Independence Hall - Legacy

Legacy

Independence Hall has been used in more recent times as the staging ground for protests because of its symbolic history in support of democratic and civil rights movements. On October 26, 1918, Tomáš Masaryk proclaimed the independence of Czechoslovakia on the steps of Independence Hall. On Independence Day, July 4, 1962, President John F. Kennedy gave an address there.

Independence Hall is pictured on the back of the U.S. $100 bill, as well as the bicentennial Kennedy half dollar. The Assembly Room is pictured on the reverse of the U.S. 2 dollar bill, from the original painting by John Trumbull entitled Declaration of Independence.

Several near-replicas or loose replicas of the building have been built elsewhere in the United States, including the main building of the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan (a National Historic Landmark), Founders Library of Howard University, (also a National Historic Landmark), Baker Library of Dartmouth College (Hanover, NH), and Brooklyn College (a campus of CUNY in Brooklyn, NY). In addition, the building has served as a symbol of Pennsylvania, and was the basis for the Pennsylvania Pavilion of the Jamestown Exposition of 1907 in Norfolk, Virginia, and the since-demolished Pennsylvania Pavilion of the 1939 New York World's Fair. The Mahler Student Center at Dallas Baptist University is a near exact replica.