For America’s 250th Birthday: A Request to President-elect Donald Trump

On May 31, 2023, Donald Trump proposed to organize a nationwide celebration in 2026 to celebrate the 250^th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. In a video released on his webpage, Trump called for a “Celebration of 250 Years of American Independence at the Iowa State Fairgrounds,” an exposition which will be part of a year-long “Salute to America.”

He said:

“Three years from now, the United States will celebrate the biggest and most important milestone in our country's history: 250 years of American independence. As a nation, we should be preparing for a most spectacular birthday party.  We want to make it the best of all time. Here is my plan to give America’s founding in 1776 the incredible anniversary it truly deserves. On day one, I will convene a White House task force called ‘Salute to America 250’. . . I will work with all 50 Governors, Republican and Democrat alike, to create the Great American State Fair, a unique one-year exhibition featuring pavilions from all fifty states. It’ll be something. The Great American State Fair will showcase the glory of every state in the Union, promote pride in our history, and put forth innovative visions for America’s future.”

Trump added that he will ask the “amazing people of Iowa” to open the Iowa State Fairgrounds to host the Great American State Fair, and that the aim will be to “welcome millions and millions of visitors from around the world to the heartland of America.” He promised that,

“as President, I will invite the leaders and citizens of nations around the world to visit the United States in honor of our 250^th anniversary. It’s going to be great.” He proposes, “an entire year of festivities across the nation starting on Memorial Day 2025 and continuing through July 4th, 2026.”  And he concluded, “As we chart a course towards the next 250 years, let us come together and rededicate ourselves as one nation, under God.”

Trump has proposed to invite thousands of high school athletes to compete in a series of Patriot Games, which “will allow young Americans from every state to show off the best of American skill, sportsmanship, and competitive spirit.”  This is a laudable proposal, one which will certainly attract a great deal of popular attention. At the same time, we at Promethean Action would like to ask President Trump to extend an additional invitation, one to tens of thousands of high school students to participate in a national Science Fair, held at the Iowa Fairgrounds, to demonstrate their excellence in scientific investigations. Imagine the creative energies this might spark!

For more than a decade Donald Trump has fought to restore America’s primacy in manufacturing, technology, and science. Today, with Elon Musk—the greatest technological entrepreneur in the world—serving in a paramount advisory role in the Trump transition team, the opportunity has never been better to showcase America’s scientific and technological leadership; nor has there ever been such an opportunity to involve and inspire young people in actually building a productive future.

We offer, as motivation, the example of the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, organized to celebrate America’s 100th birthday. Why not use a portion of the Iowa Fairgrounds to create a modern-day version of what was presented at Machinery Hall in Philadelphia in 1876? Why not invite hundreds—if not thousands—of American companies and individual inventors and entrepreneurs to display and demonstrate the technologies which they are working to bring online?

Frontier technologies could be put on display. Some examples might be:  modular nuclear reactors; flying cars or “Advanced Urban Air Mobility”; advances in robotics; 3-D printing;  the production of artificial human organs and other medical advances;  quantum computing and photonics;  fusion energy research;  low pressure tunnel and tube Maglev human transport;  supersonic and hypersonic commercial passenger aircraft, and much more.  Possible exhibits are almost limitless. Major infrastructure projects, like the North American Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA) would deserve a prominent place in these exhibits.

Most important—it really deserves its own Hall—would be a multifaceted presentation, devoted to the exploration and settlement of our solar system, including the question of transport, as well as the challenge of settlement of both the Moon and Mars. Such exhibits could include offerings from major corporations, such as Space X, but also projects dreamed up by some of America’s young scientists. Obviously, Elon Musk would play a major role in such a series of exhibits. 

The intention should be, as in 1876, to demonstrate to the citizenry what is possible—the future that can be built—in which all will have the opportunity to participate, all will benefit. Awards could be offered to young scientists for new inventions in various fields, such as the award that the young Thomas Edison won in 1876 for the best new invention. Such is a fitting way to celebrate America’s 250^th birthday. This will go a long way toward returning America to an optimistic culture.

