Cloche La Savoyarde du Sacré-Coeur de Montmartre-1907

Fonderie Paccard is a French

foundry A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal into a mold, and removing the mold material after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals pr ...

Annecy Annecy ( , ; frp, Èneci or ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Haute-Savoie department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of Southeastern France. It lies on the northern tip of Lake Annecy, south of Geneva, Switzerland. Nicknamed ...

. Founded in 1796, the foundry has cast more than 120,000

bell A bell is a directly struck idiophone percussion instrument. Most bells have the shape of a hollow cup that when struck vibrates in a single strong strike tone, with its sides forming an efficient resonator. The strike may be made by an inter ...

s located throughout the world. The foundry has been continuously operated by seven generations of the Paccard family. The largest bell cast by Paccard is the

World Peace Bell The World Peace Bell Association (WPBA) is a Japanese organisation which attempts to raise awareness of the World peace movement by casting and installing Japanese temple bells in locations around the world. The association was effectively beg ...

. Paccard is best known in the United States for its participation in the Liberty Bell Savings Bond Project. As part of the

Marshall Plan The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was an American initiative enacted in 1948 to provide foreign aid to Western Europe. The United States transferred over $13 billion (equivalent of about $ in ) in economic re ...

, the foundry cast 57 replicas of the

Liberty Bell The Liberty Bell, previously called the State House Bell or Old State House Bell, is an iconic symbol of American independence, located in Philadelphia. Originally placed in the steeple of the Pennsylvania State House (now renamed Independence ...

in 1950 and 1951. Most of the bells were distributed, one each, to the then-48 U.S. states as tributes to their citizens' respective services in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. Most of the Liberty Bell Project bells survive and are on public display.

References

External links

Paccard website
Bell foundries Carillon makers French companies established in 1796 Manufacturing companies established in 1796 Musical instrument manufacturing companies of France {{France-company-stub