1776 was a busy year. July 4th marks the birth of a new nation\u2014but the same year was also when thirteen colonies each declared their own independence to become \u201cstates\u201d.<\/p>\n
Today, Carpenter\u2019s Hall and America 250 PA announced a yearlong commemoration of Pennsylvania\u2019s own statehood.<\/p>\n
Multiple historical societies, think tanks, and civil rights groups are hosting events honoring the Pennsylvania Provincial Conference and Pennsylvania Constitution.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a year\u2019s worth of events to let people throughout the commonwealth know about that history and about why it\u2019s so important,\u201d said Brent Landau, executive director of the Public Interest Law Center.<\/p>\n
In the summer of 1776, the Philadelphia Carpenters\u2019 Company- a guild of craftsmen in the area- thought they\u2019d make some passive income on the building they owned.<\/p>\n
\u201cTthe hall was built as their meeting place,\u201d said Michael Norris, the current executive director of the Carpenters\u2019 Hall. \u201cWe rented it out to the first Continental Congress, thus becoming famous and important.\u201d<\/p>\n
A second, less discussed delegation met in the hall that same summer though.<\/p>\n
Under political pressure, Pennsylvania\u2019s colonial government dissolved in late May of 1776.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Continental Congress actually called on the colonies to have these individual convenings,\u201d Norris said.<\/p>\n
Representatives from all 12 counties that existed at the time met on June 18 for Pennsylvania\u2019s Provincial Conference. The next day, they declared independence and set about making a new state government.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the colonies individually voted for independence, it sort of gave them [the Continental Congress] cover to also, you know, to adopt the declaration,\u201d Norris said.<\/p>\n
Later that year, Pennsylvania\u2019s first constitution was ratified.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s not much of the 1776 constitution left in today\u2019s document,\u201d Norris said. \u201cOur current document was last majorly reformed in 1968.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fast forward to now\u2013 the commonwealth is remembering its roots. This year\u2019s commemoration events include lecture series, town halls, and even polling on reforms to Pennsylvania\u2019s current constitution.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea is for the community to be able to interact and ask questions and and share their views about it, too,\u201d Landau said.<\/p>\n
Events will review history, but also educate on how today\u2019s state constitution protects Pennsylvanian\u2019s rights.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us, it\u2019s all about- how do you take the history of how our country was founded,\u201d Norris said, \u201cand turn that into a reason for people to want to become civically engaged or more civically engaged today?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"1776 was a busy year. July 4th marks the birth of a new nation\u2014but the same year was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2288,37,28,5929,30,29],"class_list":["post-105417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-bureau","tag-harrisburg","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-capitol","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}