) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first United States secretary of the treasury from 1789 to 1795. Born out of wedlock in Charle ...

James Madison James Madison Jr. (March 16, 1751June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, diplomat, and Founding Father. He served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison is hailed as the "Father of the Constitution" for h ...

) and

martyr A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...

s (

Boston Massacre The Boston Massacre (known in Great Britain as the Incident on King Street) was a confrontation in Boston on March 5, 1770, in which a group of nine British soldiers shot five people out of a crowd of three or four hundred who were harassing t ...

Crispus Attucks Crispus Attucks ( – March 5, 1770) was an American whaler, sailor, and stevedore of African and Native American descent, commonly regarded as the first person killed in the Boston Massacre and thus the first American killed in the Amer ...

Nathan Hale Nathan Hale (June 6, 1755 – September 22, 1776) was an American Patriot, soldier and spy for the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He volunteered for an intelligence-gathering mission in New York City but was captured ...

), as well as its devils (

Benedict Arnold Benedict Arnold ( Brandt (1994), p. 4June 14, 1801) was an American military officer who served during the Revolutionary War. He fought with distinction for the American Continental Army and rose to the rank of major general before defect ...

), holy sites (

Valley Forge Valley Forge functioned as the third of eight winter encampments for the Continental Army's main body, commanded by General George Washington, during the American Revolutionary War. In September 1777, Congress fled Philadelphia to escape the ...

, Bunker Hill), rituals (

Boston Tea Party The Boston Tea Party was an American political and mercantile protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 16, 1773. The target was the Tea Act of May 10, 1773, which allowed the British East India Company to sell t ...

), holy symbol ( the new flag), sacred holidays (

), and holy scriptures whose every sentence is carefully studied or legally applied ( The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights).

Great Men

There are innumerable monuments or commemorations of the major

Founding Fathers The following list of national founding figures is a record, by country, of people who were credited with establishing a state. National founders are typically those who played an influential role in setting up the systems of governance, (i.e. ...

, with the names of Washington and Jefferson most often selected for buildings, sculptures,

postage The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letters, and parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid-19th century, national postal syst ...

, and

currency A currency, "in circulation", from la, currens, -entis, literally meaning "running" or "traversing" is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as a medium of exchange, for example banknotes and coins. A more general ...

. In the 1920s, Washington and Jefferson, together with Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, were chosen by sculptor

Gutzon Borglum John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum (March 25, 1867 – March 6, 1941) was an American sculptor best known for his work on Mount Rushmore. He is also associated with various other public works of art across the U.S., including Stone Mountain in Georg ...

and approved by President

Calvin Coolidge Calvin Coolidge (born John Calvin Coolidge Jr.; ; July 4, 1872January 5, 1933) was the 30th president of the United States from 1923 to 1929. Born in Vermont, Coolidge was a Republican lawyer from New England who climbed up the ladder of Ma ...

to be the four American heroes celebrated at the

Mount Rushmore National Memorial Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a national memorial centered on a colossal sculpture carved into the granite face of Mount Rushmore (Lakota: ''Tȟuŋkášila Šákpe'', or Six Grandfathers) in the Black Hills near Keystone, South Dakot ...

. Attendance at the remote South Dakota site reached a million visitors a year in 1959, and passed the two million level in 2005.

Sites and battlefields

Today, more than 100 battlefields and historic sites of the American Revolution are protected and maintained by federal, state and local governments. The

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational properti ...

, a federal agency, alone owns and maintains more than 50 battlefield parks and sites related to the Revolution. On Veteran's Day (November 11) in 2014, the

Civil War Trust The American Battlefield Trust is a charitable organization (501(c)(3)) whose primary focus is in the preservation of battlefields of the American Civil War, the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 through acquisition of battlefield land. T ...

, the

Society of the Cincinnati The Society of the Cincinnati is a fraternal, hereditary society founded in 1783 to commemorate the American Revolutionary War that saw the creation of the United States. Membership is largely restricted to descendants of military officers wh ...

and other preservation groups announced the creation of "Campaign 1776," an initiative to protect and interpret the battlefields of the American Revolution and the War of 1812. As does the

, "Campaign 1776" uses public-private partnerships to provide the funding to acquire battlefield properties. By the end of 2017, "Campaign 1776" had acquired more than 675 battlefield acres at 10 battlefields of the Revolutionary War or War of 1812 in six states. On May 8, 2018, the organization became the

American Battlefield Trust The American Battlefield Trust is a charitable organization (501(c)(3)) whose primary focus is in the preservation of battlefields of the American Civil War, the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 through acquisition of battlefield land. T ...

comprised two divisions, the Civil War Trust and the Revolutionary War Trust.

