The America's National Parks Podcast is brought to you by L. L. L. Bine is a proud partner of the National Park Foundation.

L. L. Bine and N. P.S. Shera believed that every community should have the opportunity and resources to experience the joy of the outdoors together.

Through this partnership, they're not only helping people find their parks. They're helping protect, restore, and

improve parks across the U.S. If it's outside, L.L. Bean is all in. Be an outsider with L.L. Bean. I've been thinking a lot about American symbols lately as America

changes our relationship with treasured American icons does as well.

Too often we look at our symbols and see them as the enduring legacy of our past.

When in reality, symbols have always been a mirror for us to reflect our current moments in, in order to inform

our lives and our country's direction.

In the United States, the American flag gets a lot of play, as does the Statue of Liberty and the

bald eagle. But there's one symbol that we all know but doesn't always immediately

come to mind as a representation of the American experience.

And that's a shame because it better illustrates

the idea of America than planned and designed effigies

like the flag and Lady Liberty. I'm Jason Epperson, and today on the America's National Parks Podcast, the Liberty Bell. The Liberty Bell.

The Liberty Bell was designed to be sure to represent liberty itself.

In fact, it bears a timeless message from the Bible.

Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto the inhabitants thereof.

But the Liberty Bell wasn't always an iconic symbol of America.

It earned that designation through its purpose, its moment, and its flaws.

The Bell we know as the Liberty Bell was once called the State House Bell and it

rang in the tower of the Pennsylvania State House. Today we call that building

Independence Hall. Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly Isaac Norris first ordered a bell for the bell tower in

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