Here Is Where: Discovering America's Great Forgotten History

by Andrew Carroll

Now exhibited inside the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library, this is the only Dunlap broadside—and therefore one of the oldest existing copies of the Declaration anywhere in the world—freely displayed to the public on a permanent, year-round basis. Contrary to popular perception, the elegantly handwritten Declaration of Independence showcased inside the National Archives rotunda is not the Declaration finalized on July 4. Called “the engrossed copy,” this version was commissioned by Congress in mid-July 1776 and signed by most of the representatives on August 2. The actual document that Congress promptly handed to John Dunlap on July 4 has disappeared and was most likely cut up and destroyed in the printing process.