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>> Mark Dimunation: Hi,
welcome to another episode
of "From the Vault," a series of
presentations from the Rare Book
and Special Collections
Division.
I'm Mark Dimunation.
I'm chief of the division.
I'm sitting here with my
colleague Amanda Zimmerman,
who is our reference
librarian in the division.
And we're here today to discuss
a significant landmark document
that was created in the
middle of the Revolution.
>> Amanda Zimmerman: Now,
Mark, I see two documents here
that look somewhat familiar,
but a little bit different.
What can you tell me about them?
>> Mark Dimunation: Well, what
we have here are two copies
of the Declaration of
Independence produced
in Continental Congress
on July 4th, 1776.
They're two printings.
And I'll go into the
discussion of the second one.
The one that's in
front of me, however,
is the landmark document
of the American Revolution.
This is the first
appearance in print
of the Declaration
of Independence.
>> Amanda Zimmerman:
Unbelievable.
>> Mark Dimunation:
So it was produced
on the night of July 4th.
The Continental Congress
had met and voted.
And presumably a fair
copy of the manuscript --
we assume Thomas
Jefferson's copy --
was walked across the street to
the print shop of John Dunlap,
who stayed up all night and
produced a typeset edition
and printed it on the
early morning of July 5th.
Copies that were later dispersed
to members, safety committee,
members of the Congress
and, of course,
a copy was sent to England.
We refer to it as
the Dunlap Broadside.
It's really the first
appearance of the text.
People have other visual
notions of what the Declaration
of Independence looks
like, but this is the piece
that first took that
manuscript and put it into text.
>> Amanda Zimmerman: That's
incredibly fascinating.
>> Mark Dimunation: It's
an important moment,
not only in terms of the story
of the American Revolution,
but also the story
of American printing.
>> Amanda Zimmerman: Absolutely.
>> Mark Dimunation: So this
was printed by John Dunlap,
an American printer who
was born in Ireland.
He was sent to his uncle in
Philadelphia at the age of 10
to apprentice as a printer.
>> Amanda Zimmerman: Oh, my.
>> Mark Dimunation: And 10 years
later found himself acquiring
the business from
his uncle and began
to develop a printing business.
He was at the corner of 2nd
and Main in Philadelphia,
which is only a few blocks away
from what we now call
Independence Hall.
So he was a convenient
printer to turn to.
He was a likely candidate
to take this on in part
because he was already
the official printer
for the Continental Congress.
>> Amanda Zimmerman:
Interesting.
>> Mark Dimunation:
And, secondly,
he was about to prepare
to launch a larger-scale
production, which turns into the
"Philadelphia Packet,"
which ultimately becomes
the first daily newspaper
in America.
And so he had a slightly larger
press that he could set type.
So this broadside -- which
in printing terms is a page,
a single page with
printing on one side --
it was well situated in order
to create this document.
>> Amanda Zimmerman:
Fascinating.
>> Mark Dimunation: So he's
an interesting individual.
He not only printed the
Declaration of Independence
and produced it,
but he then goes
on to follow the
Continental Congress
when Philadelphia is
invaded the next year
in 1777, and people fled.
He fled town along with
the Congress who moved
to York, Pennsylvania.
He came back to then go on
to print paper money and,
ultimately, also
printed the "Journal
of the Continental Congress"
and the working copies
of the Constitution when
it was under debate.
>> Amanda Zimmerman: So he's an
incredibly influential printer
at this time.
>> Mark Dimunation: Actually,
besides Thomas Jefferson,
he is at the center of
these conversations --
>> Amanda Zimmerman:
Unbelievable.
>> Mark Dimunation: -- in
a physical material way.
Yes. And it's an
interesting story of,
especially in the
colonies, as you know,
printing was controlled
by the English.
So American printing really
emphasized broadsides;
pamphlets, what we call
bread-and-butter printing.
Which allowed them to
be very fast in terms
of keeping the communication
open.
>> Amanda Zimmerman: So it seems
like these are incredibly rare.
Are these our only copies?
>> Mark Dimunation: Well, no.
We actually have two copies
of the Dunlap Broadside here
at the Library of Congress.
The one that we have on the
table was owned by Peter Force.
Peter Force was a
collector of Americana,
also an American politician
and newspaper editor and also,
incidentally, placed
mayor of Washington DC.
His importance to us, however,
is that he accumulated
vast collection
of American resources.
