Liberty Bell Center
Cracked bronze bell cast in seventeen fifty-three, silenced mid-ring in eighteen forty-six, later named for a line from Leviticus.
This guide to the Liberty Bell Center in Philadelphia follows the bell from its first cracked test strike in 1753, through its recasting by local founders Pass and Stow, to the morning of February 23, 1846, when a zigzag fracture split it again mid-peal during a birthday celebration for George Washington. It traces how a plain piece of civic hardware, once known only as the State House Bell, later took on a new name from a line of Leviticus cast into its shoulder, and how abolitionists picked up that phrase decades after the Revolution. Stand close to the glass and trace the crack with your own eyes.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.