The United States is gearing up to celebrate our Semiquincentennial, otherwise known as the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. This forthcoming celebration leaves me extremely conflicted. Local historic sites, museums, and archives have been making plans to mark the occasion for months, even years. As an active volunteer at several historic sites, I have paid close attention to the various “250” committees that have formed both locally and statewide. I even wrote a grant for a women’s history project that was successfully funded through the Philadelphia Funder Collaborative for the Semiquincentennial. Yet, even in the waning months of 2024, and before we watched the countless Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grants disintegrate before our eyes these past few weeks, it has all felt a bit like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The closer we get to July 2026, the more squeamish I become. I wonder, what exactly are we celebrating?

Case in point. In mid-April I was invited to attend the private opening of Banners of Liberty: An Exhibition of Original Revolutionary War Flags at the Museum of the American Revolution (MoAR). It is billed as the largest gathering of rare and significant Revolutionary War flags in more than two centuries. The public opening date of April 19th was specifically chosen on the 250th anniversary of the “shot heard round the world” which preceded the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Of the estimated 30 surviving Revolutionary War era flags carried into battle, this exhibition features 17, including MoAR’s prized possession, the Commander-in-Chief Standard, which helped General Washington’s troops track his movements through the smoke of the battlefield. As Scott Stephenson, MoAR’s president and CEO, evocatively stated in his opening remarks “The soldiers marched under these banners into the mouths of cannons for the promise of the American Revolution.”

It’s heady stuff. Especially if you add in this quote from The Pennsylvania Mercury published on June 9, 1776, which presumably served as the inspiration for the exhibit’s title. “The aged, as well as the young, daily march out under the banners of liberty, and discover a determined resolution to maintain her cause even until death.”

Likewise, the exhibit’s graphic imagery featuring Howard Pyle’s The Nation Makers from 1902, a painting from the collection of the Brandywine Museum of Art, heightens the sentiment. Pyle, part of the notable Brandywine School of Artists, was the master of elaborate hyperrealistic illustration. He recreated the fanciful worlds of Robin Hood, King Arthur, a plethora of swashbuckling pirates, and, of course, the battles of the American Revolution. Like most Colonial Revival mythmakers, his battle scenes were meant to convey optimism and a faith in the goodness of America. Pyle’s quiet influence should never be understated.

Which brings us back to the point of the Banners of Liberty exhibit. Here we see various groups of individuals—colonies which are not yet a nation—working to create a persona which might also foster a political identity. Each flag has a message. The symbology represented has been well-debated. It’s where our mythmaking begins.

During the usual round of introductions and remarks from staff and supporters at the base of MoAR’s grand spiral staircase, I found myself reflecting back to a mere two years prior. That evening in February 2023 was a different opening event and a visibly different tone. The opening celebration of Black Founders: The Forten Family of Philadelphia had been such a revelation. I needed to write about it and did. It felt like real progress in expanding history beyond the concept that the American Revolution is more than a single moment in time, beyond that “shot heard round the world,” and the once more into the breach-of-it-all. That seismic shift I felt back then suddenly felt ephemeral. The optics and the difference in energy of this opening night as compared to the previous one could not be denied. We live in a different world. And as Amy Cohen reminded us in her recent op-ed published by Hidden City, “Philly Must Fight the Erasure of Black History,” we are all responsible for protecting the progress made in integrating African American history into the mainstream whole. Our history is, after all, a singular story with many viewpoints.

This was not an opening full of Forten exuberance. It was reserved. The audience cared deeply about that singular moment in time. Was I judging too harshly? When I made my way into the exhibit space, there was yet another noticeable shift. A hush. A reverence. The energy of a thousand individual stories of sacrifice woven into each flag. To be fair, there was also some excitement. Several members of the Society of the Cincinnati of New Hampshire, who had funded the conservation work of one of the two flags on loan from the New Hampshire Historical Society, were exuberant in seeing their flag and meeting the woman who did the conversation work. They were proud. This flag, paid for in 1777 by the New Hampshire Committee of Safety, was sewn by a Boston milliner named Fanny Johonnot Williams, from blue silk provided by her brother Nathan Blodgett. A man named Daniel Rea Jr., painted a heraldic motto, “The Glory Not the Prey,” in red and gold. The British union was stitched in its canton. This flag was captured just months after completion by the British 9th Regiment of Foot and sent to England as a war trophy until it was donated to the New Hampshire Historical Society in 1913. Had it not been captured would this painted silk flag survived?

While standing in front of Pulaski’s Legion Standard I met a man whose life work is recreating flags for museums and film. If you have seen the movie Glory, you have witnessed his work in action. We bonded over a double-sided, circa 1778 red silk and silver flag with fringe and appliques, which also featured ornate flaming bombs on each corner. Casimir Pulaski was a Polish volunteer who was commissioned as a commanding officer. Among his ranks where British, Irish, French, Polish, and Hungarian volunteers. When granted congressional permission to raise his own legion, he turned to the Moravian Single Sisters of Bethlehem who created this masterpiece. One side features the Latin phrase Unita Virtus Forcior (United Valor is Greater), and the verso features God’s all-seeing-eye with the words Non Alius Regit (No Other Governs.) We both stood in awe admiring the handiwork of the Moravian Single Sisters.

