Philadelphia of 1776 Would Be Ashamed of its 2023 Version
Has the ‘pursuit of happiness’ made us a less just, tranquil, and perfect union?
It must have been heady days in colonial Philadelphia. Dressed in heavy coats of a wool-linen mix, wearing silk stockings and in most cases wigs, the founding fathers gathered at Independence Hall to put their ideas of a better and more egalitarian nation both onto paper and into the history books.
Afraid that loyalist spies might be lurking outside of the first-floor windows of the hall where the declaration was being discussed, everything was buttoned up, and the shutters were latched closed to prevent any sound from exiting — and any air from getting inside. The temperatures on July 4th, 1776 were in the 80s. There were, of course, no air conditioners or fans. The men gathered inside were as clean as they could be, and some like Thomas Paine, less so, and so the air must have been as ripe as the sewage and manure-littered streets of Philadelphia 1776.
“During June and July of 1776, temperatures in Philadelphia were in the upper 80s and the low 90s.”
Keri Diethorn is the Chief Curator at Independence Hall. She says before air conditioning and electric fans, Philadelphians just had to sweat it out.
