"Our Hearts Burn with Ardent Love
for Two Countries": Ethnicity and
Assimilation at Chicago Holiday
Celebrations, 1876–1918
ELLEN M. LITWICKI
IN 1876 CHICAGOANS marked the centennial of American independence
with two massive displays of patriotism. In the first, military and
fraternal societies, led by the Second Regiment of the newly organized
Illinois National Guard, paraded through downtown streets lined with
cheering spectators waving American flags. Afterward the regiment sponsored
holiday exercises, which featured a ritual reading of the Declaration
of Independence, oratory, patriotic recitations and music, and military
drills. Across town a second, three-day centennial celebration culminated
in another procession and rhetorical exercises, followed by a
balloon ascension, a "grand illumination of the grove," dancing, and a
fireworks display.
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