On Exhibit at Robeson Library: Scattered Birthday: The 1976 U.S. Bicentennial

In 1976, Americans grappled with how to find meaning in the nation’s 200th birthday even as they contended with economic turmoil, inequality, and distrust in the nation’s government. Scattered Birthday: The 1976 U.S. Bicentennial, curated by Rutgers-Camden graduate students in the Department of History, explores diverse stories of how communities marked the 1976 Bicentennial, touching on celebration, consumerism, patriotism, and protest, and featuring vibrant artifacts, images, ephemera, artworks, and other media from the Bicentennial Era. 

Scattered Birthday invites visitors to explore the cultural and historical significance of the 1976 Bicentennial by: 

• Drawing on historical research to lift up local and national stories of celebration and protest;
• Emphasizing the relationship between the Bicentennial era and historic preservation; and
• Displaying vivid cultural artifacts students have sourced and acquired for this exhibit that together showcase the diverse ways Americans engaged with the Bicentennial in 1976. 

About Centennial History: 

In Spring 2025, the Department of History offered a graduate seminar on Centennial History. Together, the class explored how the public has commemorated centennial events in the nation’s history. How did these key moments—and the array of events, programs, and material culture produced in commemoration—reflect and seek to resolve the nation’s shifting values, conflicts, and self-conception? With a particular focus on the nation’s 1976 Bicentennial, along with the 1876 Centennial Exposition, Sesquicentennial Exposition of 1926, and the forthcoming Semiquincentennial of 2026, among others, we used the lens of centennials to probe the history of memory and public history in America. 

The culminating exhibit produced by the class was made possible through a collaboration between public history students in the Department of History and Rutgers-Camden’s Robeson Library.