John Dunlap printed about 200 broadside copies of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
A broadside was a single large sheet printed on one side, allowing the text to be distributed quickly. Congress wanted the Declaration circulated to colonial governments, military leaders, and the public, so it commissioned Dunlap, a Philadelphia printer, to produce copies soon after adoption.
These first printed copies are known as the Dunlap broadsides. They were not the later handwritten parchment copy signed by delegates. Dunlap’s printing helped spread the news beyond the congressional meeting room and made the declaration available for public reading and newspaper reproduction.
Only a fraction of the original printing survives. Twenty-six Dunlap broadsides are generally known today, including one discovered in the British National Archives in 2009. The survival of these sheets makes them important physical evidence of how the Declaration reached people during the Revolutionary era.