The bell traditionally associated with Philadelphia’s 1776 reading of the Declaration of Independence is the Liberty Bell.
The bell was commissioned by Pennsylvania’s Provincial Assembly in 1751 and cast in London the following year. Its inscription comes from Leviticus: “Proclaim LIBERTY Throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants Thereof.” The bell was installed at the Pennsylvania State House, now Independence Hall.
A popular nineteenth-century story claimed that the bell rang on July 4, 1776, after Congress adopted the Declaration. Historians have found no contemporary evidence for that episode. It is considered likely, though not certain, that the bell was among Philadelphia’s bells rung on July 8, when the Declaration was first formally read in public.
The name “Liberty Bell” became widely established in the 1830s through abolitionist use. Its crack, visible today, developed after years of use and was enlarged during an attempted repair in the nineteenth century.