By September 1, 1752, the bell now known as the Liberty Bell had arrived in Philadelphia from London. It had been commissioned for the Pennsylvania State House, today known as Independence Hall, and was cast by the Whitechapel foundry in England.
The bell bore the words: “Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof,” a biblical quotation from Leviticus. The inscription was originally tied to Pennsylvania’s political traditions rather than to the later American Revolution.
Soon after arriving, the bell cracked during testing. Philadelphia founders John Pass and John Stow recast it in 1753, producing the bell that survives today. It would not become a powerful national emblem until much later, when abolitionists and reformers embraced it as a symbol of freedom and equality—ideals the United States has often proclaimed more easily than it has fulfilled.
