Twenty-six copies of the Declaration's Dunlap broadside are known to survive for America250.
After Congress approved the Declaration on July 4, 1776, printer John Dunlap produced roughly 200 copies of the first printed version, called broadsides. These sheets could be distributed quickly to officials, military leaders, newspapers, and communities.
Only 26 Dunlap broadsides are currently known to survive. That number is distinct from the 56 delegates who signed the later engrossed parchment copy and from the 13 colonies represented by Congress. It is also different from the number of copies originally printed, which was about 200.
The surviving broadsides are important because they show how the declaration first circulated in printed form. The parchment document is the best-known artifact, but the Dunlap printings carried the news beyond the congressional chamber and helped make the declaration a public national statement.