Who printed the first published copies of the Declaration of Independence?

John Dunlap printed the first published copies of the Declaration of Independence.

Dunlap was a Philadelphia printer who held a printing contract with the Continental Congress. After Congress approved the Declaration’s wording on July 4, 1776, John Hancock ordered Dunlap to produce broadside copies. Dunlap and his assistants worked through the night to set the type and print the document for distribution.

These sheets are known as the Dunlap broadsides. Historians estimate that roughly 200 were printed, although the exact original number is unknown. They were the first published versions of the Declaration, not the later parchment document bearing the delegates’ signatures. In January 1777, Mary Katherine Goddard printed a different broadside that included the names of the signers, making those names available to the public. Dunlap later printed major American documents as well, including the Constitution for the Constitutional Convention in 1787.