Welcome! This is the first of a new blog series here at GHS about the ongoing US250 commemoration. As the United States approaches July 4, 2026, we’ll be exploring a host of topics related to the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution which we hope you’ll find informative, enlightening, and engaging.
In addition to all the programming and educational materials that GHS is implementing and developing this year, in this space we’ll discuss a variety of other subjects to help us understand the ongoing meaning of this momentous anniversary: Was the American Revolution an event or an idea? Why did the Founders choose to create a republic? Why didn’t the Founders do something about slavery? And where do the Founders—once universally revered—stand in American culture in 2026?
We’ll look at movies and documentaries (past and present), books about the Revolution and the generation that lived through it and the historians who write them, artifacts in the GHS collection, and what we can learn from the ways we commemorated previous anniversaries in 1826, 1876, 1926, and 1976.
We hope you’ll follow along and enjoy and learn more about what this national commemoration means, not only to those of us here in the 13th colony, but across the nation. Thank you for being here and let us know what you think!