September 1: The Liberty Bell

The Liberty Bell, forged in London and engraved with words from Leviticus 25: 10 — “Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof” — arrived in Philadelphia on this date in 1752. The bell cracked at its first ringing and was twice repaired before acquiring its famous large crack in the early 1800s. It gained its name and its iconic status from abolitionist societies in the 1830s; in 1839, William Lloyd Garrison’s The Liberator reprinted a poem, “The Liberty Bell,” which noted that the bell, despite its inscription, did not proclaim liberty to all the inhabitants of the land. In fact, that Biblical inscription refers not only to individual “liberty,” but to the socialistic concept of the Jubilee Year (every half-century), when land lost in debt is restored to its owners and the accumulation of inherited wealth is thus forestalled.

“Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you - and you shall return every man unto his own clan, you shall return every man to his family.” —Leviticus