The 1876 Centennial

On March 3, 1871, the U.S. Congress established the United States Centennial Commission for the purpose of organizing a Centennial celebration. Congressman William D. Kelley, a leading champion of American protectionism was a primary sponsor. In motivating Congressional support for the Exhibition, Kelley said on the floor of Congress:

“The proposed exhibition is to celebrate events that are not merely of national but of world-wide interest. It is to commemorate not a day, but an epoch in universal history; not an event, but a series of events, that occurred in rapid succession, gave birth to republican liberty, and organized a nation that stands today, when measured by the number of population, the extent and geographical position of its territory, the intelligence and enterprise of its people, and the variety and volume of its resources and productions first and proudest, though but an infant among the nations of the world. London and Paris were venerable cities when the American continent was discovered, and this bill proposes to invite the people of London, Paris, and the world at large to behold the results of one century of republican liberty in a country whose people are the offspring of those of every land and clime, and to challenge them to present the best results of their genius, experience, and labor in comparison with those of this young and heterogeneous but free people.”

The Philadelphia Exposition took place only 7 years after the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, the greatest of the modern “Wonders of the World.”  This was the peak of the American Protectionist Era, when the full effect of Lincoln’s Greenbacks, Tariffs, and National Banking policies had created the most powerful productive economy in human history. The Exposition was both a glorious celebration of the principles of 1776, as well as a showcase for the staggering progress that was being accomplished in science, technology, industry, and agriculture by the free citizens of the American Republic.

An Unprecedented Gathering of the American People

In 1876, the total U.S. population was about 44 million people. The Philadelphia Exposition was open for six months from May until November 1876, and during that time over 10 million guests visited the Exposition grounds, i.e., just under 25 percent of the nation’s total population. This would be the equivalent if we held such an Exposition today, of 82 million people attending.

The people came from every corner of the nation. In the course six months, over 23,000 trains brought visitors to Philadelphia. These trains could transport 145,000 people per day to Philadelphia. The Pennsylvania Railroad and the Reading Railroad also built rail tracks from downtown Philadelphia to the site of the Exhibition. Over the course of the summer, almost 6 million people were carried on these trains to the exhibition grounds. Attendance peaked on September 28, when 275,000 visited the Exhibition on a single day.

On May 10, President Ulysses Grant opened the Exposition with the following remarks: 

“My countrymen – It has been thought appropriate upon this Centennial occasion to bring together in Philadelphia, for popular inspection, specimens of our attainments in the industrial and fine arts, and in literature, science, and philosophy, as well as in the great business of agriculture and of commerce. That we may the more thoroughly appreciate the excellencies and deficiencies of our achievements, and also give emphatic expression to our earnest desire to cultivate the friendship of our fellow-members of this great family of nations, the enlightened agricultural, commercial, and manufacturing people of the world have been invited to send hither corresponding specimens of their skill to exhibit on equal terms in friendly competition with our own. . .

“And now, fellow-citizens, I hope a careful examination of what is about to be exhibited to you will not only inspire you with a profound respect for the skill and taste of our friends from other nations, but also satisfy you with the attainments made by our own people during the past one hundred years.  I invoke your generous co-operation with the worthy Commissioners to secure a brilliant success to this International Exhibition. . .

“I declare the International Exhibition now open.”

In attendance were President Grant, the Emperor Pedro I of Brazil, Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, and members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Immediately following President Grant’s speech, they all walked together to the Main Exhibition Hall, at the center of which stood the Corliss Duplex Engine, the largest steam engine ever built. President Grant and Dom Pedro ascended to the platform of the engine, and together they turned the wheels which set the engine into motion. The Exhibition was open.

At the Exposition

The overall size of the Exhibition was staggering. There were more than 250 buildings, spread out over an area of about one square mile, significantly larger than today’s New York Botanical Garden. There were tens of thousands of individual exhibits. Within the grounds of the Exposition were five major buildings: the Main Exhibition Building, Memorial Hall, Machinery Hall, Agricultural Hall, and Horticultural Hall.

