For this exhibit, we follow Pennsylvania's governance from 1701 to the present, watching as new peoples come to settle in Pennsylvania, as they reach for their rights and liberties, and as the meaning of liberty stretches and grows to meet them. We hope that visitors will gain understanding of how the heat of debate and the force of change create and preserve liberty and self-government even into our own time.

William Penn's notion of building a government upon individual liberty became in time a founding principle of the United States, linking the United States Constitution and other constitutions around the world to Pennsylvania's charters. The Liberty Bell, one of the most potent and internationally recognized symbols of this legacy, has been on "anvils" of its own. The exhibit introduces the story of the Bell, which began its career in 1751, the 50th anniversary of the founding charters. True to its inspiring inscription, the Bell survived neglect and breakage to "Proclaim Liberty throughout the land to all the inhabitants thereof," becoming the symbol of new liberties from abolition to woman's suffrage to gay pride. The image of the Bell has also inspired generations of American soldiers fighting abroad and of new immigrants seeking opportunities here. Even more telling, perhaps, the Bell has remained, despite the pressures and exploitations of "stardom," a noble and moving symbol of the on-going national journey toward liberty and justice for all.