Charles Thomson and The Great Seal of the United States

12 Aug 2025 By in History, The Social Life of Politics Tags: , , , , , ,
An artistic depiction of a bald eagle with outstretched wings, holding a shield featuring three horizontal stripes and a branch in one talon. Above, there is a banner reading 'E Pluribus Unum' and a starry sky.

Judging from depictions of Federal Hall that I’ve been discussing, some version of the Great Seal of the United States crowned Federal Hall. Every view of the long-defunct building shows some version of the Great Seal as the dominant feature of the pediment. This is noteworthy, because, when the pediment was created in 1788, the “Great Seal” itself was just a few years old.

The tricky business of coming up with symbols to express American nationhood began during the Revolution (1775-1783), when officials of the Continental Congress felt the practical need for a iconography to represent unity. The symbols they came up with were often clumsy: first stabs at projecting power, capturing the unique identity of the United States, and distinguishing their new self-governing nation from old European monarchies. This new symbolic language, marking the states’ rapid transition to a nation, appeared on currency, official documents, flags, military insignia, and eventually buildings.

Charles Thomson, a Philadelphian who served as Congress’s secretary, designed the Great Seal in collaboration with William Barton, an attorney who had made a study of heraldry. According to historian Ben Irvin, in his Clothed In Robes of Sovereignty: The Continental Congress and the People Out of Doors, Thomson and Barton were the first to come up with the combination of the eagle and the shield, which are the essence of the Great Seal. Congress officially adopted the seal on June 30, 1782.

Thomson and Barton’s design incorporated much of the iconography popularized during the war, including the red and white stripes on a field of blue; the number thirteen, as manifest in the bundle of arrows; and the ‘new constellation’ of stars. The eagle, however, was an innovation, and in certain respects a curious one.

Irvin goes on to explain that, in 1775, Ben Franklin had issued a three-dollar bill as Continental currency, depicting Britain as an eagle and America as “a weaker bird.” Franklin despised Thomson and Barton’s choice of the eagle to depict the newly independent nation, arguing that the eagle was a scavenger, “a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly.” Should the new United States be depicted as predatory?

Others, however, approved of the eagle, viewing it as “a symbol of empire.” Even then, some Americans were thinking of the United States in imperial terms. As for Barton, who first proposed the eagle, he assigned it a different, very specific meaning. Barton explained that his eagle was the “Symbol of supreme Power & and Authority, and signifies the Congress.” Note that the official seal predates the Constitution and the creation of the presidency.

Despite early federalism’s structural weaknesses, the Great Seal signified the aspirations of a new, self-governing people—to rule themselves through the mechanism of Congress. It has proved an enduring ideal. This aspiration was integrated into the face of the building where the First Congress met. It’s something to ponder as we gaze on the modern version of the Great Seal of the United States, prominently displayed on the dais where President Trump stands.

Image: from this source.

Holland’s Street View of Federal Hall

5 Aug 2025 By in History, The Social Life of Politics Tags: , , , , ,
A historical illustration of Federal Hall in New York City, featuring various architectural styles and buildings lining a street, dated 1827.

This is an important late 18th-century view of New York’s Federal Hall, showing the style of adjacent buildings. Tiny print on the lower left side explains that this lithograph, published by C. Currier, was based on a drawing by George Holland made in 1797. The process of lithography came into use only several decades later, facilitating the mechanical production of works in color. This one was made by Charles Currier, who, like his more famous brother Nathaniel, was a skilled printer whose work met the public’s appetite for American scenes.

Here, the colors of the print accentuate the contrast between Federal Hall’s refined facade and the more utilitarian mercantile establishments that typified the neighborhood around Wall Street.

It’s worth noting that during the Revolution, the British army had attacked and occupied New York City. Much of the old city was destroyed, and its population shrank. By the time of the Founding, the city had come roaring back. Building boomed, and the population tripled to some 30,000 people. Many of the buildings in this scene were likely rehabbed or new, just like the newly refurbished Federal Hall.

Holland’s drawing captures the modern yet workaday character of the neighborhood where the Congress first convened under the Constitution. Yet, Federal Hall had likely been destroyed by the time Currier’s lithograph appeared. Other features of the scene endure today, notably Trinity Church, whose spire is visible at left.

Image: from this source.

L’Enfant’s “Characteristically American” Federal Hall

30 Jul 2025 By in History, The Social Life of Politics Tags: , , , , , ,
Architectural drawing of Federal Hall, showcasing the front elevation and detailing from the 18th century. Features include the central dome, columns, and inscriptions about Major Pierre Charles L'Enfant.

Artist William Hindley made this interesting architectural rendering of Federal Hall in the 1930s, over a century after the building was demolished in 1812 to make way for the US Custom House of the Port of New York.

