4th July Independence day - find out more about its history and significance by using these resources

Today is the 4th of July

The Document

Read the full text of the Declaration via the Library of Congress website
Find out about its drafting using this online exhibition. It gives insight using primary source documents into the editing and writing It also has a timeline of events. It is helpful to look at the original debates and proceeding relating to the constitution which are also available via the Library of Congress

The history of the celebrations.

The Library of Congress has a good succinct summary of the history of the celebrations with some historic photos.
Pioneering the Upper Midwest: Books from Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, ca. 1820 to 1910 contains Independence Day memories from citizens if you search by keyword. The good example highlighted by the Library of Congress is .Celebrating The Fourth,” a chapter of Lewis Reimann’s Between the Iron and the Pine: A Biography of A Pioneer Family and A Pioneer Town.

4th of July orations
The Internet archive provides free access to over 500 sermons and addresses given on the 4th July before 1913. they offer insight into isues of nationality and national identity.

For a different viewpoint consider the famous speech The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro by slave Frederick Douglass which was delivered on July 5th 1852.

"Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?