| Abstract | The US withdrawal from Vietnam in 1975 shaped the nation's 1976 Bicentennial in unintended ways. The 200th anniversary of US Independence offered the nation the opportunity to restore aspects of its identity after the devastating effects of the Vietnam War. The Ford administration emphasised renewal and rebirth based on a restoration of traditional values and a nostalgic and exclusive reading of the American past. Despite Federal efforts to advance certain themes through their 'monumental' reading of US history, no dominant theme prevailed. This article reflects on the representations of the Bicentennial themes and issues through the lens of nostalgia and collective memory. It does so by examining the events, media coverage and the internal documents of the Ford administration. Despite efforts to reconnect the nation with traditional images of the United States, ultimately the success of the Bicentennial relied on enactments and events that were predominantly local and regional; the federal direction was resisted and therefore relatively restrained. The temporal proximity of defeat and a tarnished reputation could no be elided through hollow narratives on tradition and the narrow reading of the past.
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