On October 18 the Museum of the American Revolution (MoAR) will open its most ambitious and timely exhibition to date. The Declaration’s Journey will feature manuscripts and printed documents that have drawn inspiration from the Declaration of Independence within the United States and internationally. Coinciding with the 250th anniversary of the signing of the document, the event seeks to bring back to the forefront the questions regarding “people’s natural right to equality,” “inalienable rights,” and other promises inherent within the document when it was published in July 1776.

A stone engraving of the Declaration of Independence created in 1823. | Image courtesy of the National Archives

Commencing with the American Revolution, the Declaration’s path of influence will be traced from Philadelphia to highlight the individuals who questioned and challenged what independence means. In line with events within the United States will be others that feature Haiti, Mexico, Korea, Czechoslovakia, India, and similar countries that were influenced by the Declaration.

According to Matthew Skic, director of collections and exhibitions for the museum, the exhibition has been five years in the making. On hand will be docents, interpreters, and virtual tours to assist participants who cannot visit in person. WHYY will partner with the MoAR for a 10-episode video series, commencing in the fall, that will feature insights from museum staff, historians, and curators.

Among the 100 featured individuals, documents, and items will be the story of Jewish Philadelphia merchant Jonas Phillips who, in 1776, sent a letter in Judeo-German and the John Dunlap Broadside print of the Declaration to Amsterdam. Both the letter and Dunlap Broadside will be featured along with notes from Phillips regarding the promises made by the Declaration.

Many other notable items will be featured, and on loan from various institutions, including Thomas Jefferson’s Windsor chair, which is believed to have been used by him while writing drafts of the Declaration of Independence, a rare surviving broadside printed in January 1777 by Mary Katharine Goddard of Baltimore, the only woman who operated a newspaper under her own name in the United States, and a petition signed and sent to Congress in 1799 by Absalom Jones, Richard Allen, and 71 other free Black Philadelphia men who condemned the slave trade and hoped to abolish the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793.

A civil rights petition signed by 71 free Black Philadelphians, including Absalom Jones, and Richard Allen, sent to Congress in 1799. | Image courtesy of the National Archives

Other figures highlighted in the exhibition include Harvey Milk, Eleanor Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, Marquis de Lafayette, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Philip Jackson, Tomas Masaryk, Vincente Guerrero, and many more.

Present-day politics of book bans and the skewing of history and facts will be at the forefront of many visitors’ minds while viewing the exhibits. According to Skic, the intention behind the production is meant to be encouraging and an inspiration to recommit to the nation’s ideals of equality and to foster a “deeper examination of the United States’s relationship with its founding document.”

Kenneth Morris Jr., a descendent of both Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington of the Frederick Douglass Family Initiative, said The Declaration’s Journey “will help more Americans understand the diverse people and viewpoints that contributed to our founding and to where we are today as a nation.” When asked why Douglass’s words still resonate so long after his passing, Morris elaborated, “We’re still dealing with the same struggles and challenges that he faced.”

Skic hopes that a lot of the content will be new to visitors and that they ask questions. “This is a document that has been challenged by many people over generations. It has been fought over, contested, celebrated, and that will continue as long as we believe in the United States.”

The Declaration’s Journey opens on October 18 and will be on view until January 3. See the Museum of the American Revolution’s website for more details: https://www.amrevmuseum.org/exhibits/the-declaration-s-journey