Further research on Hindley might clarify whether he was in business for himself or worked for a government entity such as the National Park Service (NPS) or Works Progress Administration (WPA), which employed scores of writers, artists, and photographers to document the physical environment and condition of the country at that time. Whatever the case, Hindley made a handful of drawings aimed at preserving the characteristics of this significant building, which was the sole seat of the federal government during its first year.

It’s prudent to approach such retrospective documents warily. The specifics they present as historical may be spurious and anachronistic, sheer invention making up for a shortage of factual detail. Good artists were scarce in the early national period; the visual record of important people, places, and events then, correspondingly thin.

Here, though, Hindley generally dispels our skepticism. In the lower left legend, he states that his work was extrapolated from the scale of the old city hall, combined with “Hill’s engraving and descriptions,” and Robertson’s drawing. (The latter is a street view of Federal Hall that Archibald Robertson sketched when the building was still extant, around 1798.) In addition, later scholarly analyses of Federal Hall offer other documentary evidence corroborating Hindley.

Hindley’s drawing effectively communicates the subjective significance of L’Enfant’s smooth, symmetrical facade. Highlighted are the columns, pediment, and entablature, a fancy cupola topping off the now three-story building. The focal point of all is the new nation’s seal. The upper right-hand legend tells us that, as reward and payment for his work, the 33-year-old L’Enfant was offered “10 acres of land at Proovost [sic] Lane between E60 and E49 street with a small payment of money but declined it.”

Overstating the case a bit, Hindley avers that L’Enfant was the first architect to solve the problem of how to make a building “characteristically American,” establishing a pattern that other famous public architects of the early national period, such as Bullfinch, Thornton, Hooker, Hadley, Thompson, and Latrobe, merely followed. What can be said with authority, however, is that the stylistic elements L’Enfant combined in Federal Hall were indeed used in government buildings in the US countless times.

Image: from the National Park Service
collection of artifacts pertaining to Federal Hall,
accessed on 12 December 2012.

Click here to view two other imaginative renderings
of Federal Hall that Hindley made.

Federal Hall, The Seat of Congress

26 Jul 2025 By in History, Politics, The Social Life of Politics Tags: , , , , , , ,
An illustration of Federal Hall, depicting its front facade with large columns, decorative elements, and a clock tower. The image includes historical text mentioning it as the seat of Congress.

The afore-mentioned renovation of Federal Hall was complete by the time the First Congress met to certify the results of the first presidential election. This 1790 copperplate engraving depicts George Washington’s swearing in on a crowded balcony, members of Congress looking on. His term began April 30, 1789.

Though the facade was new, the site was familiar to all participants, as the failed Confederation Congress had been meeting in this building, which was New York’s old city hall, for several years. New York City continued as the temporary capital for one more year, until the government moved to Philadelphia, where it would remain for the next decade.

The old city hall is nearly unrecognizable, its scale and structure a canvas for Peter L’Enfant’s showy neoclassical style.

This item is in the collection of the National Park Service,
a reminder of that agency’s enormous role
in preserving precious artifacts
critical to our understanding of the early United States.

New York: The Old City Hall

23 Jul 2025 By in History, The Social Life of Politics Tags: , , , , ,
Watercolor illustration of the Old City Hall on Wall Street, built in 1699, showing its classical architecture and surrounding trees.

New York’s old city hall, pictured above, was remodeled at the time of the Founding and renamed Federal Hall. By then, the building was 90 years old, having been built in 1699. It was the administrative center of old New York, housing not only the mayor’s office but the city firehouse and a debtor’s prison, as well as the municipal court.

After the Revolution, this building became the seat of the Confederation Congress of the United States. The Congress, then the nation’s sole governing body, met here from 1785 until the Constitution was ratified and put into operation (04 Mar 1789), two days after the Confederation was formally dissolved. The First Congress convened here. New York remained the temporary capital of the US for one year.

As the new government formed, leading New Yorkers began maneuvering to have their city chosen as the permanent capital that the Constitution required. They raised funds to transform the Old City Hall into a more imposing structure imbued with Federal style. They employed a French-born artist, Pierre (“Peter”) L’Enfant, an officer of the Army Corps of Engineers and veteran of the Revolution, to furnish the plans. Occasionally during 1788, the Confederation Congress met at Fraunces Tavern, as workmen renovated the old city hall.

RELATED:
Fortenbaugh, Robert, The Nine Capitals of the United States (Internet Archive)
Historic Battlefield Trust, Early Capitals of the United States
US House of Representatives, Meeting Places for the Continental Congresses and the Confederation Congress, 1774–1789


Image: from this source.