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1. The Fourth of July was once a raucous, avowedly partisan, boozy occasion—so how did it become a celebratory civic gathering? Gather round for a tale of bonfires, fireworks, and patriotic tetanus. theatlantic.com/national/archi…
2. In the young republic, the Glorious Fourth was the premier political holiday, filled with partisan speeches, processions, and public feasts. Revelers might’ve been surprised if the occasion *wasn’t* politicized.
3. By the late 1800s, these gatherings gave way to more individualized celebrations—featuring gunfire, toy cannons, firecrackers, and astonishing quantities of liquor.
4. By 1903, when JAMA first counted, the celebrations left more than 400 dead and nearly 4,000 injured, as “patriotic tetanus” infected wounds. (Camden, the bloodiest battle of the Revolutionary War, had produced just 1,050 patriot casualties.)
5. Reformers campaigned for a “safe and sane” Fourth of July. That meant pulling kids out of alleyways and parents out of drunken revelry. And that, in turn, required producing some sort of spectacular show as the centerpiece of the celebrations.
6. Springfield, Massachusetts, a leading reformer soon boasted, had instituted "a great festival in which all citizens, young and old, native and foreign-born, realize their unity in a common celebration.” This became the new way to mark American independence.
7. My favorite such celebrations were in New England, where towns competed to erect the largest bonfires the world has ever seen out of old casks and barrels, some topping 100 feet. Elsewhere, fireworks displayed prevailed: theatlantic.com/national/archi…
8. But what began as a successful effort to halt a senseless annual slaughter became something more along the way—a day when Americans could set aside their differences and celebrate shoulder-to-shoulder.
9. It’s not that the Fourth has always been some sort of sacred shelter from partisanship that tomorrow’s festivities concern me. It’s precisely because that development is relatively recent—and has proven so valuable—that it seems worth defending.
