How It Started

In 1975, the 200th anniversary of the American Revolution, otherwise known as the Bicentennial, was just a year away. The run-up to the celebration had become ubiquitous. Commissions had been formed, numerous events planned, all well and good, but then the media and advertising took over. On July 4, 1974, CBS had begun airing nightly “Bicentennial Minutes” (sponsored by Shell Oil Company) highlighting stories from the American founding. Commercials featuring the Founding Fathers filled the airways, magazines, and newspapers. Between the self-seriousness and the hucksterism, it seemed to two waggish pals that some comeuppance was needed.

John Ambrose and David Gambill had been fast friends during high school (Richmond’s Thomas Jefferson, Class of 1969) and remained so after college. In 1975, John was working as a copywriter in the advertising department at Thalhimer’s department store and had just begun teaching as an adjunct instructor at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College. David Gambill was working for the Bank of Virginia as an adjustor. In one late night conversation, they joked about how the country’s serious problems — the recent Watergate scandal (Nixon had resigned in August 1974), the Vietnam War, inflation, the Cold War, and a host of other troubles in the early 1970s — would never have occurred if the American Revolution had never happened.

Then the idea was hatched: write an alternative Declaration of Independence arguing for reunion with England to be published in Richmond’s alternative newspaper, the Richmond Mercury. After a week or so, the copy was finished, and a mock-up of the advertisement was taken to the Mercury. Bemused by the project, the advertising manager cleared it with the publisher and scheduled the ad for March 26, 1975.

Learn more about the Richmond Mercury

Next: The Advertisement – Annotated