4th of July Fireworks

By Roy Nuhn

As seen in The Antique Shoppe Newspaper, July 2009

FIREWORKS!

They conjure up many images, all of them colored red, white and blue and sounding like a John Phillip Sousa march.

They are many things: firecrackers exploding with loud: bangs: rockets creating a heavenly display of light and color as they whoosh through the night sky: hand-held sparklers glittering and glowing like a meteor shower: and aerial and ground spectaculars forming all sorts of shapes and objects in short-lived, eye-boggling miracles. What would the American fourth of July have been without them for the last two hundred-plus years?

In the United States, fireworks displays became popular during the 19th century, especially when several important Italian, English and French firemakers immigrated to this country. They founded dynasties that continue even until today. Major American triumphs, such as the opening of the Erie Canal and Brooklyn Bridge, were further enhanced by either set displays using the building, bridge, etc. as a framework to hang the fireworks onto or the colorful sky spectacle that carne into strong public favor in the 20th century.

The use of fireworks on the 4th of July came early in the celebration of the holiday. Youngsters favored firecrackers, a daytime treat which were noisemakers they themselves could set off, while their elders preferred the showy, colorful, and often awesome nighttime sky displays operated by professionals.

Written records of Independence Day celebrations of the 19th century are full of accounts about the use of fireworks. And the tradition is still with us today, except that the public is now prohibited in most places from purchasing and using fireworks due to the terrible toll that misuse costs in terms of deaths and injuries in the past.

Many collectors of patriotic materials find the fireworks theme irresistible. Besides the obvious - packets that once held fireworks, the possibilities include Victorian era trade cards, newspaper and magazine ads selling them, a century's worth of postcards, prints, blotters, and many other types of ephemera.

From the very beginning of the souvenir postcard craze in this country, back as far as the 1890s, rockets and other fireworks have been regularly featured in the illustrations on cards published for the 4th of July. Along with Uncle Sam and Miss Liberty, fireworks were the most often used motif of Independence Day. Most cards picture them as a major or minor part of the scene almost always being lit or exploding.

A pair of postcards by Blanchard, Young & Co., sometime in 1905 or before, used them exclusively. One card published by Ullman Mfg. Co. of New York City, shows a teddy bear about to light a cracker. Many of the 4th of July postcards produced in the earliest years of the 19th century have illustrations of Uncle Sam holding one or strings of lit firecrackers while standing proud and tall for America.

Many modern chrome postcards published during the last 50 years are of nighttime aerial displays and the color on most of them is stunning. The clarity, sharpness and realism possible on chrome postcards made since the 1960s makes photographs of 4th of July evening scenes a perfect postcard topic.

The crowning achievement of this style are most likely the many cards printed for our Bicentennial celebration in 1976 an historical extravaganza for which fireworks displays were among the most ambitious of the century. Also many other chrome postcards have been produced showing local 4th of July aerial spectaculars.

Have a bang-up Fourth!

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