Not only printed, but also,
more importantly, archival,
including the papers of American
and British military
officers and statesmen.
And the Library of
Congress acquired the bulk
of that collection, which
also contained his copy
of the Declaration
of Independence.
It had been signed over to him
by a gentleman named Ridgely.
His signature is on the
back, turning it over to,
as he indicates,
to Colonel Force.
And that's how the
piece came to us.
>> Amanda Zimmerman:
It's quite a gift.
>> Mark Dimunation: Yes, it is.
And, well, it was
actually, it was a gift, yes,
a gift to Mr. Force
and then a purchase
by the Library of Congress.
Even though there were only
26 copies, we do know a lot
about how this could
have been created.
And there's a very
interesting point
about this particular
copy, which is in that run
of production -- as you know,
when we talk about printing,
we often look for things
that change along the way
because that helps us understand
when our particular copy
may have been printed.
And it turns out that the
signatures -- such as they are,
at the bottom of the document
-- being signed by the president
of the Congress, John
Hancock and attested
to by Secretary Thomson,
underneath it,
where it says "Philadelphia
printed by John Dunlap,"
the word "Philadelphia" in this
sequence of printing shifts.
>> Amanda Zimmerman: Oh.
>> Mark Dimunation: And our
copy, the "P" is under the "N"
as opposed to under the comma,
which means somewhere along the
line they stopped the printing,
adjusted the press a little
bit and continued to print.
So we have what's referred to as
a second state of the document.
>> Amanda Zimmerman:
That is fascinating.
And it's fascinating that
such a tiny change is, I mean,
first of all, to be able to
study a document like this
for such minuscule changes
is really incredible.
And then to be able to
understand what that means
for the entire printing process.
>> Mark Dimunation: Absolutely.
And, you know, we don't know
what happened on the night
of July 4th when they
walked over the manuscript.
We'd like to think,
romantically,
that Benjamin Franklin, the
master printer of America,
and John Adams were
quietly sitting,
watching Dunlap prepare
this typesetting.
But even John Adams
later recalled,
"We were in great haste" is
how he described the situation.
And modern scholars, looking at
the various copies that we have,
say that the document
only indicates
that this was a very sort of
flurried evening of activity.
There are pages where the
watermarks get flipped,
where obviously they printed
on the backside of the paper
that they were intending to.
There are other copies that
were folded too early, and thus,
the wet ink transferred.
And one person described
it as a circus
of stray punctuation points
floating across the document
as they were printing.
So this adjustment in our case
is just one of those moments,
all with the effort to have
this produce by the morning
of July 5th, 1776, to make
the announcement official.
>> Amanda Zimmerman:
How incredible
that following the
printing can create
such an atmosphere
of the night; right?
The circus of punctuation.
The chaos of how quickly things
were being folded and sent off.
I mean, just the physical
process tells us so much
about what their experience was.
>> Mark Dimunation: And
also the notion and meaning
of the document itself.
Now, we do have another copy.
It's housed in the
Manuscript Division.
It's a copy that was held
by George Washington.
On July 6th, John Hancock had
a copy delivered to Washington,
who was with his
troops in New York.
It arrived on July 9th.
New York was in a state of
great tension and nervousness,
I might say, because the harbor
was filled with British Navy.
There was a real kind
of discernable revolutionary
temperament developing
and New York.
And Washington had the
Declaration read to his troops
at the steps of city
hall on July 9th.
And that evening a
raucous crowd of supporters
of the sentiment tore down the
statue of George the Third.
Now, this statue, in fact,
was broken down and smelted
into 42,000 bits of ammunition
for the Colonial Army,
so it had a very poetic demise.
But, nonetheless, that
gave us a second copy.
The Washington fragment
is torn at about line 54.
We're missing the bottom 1/3 --
>> Amanda Zimmerman:
Fascinating.
>> Mark Dimunation: --
which, but it has signs
of having been folded,
likely in somebody's
pocket at some point.
And so the two copies
together really tell the story
of the meaning of this
physical object itself.
>> Amanda Zimmerman:
Fascinating.
So, Mark, you mentioned
that this is the first time we
see the Declaration in print.
Now, I know that there's
a copy of the Declaration
of Independence at
the National Archives.
So what is the, what's
the story?
>> Mark Dimunation:
Yes, that's correct.
There is a manuscript version of
the Declaration of Independence
at the National Archives.
