Science Museum to display rare surviving print of US Declaration of Independence

A rare printed copy of the American Declaration of Independence from 1776 will be displayed at the Science Museum in autumn. The item is one of the Dunlap broadsides, produced by Irish-born printer John Dunlap after he secured a contract with the Continental Congress to distribute copies across the thirteen states. Only 26 copies are known to survive, and another will be shown in London later this year. The exhibition traces four transformative decades in North America, from Britain’s takeover of French territories in the 1760s to the establishment of the United States and George Washington’s presidency in the 1790s. It also highlights scientific knowledge from Indigenous peoples and African-descended communities, including the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, and features objects such as Benjamin Franklin’s Gulf Stream map and a surveyor’s compass linked to the Mason-Dixon Line.

"A rare surviving printed copy of the American Declaration of Independence will go on display at the Science Museum this autumn as part of a new exhibition exploring the birth of science in the early United States. US Declaration of Independence, 1776. Credit The National Archives The document is one of the famed Dunlap broadsides around 200 copies of the Declaration printed in 1776 by Irish-born printer John Dunlap, who had emigrated to America two decades earlier to work in his uncle's printing business."

"After securing a contract with the Continental Congress, Dunlap was tasked with producing copies of the Declaration for distribution across the thirteen states. Just 26 are known to survive today, and one will be displayed in London later this year. Alongside the Declaration, the exhibition will use maps, paintings, scientific instruments and historic artefacts to trace four transformative decades in North American history from Britain's takeover of French territories in the 1760s through to the establishment of the United States and the presidency of George Washington in the 1790s."

"The exhibition will also highlight scientific knowledge developed by Indigenous peoples and communities of African descent in 18th-century North America, with a particular focus on the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, one of the world's oldest participatory democracies. Among the objects on display will be a rare copy of Benjamin Franklin's map of the Gulf Stream. Franklin became interested in Atlantic currents after noticing mail ships travelling from Britain to America took longer than those making the return journey."

"Working with his whaler cousin Timothy Folger, he helped chart and name the Gulf Stream the first recorded mapping of the ocean current that would go on to transform transatlantic navigation. The exhibition will also examine how scientific surveying shaped both geography and politics. A surveyor's compass believed to have been used in marking the Mason-Dixon Line will go on"

Read at www.ianvisits.co.uk