• The Main Exhibition Building was the largest. At 1,880 feet, in length it was longer than 6 football fields, and it occupied 21 acres. It was the largest building in the world. More than 30,000 businesses and individuals exhibited their wares in this building.
• Machinery Hall was the second largest structure. It was 1,402 ft long, 360 ft wide and occupied 558,440 square feet. Every conceivable type of machinery and tool was on display, most making their first appearance.  It was a showcase for state-of-the-art industrial technology.
• Memorial Hall was devoted entirely to the arts, while Agricultural Hall and Horticultural Hall were each devoted to the creative and scientific breakthroughs related to their specific fields, again with thousands of exhibits. 

The most impressive building on the fairgrounds was Machinery Hall.  The huge glass and iron structure contained miles of overhead belts and pulleys for driving steam-powered line shafts. There were 8,000 operating machines in the 14-acre building. The centerpiece of Machinery Hall was the 1,400-horsepower Corliss steam engine, which, through a series of shafts totaling more than a mile in length, powered not only the machines in Machinery Hall but all the devices in the entire Exhibition. Visitors who viewed its operation were awestruck.

Creating a Productive Future

Thousands—if not tens of thousands—of new inventions were showcased at the Exhibition. It was a dizzying display, and as much as it celebrated the first 100 years of the American Republic, the Exhibition and all the individuals who displayed their wares were looking forward—to the dawn of a productive and prosperous future.

Some of these displays came from established firms:

• John A. Roebling & Sons Company displayed a slice of their 5 ¾ inch diameter revolutionary cable to be used for the planned construction of the Brooklyn Bridge.
• Baldwin Locomotives had a very large exhibit featuring breakthrough designs in railroad technology.
• Pratt & Whitney of Hartford, Connecticut, and William Sellars & Co. of Philadelphia both displayed what they called large “planer machines,” capable of very fine metal work. This was the birth of the modern machine tool industry.
• The world’s first elevated railway was built to carry passengers between the buildings, designed by Civil War veteran General LeRoy Stone.
• At the Agricultural Hall, new types of harvesters, reapers plows, cultivators, threshers, and other agricultural equipment were presented, as well as new types of crops that were resistant to disease and would produce higher yields.
• The Remington Company exhibited its invention, the typewriter; the Wallace-Farmer Electric Dynamo, the precursor to electric light, was operational; the first internal combustion engine, invented by George Brayton, was also demonstrated; and the first rubber boots and shoes manufactured by Charles Goodyear were displayed.

Thousands of inventions were on display, including advanced machine tools, air-powered tools (compressors and pumps), screw-cutting machines, grinding machines, metal-working tools, valves, wheels and axles, stoves, wagons, carriages, lanterns and sewing machines.

Also participating in the Exhibition were numerous young inventors, some who would become famous in the years to come. Thomas Edison won the Centennial Award for best new invention, with his presentation of the Quadruplex Telegraph, capable of transmitting four messages simultaneously over a single telegraph wire. Alexander Graham Bell’s first telephone was set up at opposite ends of Machinery Hall, amazing those who spoke over it. George Eastman and George Westinghouse both attended the Exposition, as did the father of Henry Ford.

All these inventions and machines were brought to the Exposition by the companies or individuals who had created them. Hundreds of young inventors packed their devices into crates and loaded them on railroad cars or steamboats to take them to Philadelphia. It was an explosion of American ingenuity.

Consider the explosive effect—not just economic, but the CULTURAL effect on the American people—that flowed from the Philadelphia Exposition. Following the Exposition, in the four years from 1876 to 1880, more than 10,000 new U.S. patents were issued for a wide variety of machines, devices and ingenious inventions, —all imagined and created by inspired American citizens.

Promethean Action’s takeaway

We are now presented with an opportunity, perhaps a once in a century opportunity—to end the era of pessimism, limited resources and no growth which has dominated our culture—and much of our national policies— for the last several decades. President’s Trump’s proposed “Salute to America” could bury that gloomy outlook once and for all. It could provide the American people, particularly the youth of America, with a glimpse into a happy, productive, optimistic future. That is what we can learn from the 1876 Centennial.

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