To celebrate the 4th, Charley Parker blogs about "One of the key figures in early American painting, Charles Wilson Peale… known in particular for his portraits of the Founding Fathers and other figures from the American Revolution." Parker also notes that in addition to being his achievements as a painter Peale was "a member of the Sons of Liberty… [served] in the Pennsylvania Militia during the American Revolutionary War… is credited with founding the nation’s first museum, with botanical, biological and archeological exhibits… [and] was also the initiator and co-founder, along with sculptor William Rush and others, of the nation’s first art school, The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.