by Ruth Scalpone

Created on: June 19, 2008   Last Updated: July 07, 2008

It's Our Birthday, America!

Independence Day, also known as the 4th of July, is an American holiday. We are the ones who decide what it means. It's not a holiday that is celebrated by any other country, and it is not one to be celebrated in the ways of other nations. It is our day of birth, the day the Deckaration of Independence was signed. If we want to set off fireworks to celebrate, that is all right. It is up to us, as this is our holiday.

The Founding Fathers may not have intended Independence Day to be this way, but how many things are the same now as they were two hundred years ago? Is anything?

In those days, most families lived on farms, where they had chickens and pigs for meat, fruit and vegetables were grown, clothes were sewn by hand, and considering how many children most families had, that was a constant occupation for the mother.

As soon as animal meat was obtained, it had to be cooked and eaten, or smoked to be used for other meals, since there was no refrigeration. Eggs had to be gathered from hen's nests when the eggs were ready. Cows had to be milked, and the milk churned into butter. Bread had to be baked, vegetables had to be picked for every meal, which had to be cooked, without refrigeration or ovens, let alone microwaves, and cleaned up after.

Women and children were the property of their husbands and fathers. Slavery legal, and the Declaration of Independence didn't seem to apply to blacks or to women of any race.

Would the Founding Fathers even recognize America as the country they founded? In case any of them are time travelers and wonder where the nation they founded went, here's a brief summary of what happened in the past two centuries. America became a nation, which shortly thereafter, had a civil war. The nation shakily survived that and stayed a nation, not to everybody's satisfaction. The Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves.

Another century began. There was a world war that was known as the Great War and "War to end all wars". Blacks were given the right to vote, as women were later on. Alcohol was prohibited, and then legalized again. Cars were invented and buildings were built higher than trees. A lot of things were made in factories, so food did not have to be grown by the family who ate it

The stock market crashed, and the country was plunged into the Great Depression. A vast majority of families lost their homes and farms. Many people lost their jobs, banks closed, and families lost all of their money. There was a great deal

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