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The New York Public Library Celebrates the 4th of July with
Display of the Declaration of Independence
On View June 25 through July 31; closed July 3 through
July 5
Thomas Jefferson. Declaration of
Independence. Philadelphia, July 4-10, 1776. Manuscripts and Archives
Division, The New York Public Library.
New York, NY, June 11, 2004
-- The New York Public Library's fair copy of the Declaration of Independence
in Thomas Jefferson's hand will be the centerpiece of a display that will include
several other landmark versions of the document and early newspaper printings,
as well as an autograph letter from Benjamin Franklin to George Washington.
The exhibition will be on view from June 25 through July 31, 2004, in the Sue
and Edgar Wachenheim III Gallery of the Humanities and Social Sciences Library
at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. Admission is free. Please note that the Library
will be closed Saturday, July 3 through Monday, July 5 for the Independence
Day holiday.
On June 11, 1776, the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia,
appointed a committee of five men to draft a Declaration of Independence. Thomas
Jefferson assumed the role of primary author while the other members of the
committee, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston,
made only minor suggestions. In a letter to George Washington dated June 21,
1776, Franklin indicates that illness has kept him from Congress, writing, "I
know little of what has pass'd there, except that a Declaration of Independence
is preparing." Forwarded to Congress on July 1, the Declaration was ratified
on July 4, after a number of changes had been made. Jefferson was distressed
by these alterations, most notably the removal of his lengthy condemnation of
slavery. In the days immediately following July 4, he made several copies for
friends of the text that had been submitted to the Continental Congress, underlining
the passages to which changes had been made. Aside from the Library's copy on
view in the exhibition, only one other complete copy and one fragment are known
to have survived.
The inhabitants of the thirteen Colonies learned about the sea change in their
political affairs through public proclamations and the distribution of printed
versions of the Declaration of Independence. The Philadelphia printing, exhibited
at the Library, was issued by Congress on July 5 and is the first of all the
various printed versions. All official pronouncements, even the formal Charter
of Freedom housed in the National Archives, were copied from this broadside.
This is one of only twenty-five extant copies. Also displayed will be one of
the two or three surviving copies of the first New York printing issued after
July 9, 1776.
Many people learned of the Declaration from their local newspapers. The display
includes three of the earliest newspaper printings drawn from the Library's
collection of early American newspapers. Rounding out the display is a copy
of the first broadside printing with the signers' names, commissioned by Congress
six months after independence had been proclaimed. This copy is authenticated
by autograph signatures: John Hancock signs as President of the Congress, and
Charles Thomas, the Secretary, attests the official nature of the document.
It is also significant in social history as the work of an early American woman
printer, Mary Katherine Goddard.
The Declaration of Independence will be on view from June 25 through July
31, 2004 at The New York Public Library's Humanities and Social Sciences Library
in the Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III Gallery. Exhibition hours are Tuesday and
Wednesday 11 a.m. through 7:30 p.m.; Thursday through Saturday from 10 a.m.
to 6 p.m.; closed Sundays, Mondays, and national holidays. The Library will
be closed Saturday, July 3 through Monday, July 5, 2004. Admission is free.
For more information about exhibitions at The New York Public Library, the public
may call 212.869.8089 or visit the Library's website at www.nypl.org.
Support for this exhibition has been provided by Delta Air Lines.
Support for The New York Public Library's Exhibitions Program has been provided
by Pinewood Foundation and by Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III.
