Printed overnight: the first Declaration

On 4 July 1776 the text of the Declaration of Independence went from the Continental Congress in Philadelphia to its printer, John Dunlap. Dunlap was born in Ireland and had started in the printing trade in Philadelphia in 1757, at the age of ten.

His shop worked through the night. According to the Library of Congress, Dunlap printed a proof, made a few small corrections and then printed about 200 copies, on the evening of 4 July and the early morning of 5 July. The exact number is not known.

On the morning of 5 July members of Congress sent copies to assemblies, conventions and committees of safety, and to the commanders of the Continental troops. On 8 July the Declaration was read to the public for the first time, on Independence Square in Philadelphia. On 9 July it was read to George Washington's troops in New York from the broadside that is now among his papers.

Twenty-six copies of this first printing are known today, three of them in British collections. The one shown here was placed by Charles Thomson, the secretary of Congress, in the Rough Journal of the Continental Congress, and is kept by the US National Archives.