ON THE 1976 BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATIONS

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V17 2014 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 17, Number 45, November 2, 2014, Article 15

In answer to Kay Freeman's comment on the lack of a celebration of the 1976 Bicentennial we have one person to blame. It was President Richard Nixon - to his shame, he squashed the plan for any world's fair that year.

Major cities all made proposals to hold a 1976 Bicentennial World's Fair in their city. Philadelphia because it was where all the action was 200 years earlier, Chicago because of the success of their 1892-3 and 1933 World's Fairs, New York City because they had a ready-made location where the 1939 and 1964 Fairs were held, and even Miami Florida they said because of the better weather.

Nixon delayed making a decision until it was too late for any successful planning. When finally pressed he indicated every city should have their own (thus no city got the approval). Shame on you, Nixon.

The 1892-3 Chicago World's Fair was a fascination for collectors, and numismatically so, because it was open season for collector's items. Anyone could have a medal made and issued for the fair. Over a thousand have been recorded. Nathan Eglit made the initial attempt to list them all in is 1963 catalog, Columbiana.

As a Chicago lawyer he had the resources to gather these in which the Chicago area was a rich source of these appearing on the market. He gathered these for years. After he died his son consigned a large group of these for me to auction (double sale Johnson & Jensen sale #15-16, March 25, 1961). I thought that was his collection. Later I learned these were his duplicates! Joe Levine auctioned his collection (Presidential Coin & Antique Co. sale #52, May 27, 1992).

Like Kay I enjoyed July 4, 1976 in New York City. I brought my family to the city where we established an overlook point on the bridge half a block down the street from the old ANS building. The Tall Ships display on the Hudson River was a full day's attraction. Until the rains came. The car was only a half block away but we were drowned in that short distance. However, the day was worth every minute and every discomfort!

In our conversation at the last Nummis NOVA dinner, Tom and I shared a hope that America would celebrate our 250th anniversary with the kind of exuberance and unanimity that we exhibited in 1876. Where I was (and still am) coming from is expressed in a this sidebar from my book:

Quite the Contrast!
The efficient involvement of the Federal government in exhibition business in the 1870s contrasts sharply with the fiasco of our Bicentennial celebration 100 years later. As Lynne Cheney wrote in her essay “1876: The Eagle Screams”: “Witness our own inability —unwillingness, perhaps—to put together a similar Bicentennial celebration. Philadelphia worked on Bicentennial plans for sixteen years, twice as long as it took to free the colonies from England, making and unmaking plans for an exhibition, discarding one site after another, trying to please social activists who wanted jobs for the poor instead of a party, businessmen who wanted the revenue from an exposition, homeowners who didn’t want the disturbance.”

I have no desire to ignite a controversy over something that I view as non-partisan patriotism (though I would relish the debate). I realize that even using these two words in a single sentence betrays me as a hopeless and undesirable neocolonial romantic. I personally doubt that America will muster enough patriotism and non-partisanship to match for its 250th anniversary what it accomplished for its 100th. Ms Freeman’s comment is a case in point, the first confirmatory nay-saying shot out of the barrel.

Besides, I do not remember saying that we should emulate the Sesquicentennial, nor that any local celebration, such as that in New York or anywhere else, was unworthy.