Flags and their symbolism have become a flashpoint of conflict. I know I am not the only one who wonders what it says when a person flies a simple American flag outside their home. Does it make you a patriot? What do our American symbols even represent at this point? Apparently, the appropriation of symbols was an American thing before we were a United States. Take Benjamin Franklin’s “Join, or Die” political cartoon published in 1754. In the context of the French and Indian War, the dissected snake featured was Franklin’s editorial on the “disunited state” of the colonies. According to The Charleston Museum website, a man named Christopher Gadsden presented a similar coiled snake with the words “Don’t Tread On Me” to the commander of the newly established U.S. Navy in 1775 and a second time to South Carolina’s state congress in 1776. The snake became an emblem of true courage as an attribution to as Franklin states it “never begins an attack, nor, when once engaged, ever surrenders.” It’s all about respect.

Imagine my surprise when I recently discovered a bright yellow envelope featuring the Gadsden flag inside my mailbox. It was junk mail, but I was too curious to simply toss it into the recycle bin. “Dear Fellow Patriot…” began the letter signed by the president of The Heritage Foundation, which was followed by two pages of double-speak on liberty and “heritage” education. Included was an authorization form that would guarantee me my own Gadsden flag for a $35 contribution. I felt the need for a shower after I read the rhetoric. I later reread the letter in the hopes I might decipher the double-speak. What is liberty? Everything changed after our most recent presidential inauguration. I am now a middle-aged white woman who feels less safe and free than I have in my entire lifetime. I just reread the letter again as I write this. I burst out in laughter after reading this line. “The Gadsden Flag is an inspiration for all who are sick of Washington trampling the Constitution and catering to corporate lobbyists and radical leftists.” What happens if we substitute that very last word? Nothing means what you think it does. It’s not just me, right?

We Americans are great at looking back. Yet, as we approach our 250th anniversary of declaring our independence, might we serve ourselves better if we look forward instead. When someone asks me to pick a time-travel era, I always think about going back. It never dawns on me to visit the future. The Centennial Exposition held in Philadelphia in 1876 is a time and place high on my go-to list. It was when the world came together to not just commemorate the Declaration of Independence, but to celebrate cultural advancements in all realms. To celebrate progress through inventions like the typewriter, the sewing machine, and the telephone. I want to see all those people and all those buildings that populated Fairmount Park in full-swing. The Sesquicentennial Exposition in 1926 also holds some curiosity. After fighting to gain their right to vote, this was a moment when women were working to further assert their authority. There was also a resurgence of white supremacy which helped push forward the American Eugenics Society movement. Yet, these women weren’t looking forward, but rather finding their authority by connecting to their patriot ancestors by creating a Colonial Revival “High Street” village. You could visit a recreation of Sulgrave Manor, the English ancestral home of the Washington family. Or you could have a meal in the Indian Queen Tavern. However, these meals could only be enjoyed by white attendees. Was this progress?

Apparently, all American flags are not created equal. The Atwater Kent Collection at Drexel University recently announced that their IMLS grant, to conserve the American flag carried by Commodore Mathew Perry when he visited Japan in 1854, had been cancelled. The flag had been displayed at the 1876 Centennial Exposition. The IMLS grant would have paid for a textile conservator to bring the flag back to its original glory. The reason cited by the federal agency, under the direction of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), was that the proposed work was “no longer consistent with the agency’s priorities and no longer serves the interest of the United States.” Then, just as suddenly, a late-night email arrived informing staff the grant had been restored. An internal review by the IMLS determined conserving this flag did further “the President’s agenda.”

When we look back at American history, are we truly seeking lessons so that we might not repeat our mistakes? Or are we merely looking to venerate our patriot ancestors? This seems to be where the dividing line currently falls. I am less interested in celebrating a flag for its representation of liberty, but more interested in the moments behind these flags. Tell me more about the Boston milliner Fanny Johonnot Williams. Tell me more about the Moravian Single Sisters. Tell me more about Pulaski’s second-in-command, the Hungarian cavalryman Mihály Kováts de Fabriczy. What liberties were they afforded after they put their lives on the line during the American Revolution?

Maybe this time of political turmoil has arrived precisely when it was supposed to. Perhaps, 250 years later, we are back to where we started. It took a dozen years for our newly-minted nation to figure out what came next. In January of 1790, George Washington wrote to Catharine Sawbridge Macaulay Graham after the establishment of the United States Constitution. “The establishment of our new Government seemed to be the last great experiment, for promoting human happiness, by reasonable compact, in civil Society.” Is it time for our great experiment to come to an end? Is this question where my growing queasiness resides? The historian Heather Cox Richardson has said, “The past has its own terrible inevitability. But it is never too late to change the future.” I remain conflicted about celebrating Revolutionary era flags, but, apparently, I took something away from spending time with them.

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Banners of Liberty: An Exhibition of Original Revolutionary War Flags is now on view at Museum of the American Revolution, 101 S. 3rd Street, until August 10. See the museum’s website for hours of operation and special events: https://www.amrevmuseum.org/exhibits/banners-of-liberty-an-exhibition-of-original-revolutionary-war-flags

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