Bicentennial of 1976

The

United States Bicentennial The United States Bicentennial was a series of celebrations and observances during the mid-1970s that paid tribute to historical events leading up to the creation of the United States of America as an independent republic. It was a central event ...

was a series of celebrations and observances during the mid-1970s that paid tribute to historical events leading up to the creation of the United States of America as an independent republic. It was a central event in the memory of the

. The Bicentennial culminated on Sunday, July 4, 1976, with the 200th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.

Commemorations of the Revolutionary War

After the first U.S. postage stamp was issued in 1849 the U.S. Post Office frequently issued commemorative stamps celebrating the various events of the Revolutionary War.

Fiction, film, popular culture

The American Revolution has been featured in many forms of popular culture. Nancy Rhoden, a Canadian specialist on the Revolutionary era has evaluated the evidence, accuracy, and the historical themes employed by twelve Hollywood films featuring the American Revolution from 1939 to 2002. In covering the major characters, heroes and villains, Patriots and Loyalists, plots, and social and class themes, she compares cinematic understandings of the Revolution with the interpretations of historians to reveal thematic consistencies, variations, and conceptual gulfs between filmmakers and historians.

Organizations

Daughters of the American Revolution The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) is a lineage-based membership service organization for women who are directly descended from a person involved in the United States' efforts towards independence. A non-profit group, they promote ...

, a congressionally chartered organization founded in 1890; its members are female descendants of soldiers or others of the Revolutionary period who aided the cause of American independence. *

Daughters of the Cincinnati The Daughters of the Cincinnati is a historical, hereditary lineage organization founded in 1894 by women whose ancestors were officers in George Washington’s army and navy during the American Revolutionary War. Headquartered in New York City, th ...

, a hereditary organization founded in 1894, and composed of women who are direct descendants of officers of the

Continental Army The Continental Army was the army of the United Colonies (the Thirteen Colonies) in the Revolutionary-era United States. It was formed by the Second Continental Congress after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, and was establis ...

Navy A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions. It in ...

who served in the Revolutionary War. *

Children of the American Revolution The National Society Children of the American Revolution (NSCAR) is a youth organization that was founded on April 5, 1895, by Harriett Lothrop. The idea was proposed on February 22, 1895, at the Fourth Continental Congress of the National Socie ...

, a congressionally chartered organization founded 1895 (now the nation's oldest and largest patriotic youth organization); membership is open to anyone under the age of 22 who is a direct descendant of someone who served in the Continental Army or gave material aid to the cause of freedom in the American Revolution. *

, A hereditary society founded in 1783, and composed of men who are male-line descendants of officers of the Continental Army or Navy who served in the Revolutionary War. *

Sons of the American Revolution The National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution (SAR or NSSAR) is an American congressionally chartered organization, founded in 1889 and headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky. A non-profit corporation, it has described its purpose ...

, a congressionally chartered organization founded in 1889; its members are men who are direct descendants of persons who served in the Revolutionary War or who contributed to establishing the independence of the United States. *

Sons of the Revolution Sons of the Revolution is a hereditary society which was founded in 1876 and educates the public about the American Revolution. The General Society Sons of the Revolution headquarters is a Pennsylvania non-profit corporation located at Wi ...

, a hereditary society founded in 1876, and composed of men who are direct descendants of persons who served as a military, naval, or

marine Marine is an adjective meaning of or pertaining to the sea or ocean. Marine or marines may refer to: Ocean * Maritime (disambiguation) * Marine art * Marine biology * Marine debris * Marine habitats * Marine life * Marine pollution Military ...

officer, soldier, sailor or marine, or as a member of the

Continental Congress The Continental Congress was a series of legislative bodies, with some executive function, for thirteen of Britain's colonies in North America, and the newly declared United States just before, during, and after the American Revolutionary War. ...

or who assisted in the establishment of American independence in various other ways.

Memory

Great Men

Sites and battlefields

Bicentennial of 1976

Commemorations of the Revolutionary War

Fiction, film, popular culture

Organizations

See also

References

Further reading

Films and TV, popular culture