It's often referred to
as the Matlock copy --
he was the scribe for the
Continental Congress --
or more typically the Engrossed
copy of the Declaration.
It is not in the chronological
sequence of production.
It's an interesting moment.
This is the printing that comes
off the draft that was walked
across the street from
the Continental Congress
and was produced and distributed
long before the Continental
Congress, I think on July 19th,
passed a resolution saying
that we needed to create
a copy of the manuscript
that had everybody's
signature on it.
So it prompted what was
called the Engrossed copy,
a handwritten parchment
document of the Declaration,
in which all members
of Congress were asked
to come back and sign.
So this went on into
July and August.
So it's after the fact,
but it becomes the official
record of the signatures.
>> Amanda Zimmerman: Right.
>> Mark Dimunation:
But it is a manuscript.
It's sent nowhere.
It's a historical moment.
>> Amanda Zimmerman: Right.
>> Mark Dimunation: But it's
not the, it is not the vehicle
by which the intention of the
colonies is delivered to England
or to the other constituents
of the American people.
So the Engrossed copy
is very important,
because visually that's our
notion of the Declaration,
but it only brings back,
again, the emphasis
on the printed document itself.
But the sequencing of the
Declaration is really a series
of manuscript after manuscript
to print to manuscript again.
>> Amanda Zimmerman: And
can you talk a little bit
about that process of this
document coming to be?
>> Mark Dimunation: Sure.
It's, the story is a complicated
one, but it always comes back
to the Continental Congress.
While it began to appear evident
that in these conversations --
remember, Lexington and
Concord had already happened.
This was not necessarily
a theoretical conversation
that was going on in the
Continental Congress.
We were under attack, or
least we felt threatened
by the presence of
the English in a way
that we hadn't previously,
and we were also
being taxed heavily.
And they felt that some kind
of action needed to be taken.
When it became evident
that we were, in fact,
going to issue a statement, a
committee of five was appointed.
Jefferson, Adams,
Franklin, Livingston
and Sherman were appointed.
They all -- because of his
reputation of both steadiness
and his ability with prose --
essentially turned
to Thomas Jefferson
and said why don't you
write it out, which he did.
And that's when the
story gets complicated.
We don't know how many
drafts Jefferson produced.
>> Amanda Zimmerman:
Interesting.
>> Mark Dimunation: Whether he
produced them by himself or not.
We have another manuscript
by Thomas Jefferson
that he retained and kept in
his papers, which are held here
at the Library of Congress.
And that's a much
more expansive draft
of the Declaration, four pages.
Often referred to as the Rough
draft or the Fair Rough draft.
It does, however,
contain emendations
and changes, 86 of them.
Some of them rather substantial,
and some which are
a little surprising.
We know, for example, that
Adams and Franklin went through
and made numerous changes,
much to Jefferson's
dismay, I might add.
And in one case Jefferson's
language
of "We hold these
rights to be sacred
and undeniable" is
altered by Ben Franklin,
who gives us the phrase "We
hold these truths it be -- "
>> Amanda Zimmerman:
"Self-evident."
>> Mark Dimunation: You got it.
So the language that we often
associate with the Declaration
of Independence actually comes
from an editorial process.
We have another draft
of the Declaration,
also in Thomas Jefferson's hand,
that is much more directly
connected to the text
of the Dunlap Broadside.
It's four pages.
It was preserved in
Jefferson's papers.
But it also is heavily edited
and in some cases
actually redacted.
In several instances
Franklin and Adams went in
and made changes,
and then it went
to the actual session
of Congress.
References to controlling
slavery were removed.
There were a number of
negotiations and agreements
that were made to make the
document acceptable for the 12
out of the 13 colonies
that could vote.
New York was not allowed
to vote in this session,
although they could
participate in the conversation.
But some of these changes
are, not only substantial,
but linger with us today.
For example, it's Franklin who
took Jefferson's phrase that
"We hold these truths to
be sacred and undeniable"
and alters it to read
"We hold these truths
to be self-evident."
So there are moments in the
Declaration that become part
of the process of this.
Ultimately, whatever
manuscript made its way
over to John Dunlap's broad,
printing of the broadside,
we don't really know
which document was used
as the typesetting document
and whether it even survived.
We do know a couple of
other things about it.
One copy of the broadside was
actually pasted into the ongoing
"Journals of the Continental
Congress," indicating
that it had been
signed by Hancock with,
and attested to by Thomson.
