You Can Participate

The recreation of the first printing of the Declaration of Independence is not a spectator event — the public is warmly invited to take part. Held exactly 250 years to the second after the original, on July 4 and into the early morning hours of July 5, 2026, the event offers every visitor the chance to step up to the press, grip the handle, and pull a sheet of one of the 200 copies that make up this limited-edition reproduction. These copies will be the most accurate reproductions of the Dunlap Broadside ever produced — printed on handmade paper of the correct fiber and watermark, from a typeface reconstructed from the surviving originals, using ink made by eighteenth-century methods, on a faithfully reproduced English Common Press. Each sheet pulled is available for purchase by the visitor who pulled it, at a price of $250, a number set to cover the cost of the materials and the years of work that went into making such a reproduction possible. For those for whom that price is out of reach, a second press will be running with the same typeset Declaration on modern paper; visitors may print their own copy and take it home at no charge, though a manageable donation in support of the Foundation's work will be gratefully received. Beyond the press itself, visitors will have the opportunity to speak directly with the men who were in Dunlap's shop that night — Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Sherman, Livingston, John Dunlap, and Charles Thomson, portrayed by first-person historical interpreters — and to ask them what was on their minds as the new nation drew its first breath. Photographs with the founders are encouraged, and visitors are welcome to pose holding their freshly printed copy of the Declaration. Additional activities throughout the evening include the chance to set one of the grievances of the Declaration in metal type on a period composing stick, and to discover, through the Foundation's genealogical resources, how each visitor's own family tree connects to the signers of the document being reborn that night.