Forging Freedom: Delaware County's Role in the American Experiment
America250PADelco partnered with the Media Arts Council to design a series of banners connected to national moments in advancing democracy as part of our local U.S. Semiquincentennial celebration. Each banner features an image of an artwork or portrait representing a significant historical moment that occurred in Delaware County. The banners will be displayed at the Delaware County Courthouse in Media through December 2026.
The Declaration of Independence sets the framework for our year-long public U.S. Semiquincentennial celebration.
Throughout the year, Americans are reflecting on the guiding statement of the Declaration of Independence - "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness' while considering the complex 250-year journey of advancing democracy.
From left to right the banners feature:
'The Nation Makers' by Howard Pyle, illustrating the American Revolutionary War at the 1777 Battle of Brandywine in Chadds Ford, the largest single-day battle of the American Revolution, and a critical part of our American identity of resilience in the face of defeat.
Thomas Garrett, an Upper Darby Quaker who bravely served as a station master on the Underground Railroad, assisting 2700 people escaping slavery, including Harriet Tubman, before the abolition of slavery in 1865.
Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, a leader in the women's suffrage movement (1848-1920), who settled in Rose Valley while serving as the President of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and worked alongside fellow suffragette Mildred Scott Olmsted toward the passage of the 19th Amendment and women’s right to vote in 1920.
Sun Shipbuilding and Drydock Co, Chester, Pennsylvania, USA. John Florea/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock. A sheet metal worker at Sun Shipbuilding and Drydock Co. shipyard in Chester embodies both the important place manufacturing, trades and labor have in our country's history as well as the pivotal role women and African Americans served between 1941-1945 as drivers in the U.S. labor force, setting the stage for post-war civil and labor rights movements. In 1943, the Sun campus was the largest shipyard in the world, pioneering new technologies and building40% of the U.S. oil tanker fleet. More than half of the 35,000 employees were Black, with one-third of them working in the segregated Yard No. 4.
Martin Luther King Jr., who first encountered Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolent resistance during his higher educational studies at Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester from 1948 to 1951. The Greater Philadelphia community, including leaders from our nation’s first HBCU Cheyney University and Calvary Baptist Church in Delaware County, were important to MLKs philosophical approach and relationships critical to the American Civil Rights movement (1954 to 1968).
This project was made possible through generous sponsorship by:
Delaware County
Delaware County Economic Development Corporation
Brandywine Conservancy and Museum of Art
In addition, the Delco America 250 experience has been generously supported by Visit Delco, the Philadelphia Funding Collaborative for the Semiquincentennial, The Lau Longsworth Charitable Fund, and many other generous Delco citizens.