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Introduction This encyclopedia has grown out of two of the last several books that I have writ- ten. I wrote the first on the U.S. flag at the request of a publisher, but I became increasingly enamored with the topic as I proceeded. I especially enjoyed the way that the flag was so entwined with other American institutions and symbols, includ- ing in art, ­ music, sports, collecting, comic books, advertising, and other aspects of popu­ lar culture. That book, in turn, motivated me to do another tome on the Dec- laration of In­ de ­ pen­ dence, which, like the flag, is a ubiquitous part of American cul- ture but it also has the advantage of being a seminal text, which my background in po­liti­cal theory helped me to assess. As I wrote each book, I tried to think of comparable topics that could be appro- priate for encyclopedic coverage. As I did so, I recalled talks that I have given to elementary school students, typically during Constitution Week (the seven-­day period each year beginning on September 17, when delegates signed the historic document). One of the lessons I quickly learned in explicating the Declaration of In­de­pen­dence, the Constitution, and the modern U.S. government was that if I men- tioned that the Declaration and Constitution ­ were debated and signed in the same building that had ­ housed the Liberty Bell, ­ children almost invariably pelted me with many questions. They wanted to know how much it weighed, haw tall it is, why it cracked, when it cracked, who made it, what it said, who cracked it, what it was made of, and a seemingly endless set of other questions. It was as though I had sparked an interest (indeed, what sometimes appeared to be obsession) that I could not comprehend, but, which reminded me, as I wrote this volume, that I needed a specific entry on ­ children and the Liberty Bell. I remembered back to my own childhood when a dear ­ great aunt, Evelyn Vile, who never forgot our birthdays, sent a small metal replica of the Liberty Bell, which I loved to ring. My wife recalls that her parents saved money for Christmas in a small Liberty Bell bank similar to one that we now display on our own bedroom dresser. As if to confirm that the topic might be choosing me as much as I was choosing the topic, I also recalled that the first book that I published for my ­ father was a book of his poetry, the title of which I drew from one of his poems: “Let the Bells Ring Out on Christmas Morning.” I have long collected American memorabilia, generally focusing on commem- orations of American in­ de ­ pen­ dence. One of the joys of writing this book was searching our cupboards, walls and cabinets, to find plates, bowls, bookends,