The bell became widely famous after a short story in 1847 claimed that an old bell-ringer rang it on July 4, 1776, after hearing the Second Continental Congress's vote for independence. Actually, the bell could not have been rung on that Fourth of July, because no announcement of the Declaration was made that day. However, many people believed this story. Even some historians accepted it as a fact. From 1885, the City of Philadelphia, which owned the bell, allowed it to go to many different patriotic meetings. Many people came to see the bell, and it grew even more cracked. Pieces were broken off by souvenir hunters. The last such journey was in 1915. After that, the city refused any more requests of that kind.
Ever since the city began in 1682, Philadelphia had been using its city bell to make its people know about meetings or civil danger. The first bell hung from a tree behind the Pennsylvania State House, now known as Independence Hall. In 1751, a bell tower was built in the Pennsylvania State House, and the leaders there began looking for a bell which could be heard from far away (the city was growing larger quickly). Isaac Norris, speaker of the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly, ordered the colony's London agent, Robert Charles, to get a "good Bell of about two thousands pound weight".
We hope and rely (trust) on thy (your) care and assistance (help) in this affair and that thou (you) wilt (will) procure (get) and forward it by the first good opp as our workmen inform us it will be much less trouble to hang the Bell before their Scaffolds are struck from the Building where we intend (wish) to place it which will not be done 'till the end of next Summer or beginning of the Fall. Let the bell be cast by the best workmen & examined carefully before it is Shipped with the following words well shaped around it vizt.<br>
By Order of the Assembly of the Povince  of Pensylvania  for the State house in the City of Philada 1752<br>
the home of the Liberty Bell was philadelphia
Proclaim Liberty thro' all the Land to all the Inhabitants thereof.-Levit. XXV. 10.
So Charles paid Lester and Pack (today the Whitechapel Bell Foundry) £150 13s 8d, (the same amount of money as about $36,400 today) for the bell, including the cost of taking it to Philadelphia and its insurance. It arrived in Philadelphia in August 1752.
A big reason why the bell became famous was because of a writer named George Lippard. On January 2, 1847, his story "Fourth of July, 1776" appeared in "Saturday Review" magazine. The short story was about an old man on July 4, 1776. It described how he was sitting sadly by the bell, afraid that Congress would not be able to declare independence. Suddenly, a young boy comes to tell the old man to ring the bell. The story was widely reprinted. This made people think of the Liberty Bell and the Declaration of Independence as closely related.
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright (born Frank Lincoln Wright; June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was a famous American architect from the early 20th century. He designed all kinds of buildings including banks, holiday resorts, office buildings, churches, a synagogue, a gas station, a beer garden and an art museum.
Wright designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 532 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in peace with humanity and its environment. He called his belief organic architecture. He used this technique for his design for Fallingwater (1935), which has been called "the best all-time work of American architecture". Wright was a leader of the Prairie School movement of architecture and developed the image of the Usonian home, his one-of-a-kind vision for urban planning in the United States.
He began an American style of building design and is said to be one of the greatest architects of the twentieth century.
Wright was born in Richland Center, Wisconsin on June 8, 1867 to a farming family.
His work includes original and creative examples of many building types. Wright also designed many of the interior elements of his buildings, such as the furniture and stained glass. Wright authored 20 books and many articles and was a popular lecturer in the United States and in Europe.
His colorful personal life often made headlines, most notably for the 1914 fire and murders at his Taliesin studio. Already well-known during his lifetime, Wright was recognized in 1991 by the American Institute of Architects as "the greatest American architect of all time."
Wright died on April 9, 1959 in Phoenix, Arizona from surgical complications. He was 91 years old.
Frank Lloyd Wright was born in the farming town of Richland Center, Wisconsin, United States, on June 8, 1867. He was born Frank Lincoln Wright. His father, William Carey Wright (1825–1904), was a locally admired speaker, music teacher, sometimes a lawyer, and minister. William Wright had met and married Anna Lloyd Jones (1838/39 – 1923), a county school teacher of Welsh descent, the previous year when he was employed as the superintendent of schools for Richland County.
The Wright family moved from Richland Center to Weymouth, Massachusetts. Afterwards, The Wright Family struggled financially in Weymouth and returned to Spring Green, Wisconsin. They settled in Madison. Although William was a distant parent, he shared his love of music, especially the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, with his children.
Wright attended a Madison High School, but there is no evidence he ever graduated. He was admitted to the University of Wisconsin–Madison as a special student in 1886. There he joined Phi Delta Theta fraternity, took classes part-time for two semesters, and worked with a professor of civil engineering, Allan D. Conover. He moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1887.
Wright did not get along well with other draftsmen. He wrote that several violent events happened between them during the first years of his apprenticeship. Afterwards many other draftsmen showed very little respect for his employees as well. In spite of this, "Sullivan took [Wright] under his wing and gave him great design responsibility." As an act of respect, Wright would later refer to Sullivan as "Lieber Meister" (German for "Dear Master"). Wright also formed a bond with office foreman Paul Mueller. Wright would later engage Mueller to build several of his public and commercial buildings between 1903 and 1923.
As Wright began to work on residential projects for Adler & Sullivan. Wright designed his houses on his own time. Sullivan knew nothing of Wright's works until 1893, when he recognized that one of the houses was a Frank Lloyd Wright design. This particular house, built for Allison Harlan, was only blocks away from Sullivan's townhouse in the Chicago community of Kenwood.
Many examples of his work are in Buffalo, New York as a result of friendship between Wright and Darwin D. Martin. In 1902, the Larkin Company decided to build a new building. Wright came to Buffalo and designed not only the Larkin Administration Building (completed in 1904, demolished in 1950), but also homes for three of the company's executives including the Darwin D. Martin House in 1904. Wright later built their summer home. He also designed the Graycliff Estate, also designed for Darwin D. Martin and his wife, Isabelle.
On August 15, 1914, while Wright was working in Chicago, Julian Carlton, a male servant from Barbados who had been hired several months earlier, set fire to the living room of Taliesin and murdered seven people with an axe as the fire burned. The dead included Mamah; her two children, John and Martha; a gardener; a draftsman named Emil Brodelle; a worker; and another workman's son. Two people survived the mayhem. One of them helped to put out the fire that almost completely burned the residential wing of the house.