The Spirit of 1976: Commerce, Community, and the Politics of Commemoration

by Tammy S. Gordon

The most important national commemoration of the twentieth century, the 1976 bicentennial celebration gave rise to a broad-ranging debate over how the American Revolution should be remembered and represented. Federal planners seeking an uncritical glorification of the nation's founding came up against an array of constituencies with other interests and objectives. Inspired by the "new social history" that looked at the past "from the bottom up," Americans who had previously been disenfranchised by traditional national narratives―African Americans, women, American Indians, workers, young people―demanded a voice and representation in the planning. Local communities, similarly suspicious of federal direction, sought control over their own bicentennial events. Corporate representatives promoted an approach that championed the convergence of patriotism and private enterprise, while commercial interests applied the marketing techniques of an expanding consumerism to hawk every imaginable kind of patriotic souvenir to all of these groups.

The end result of these competing efforts, Tammy S. Gordon shows, was a national celebration that reflected some common themes, including a mistrust of federal power, an embrace of decentralized authority, and a new cultural emphasis on the importance of the self. The American Revolution Bicentennial can thus be seen as both a product of the social and political changes of the 1960s and a harbinger of things to come. After 1976, the postwar myth of a consensus view of American history came to an end, ensuring that future national commemorations would continue to be contested.

184 pages, Hardcover

First published December 31, 2013

Reviews

[Brian]

let me add some cucumbers to this word salad real quick

[maxgo]

This engaged me in a way that most scholarly works simply do not. Interesting, concise, thorough. And FUNNY. My favorite part:

And no swinging adult celebration could be complete without a trip to the coin-operated condom dispenser to buy “The All-American Novelty Condom.” Sold by the Chicago-based Federal Pharmacal, the package encouraged users to “Celebrate with a bang! One time for Old Glory.” Old Glory appeared printed on the condom itself along with the words “Old Glory” (in case by now the user still had not caught the double entendre).

[Andy Dorsey]

Although I appreciated the author's enthusiasm for the topic and could imagine that the university project from which this book stemmed was fun for all participants, I found there to be too little information here. For example, the fact that a Black delegate to the Civil War Centennial committee from New Jersey was denied a hotel room in the South, while truly interesting, shouldn't be repeated two or three times in a 150-page book about a different topic.

Perhaps the publisher wanted to keep costs low, but I would've preferred more pictures and analysis of objects produced at the time; this could have provided more substance. Alternatively, the book could have been condensed to a long article. Although I did get the historical insights I'd been seeking in advance of the current semiquincentennial, the book was simply too long for the amount of information it contained.

[Dave]

In 1976, the nation celebrated its 200th birthday. Historian Tammy Gordon outlines the national efforts to pull this off - including what came to be known as the "buycentennial sellabration" - and the many local and state events that people most appreciated and remember. Planning for the commemoration began as much as 10 years earlier, but as late as 1974, the organization in charge at the national level was going through major upheavals and corruption charges. This was the first major historical commemoration to really involve consumerism and corporations, but in her epilogue, Gordon makes it clear that this was just the beginning. Ten years later, Liberty Weekend - the centennial of the newly refurbished Statue of Liberty, became a Hollywood-style extravaganza.

[Kayla Price]

Interesting content and argument by the author but a lot longer than it needed to be to get the point across.

[Rebecca Brenner Graham]

the definitive must-read on the ‘buycentennial’ ‘sellabration’