Twenty-six Dunlap broadsides of the Declaration of Independence are known to survive, making them key artifacts for America250 history.
John Dunlap printed about 200 copies of the first broadside edition in Philadelphia shortly after Congress approved the Declaration on July 4, 1776. The sheets were intended to spread the text quickly during wartime, so many were read, posted, damaged, or discarded rather than preserved.
The surviving total is not the same as the number originally printed. Twenty-six known copies remain, including a copy discovered at the National Archives in England in 2009. Scholars use these broadsides to study the Declaration’s earliest printed form. They also differ from the engrossed parchment copy on display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.; the parchment was prepared later and signed primarily on August 2, 1776.