Twenty-six original Dunlap broadsides of the Declaration of Independence are known to survive for America250.
John Dunlap printed roughly 200 broadsides in Philadelphia soon after Congress approved the Declaration in July 1776. These large printed sheets allowed the text to circulate quickly through the colonies and beyond.
The surviving examples are especially valuable because the original source copy used by Dunlap has been lost. For many years, historians knew of 25 surviving copies; the discovery of another copy in the British National Archives in 2009 brought the known total to 26.
A broadside is a single large sheet printed on one side, rather than a bound book or pamphlet. Dunlap's copies are different from the later engrossed parchment copy bearing the delegates' signatures.