Review: Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia

Greetings from rainy, snowy, icy, and flu-ish Vermont. Yes, though normally a cheetah dashing from place to place, I was felled, walloped, really, by the flu ten days ago on the way back home from a wedding in Philadelphia. I’m feeling better and ranty. Yes, the wedding was the joyful and supreme blend of the bride’s and groom’s personalities, families, and friends, and, yes, it’s good to start 2026 in Philadelphia. It was also a salve to visit the Museum of the American Revolution, which opened in 2017 and tells a rousing — and blessedly coherent — story. Among much else, the museum displays George Washington’s field tent for sleeping and working while he and his army fought in New Jersey.

The Declaration’s Journey is the museum’s salvo exhibition for America’s 250th birthday, with lots more to come in terms of programs and exhibitions. It’s all well and good to declare independence. It’s a different, more intricate matter to get the news out. “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” — unalienable rights as opposed to “nasty, brutish, short, and under-the-boot-heel existence” — were shiny, new genies out of the bottle. Over many, many decades, emboldened embrace by nations from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe led to thousands of movements, with tweaks here and there, copying our Declaration of Independence.

About the Author

Brian T. Allen

Brian T. Allen is National Review’s art critic.

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Greetings from rainy, snowy, icy, and flu-ish Vermont. Yes, though normally a cheetah dashing from place to place, I was felled, walloped, really, by the flu ten days ago on the way back home from a wedding in Philadelphia. I’m feeling better and ranty. Yes, the wedding was the joyful and supreme blend of the bride’s and groom’s personalities, families, and friends, and, yes, it’s good to start 2026 in Philadelphia. It was also a salve to visit the Museum of the American Revolution, which opened in 2017 and tells a rousing — and blessedly coherent — story. Among much else, the museum displays George Washington’s field tent for sleeping and working while he and his army fought in New Jersey.

The Declaration’s Journey is the museum’s salvo exhibition for America’s 250th birthday, with lots more to come in terms of programs and exhibitions. It’s all well and good to declare independence. It’s a different, more intricate matter to get the news out. “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” — unalienable rights as opposed to “nasty, brutish, short, and under-the-boot-heel existence” — were shiny, new genies out of the bottle. Over many, many decades, emboldened embrace by nations from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe led to thousands of movements, with tweaks here and there, copying our Declaration of Independence.