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| state = | municipality = Philadelphia | city = | building = | location = Liberty Bell Center | elevation_imperial = 30 | prominence_imperial = | lat_d = 39 | lat_m = 56 | lat_s = 58.15 | lat_NS = N | long_d = 75 | long_m = 9 | long_s = 1.06 | long_EW = W | coordinates_display = inline,title | coordinates_type = | width_imperial = 12 | width_round = 1 | width_type = Circumference | height_imperial = | height_round = 1 | volume_imperial = | weight_imperial = 2080 | weight_round = -2 | weight1_imperial = | weight1_type = yoke | weight2_imperial = | weight2_type = clapper | author = Whitechapel Bell Foundry | author_type = Caster | style= | material = Copper | material1 = Tin | established = 1752 (Recast 1753 by Pass and Stow)| established_type = Cast | date = | owner = City of Philadelphia | public = | access = | free = | free_type = Musical note | free_label = Musical note it plays when chiming | map = Pennsylvania Locator Map.PNG | map_size = | map_caption = Location of the Liberty Bell within Pennsylvania | map_locator = Pennsylvania | map1 = | map1_caption = | website = (nps.gov/inde/liberty-bell-center.htm ) Liberty Bell Center | footnotes = }} The Liberty Bell is an iconic symbol of American independence, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Formerly placed in the steeple of the Pennsylvania State House (now renamed Independence Hall), the bell today is located in the Liberty Bell Center in Independence National Historical Park. The bell was commissioned from the London firm of Lester and Pack (today the Whitechapel Bell Foundry) in 1752, and was cast with the lettering "Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof," a Biblical reference from the Book of Leviticus (25:10). The bell first cracked when rung after its arrival in Philadelphia, and was twice recast by local workmen John Pass and John Stow, whose last names appear on the bell. In its early years, the Liberty Bell was used to summon lawmakers to legislative sessions and to alert citizens to public meetings and proclamations. No immediate announcement was made of the Second Continental Congress's vote for independence, and thus the bell could not have rung on July 4, 1776, at least not for any reason related to that vote. Bells were rung to mark the reading of the Declaration of Independence on July 8, 1776, and while there is no contemporary account of the Liberty Bell ringing, most historians believe it was one of the bells rung. After American independence was secured, it fell into relative obscurity for some years. In the 1830s, the bell was adopted as a symbol by abolitionist societies, who dubbed it the "Liberty Bell." Similarly suffragists adopted the bell as a symbol, calling it the "justice bell." The bell acquired its distinctive large crack sometime in the early 19th century—a widespread story claims it cracked while ringing after the death of Chief Justice John Marshall in 1835. The bell became famous after an 1847 short story claimed that an aged bell-ringer rang it on July 4, 1776, upon hearing of the Second Continental Congress's vote for independence. Despite the fact that the bell did not ring for independence on that July 4, the tale was widely accepted as fact, even by some historians. Beginning in 1885, the City of Philadelphia, which owns the bell, allowed it to go to various expositions and patriotic gatherings. The bell attracted huge crowds wherever it went, additional cracking occurred and pieces were chipped away by souvenir hunters. The last such journey occurred in 1915, after which the city refused further requests. After World War II, the city allowed the National Park Service to take custody of the bell, while retaining ownership. The bell was used as a symbol of freedom during the Cold War and was a popular site for protests in the 1960s. It was moved from its longtime home in Independence Hall to a nearby glass pavilion on Independence Mall in 1976, and then to the larger Liberty Bell Center adjacent to the pavilion in 2003. The bell has been featured on coins and stamps, and its name and image have been widely used by corporations. == Founding (1751–1753) == Philadelphia's city bell had been used to alert the public to proclamations or civic danger since the city's 1682 founding. The original bell hung from a tree behind the Pennsylvania State House (now known as Independence Hall) and was said to have been brought to the city by its founder, William Penn. In 1751, with a bell tower being built in the Pennsylvania State House, civic authorities sought a bell of better quality, which could be heard at a greater distance in the rapidly expanding city.〔Nash, pp. 1–2〕 Isaac Norris, speaker of the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly, gave orders to the colony's London agent, Robert Charles, to obtain a "good Bell of about two thousands pound weight".〔
Charles duly ordered the bell from Thomas Lester of the London bellfounding firm of Lester and Pack (today the Whitechapel Bell Foundry)〔The Franklin Institute, p. 19〕 for the sum of £150 13s 8d,〔One hundred fifty pounds, thirteen shillings and eightpence.〕 (equivalent to £ today)〔 The same site indicates that the pound sterling was worth $1.85 in 2008.〕 including freight to Philadelphia and insurance. It arrived in Philadelphia in August 1752. Norris wrote to Charles that the bell was in good order, but they had not yet sounded it, as they were building a clock for the State House's tower.〔Kimball, p. 20〕 The bell was mounted on a stand to test the sound, and at the first strike of the clapper, the bell's rim cracked. The episode would be used to good account in later stories of the bell;〔Nash, p. 7〕 in 1893, former President Benjamin Harrison, speaking as the bell passed through Indianapolis, stated, "This old bell was made in England, but it had to be re-cast in America before it was attuned to proclaim the right of self-government and the equal rights of men." Philadelphia authorities tried to return it by ship, but the master of the vessel which had brought it was unable to take it on board.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=The Liberty Bell )〕 Two local founders, John Pass and John Stow, offered to recast the bell. Though they were inexperienced in bell casting, Pass had headed the Mount Holly Iron Foundry in neighboring New Jersey and came from Malta, which had a tradition of bell casting. Stow, on the other hand, was only four years out of his apprenticeship as a brass founder. At Stow's foundry on Second Street, the bell was broken into small pieces, melted down, and cast into a new bell. The two founders decided that the metal was too brittle, and augmented the bell metal by about ten percent, using copper. The bell was ready in March 1753, and Norris reported that the lettering (which included the founders' names and the year) was even clearer on the new bell than on the old.〔Nash, p. 7–10〕 City officials scheduled a public celebration with free food and drink for the testing of the recast bell. When the bell was struck, it did not break, but the sound produced was described by one hearer as like two coal scuttles being banged together. Mocked by the crowd, Pass and Stow hastily took the bell away and again recast it. When the fruit of the two founders' renewed efforts was brought forth in June 1753, the sound was deemed satisfactory, though Norris indicated that he did not personally like it. The bell was hung in the steeple of the State House the same month.〔Nash, pp. 10–11〕 The reason for the difficulties with the bell is not certain. The Whitechapel Foundry, still in business today, takes the position that the bell was either damaged in transit or was broken by an inexperienced bell ringer, who incautiously sent the clapper flying against the rim, rather than the body of the bell.〔Nash, p. 9〕 In 1975, the Winterthur Museum conducted an analysis of the metal in the bell, and concluded that "a series of errors made in the construction, reconstruction, and second reconstruction of the Bell resulted in a brittle bell that barely missed being broken up for scrap".〔Hanson, p. 7〕 The Museum found a considerably higher level of tin in the Liberty Bell than in other Whitechapel bells of that era, and suggested that Whitechapel made an error in the alloy, perhaps by using scraps with a high level of tin to begin the melt instead of the usual pure copper.〔Hanson, p. 5〕 The analysis found that, on the second recasting, instead of adding pure tin to the bell metal, Pass and Stow added cheap pewter with a high lead content, and incompletely mixed the new metal into the mold.〔Hanson, p. 4〕 The result was "an extremely brittle alloy which not only caused the Bell to fail in service but made it easy for early souvenir collectors to knock off substantial trophies from the rim".〔Hanson, p. 3〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「liberty bell」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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