We also know that this
whole process was done
so that July 4th, which was the
day of the vote, would be marked
as the day of independence.
John Adams actually wanted July
2nd to be the, Independence Day
because that was the day in
which the document was drafted.
>> Amanda Zimmerman:
Oh, fascinating.
>> Mark Dimunation: That
is, that was the day
in which our declaration
emerged.
Whatever the case, the
Fair copy went over,
and this document was printed.
And by order of Congress,
it was issued and released.
>> Amanda Zimmerman:
Fascinating.
This is incredible.
And it's incredible that
we have, not only one,
but two of these
in our collections.
Now, we've talked a
lot about this piece,
the Dunlap Broadside,
and we have this whole
other broadside out.
What can you tell me about it?
>> Mark Dimunation: Yes,
it's a very interesting
piece for several accounts.
I might first note that
that transition from print
to the Engrossed copy
had a moment of change --
you may not want to add
too much emphasis to it --
but there is a moment of
language where you begin
to have a sense that
the importance
of this document is taking hold.
In the original printing
of the Declaration it says
"In Congress, a declaration
by the representatives
of the United States
of America."
The Engrossed copy says "A
resolution voted on unanimously
by the 13 United States."
>> Amanda Zimmerman: Oh.
>> Mark Dimunation: So there's
a sense of meaning and presence
that happens in the
Engrossed copy.
What we're looking at here
is the second printing
of the Declaration
of Independence.
In January of 1777, the Second
Continental Congress passed a
resolution that the
contents of the Declaration
of Independence be made
more readily available.
Remember, the Dunlap Broadside
was distributed to committees
of safety, members of Congress,
to individuals who needed
to know, including England.
This was a text that we
really, that they wanted to be
as readily available to the
American people as possible.
And although there
were several iterations
of the Dunlap Broadside
in newspapers,
the second broadside
printing happened
because Mary Katharine Goddard,
who was a printer in Baltimore,
rose to the request of the
Continental Congress and offered
that her press be used
to create this document,
even though the very act of
printing this would be seen
as an act of treason on
the part of the British.
And so one of the great women
printers of the 18th century
in America produced this
document, which is significant
for a number of reasons.
One is that it does,
in fact, allow the text
to be transmitted more
directly to the people
who are most affected by
it, the American people.
But, secondly, it
is the first time
that the American
people actually see
who signed the Declaration
of Independence.
All the members who
had signed that we see
in the Engrossed copy
are now being transferred
to the second printing.
So for many Americans
this is the first time,
not only that they read the
full text, but they understand
who is it that signed
this document?
>> Amanda Zimmerman: Right.
>> Mark Dimunation: She's
a very interesting person.
She was postmaster of
Baltimore for at least 15 years.
And at one point a very
misguided individual came in
and suggested that perhaps a
woman shouldn't be doing this
and tried to have her
removed, which only led
to Baltimore rallying to her
cause and had her reinstated.
>> Amanda Zimmerman: Wow.
>> Mark Dimunation:
And then she went
on to produce several
publications and journals
and became a substantial
and important printer
in Baltimore and in America.
What's even more interesting,
although we don't know how many
copies of this was printed.
>> Amanda Zimmerman: Yeah.
>> Mark Dimunation: We know
that there are 26 copies
of the Dunlap Broadside
that are surviving.
There are only nine --
>> Amanda Zimmerman: Nine.
>> Mark Dimunation: -- of
the Katharine Goddard --
>> Amanda Zimmerman:
Unbelievable.
>> Mark Dimunation:
-- that are surviving.
You know, one of the things that
both of these documents indicate
to us -- although the concepts
that Jefferson, in particular,
promoted -- that we have
the right to our freedom
and happiness and that
all men are created equal
and that we have an obligation
to fight for these rights --
these principles weave
through American history
and our notion of our democracy.
But they're established and
proven in these documents
that come out of
printing in early America.
>> Amanda Zimmerman:
Really fascinating.
I mean, we think about these
things, we learn about them
from a very early age,
and so they become
these larger-than-life,
abstract kind of moments.
But to see the physical
rendering of those ideas
and the moment that
these represent
in changing history is
absolutely just unbelievable.
>> Mark Dimunation: Yes,
I think it's the moment
in which the decision to free
ourselves from the control
of England is actually
made physical and material.
They're great documents.
>> Amanda Zimmerman:
They really are.
Thank you so much, Mark.
>> Mark Dimunation: Thank you.
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