While anyone can buy a copy of the Declaration of Independence online for as little as $3.99, the copies currently on display in Durham are a bit harder to come by. In fact, one of them may be more familiar than the original thanks to your American history textbook.
The three documents—the Stone, the Binns, and the Tyler—come from the collection of Duke University alumnus David M. Rubenstein and are all rare copies of the Declaration of Independence made in the early 19th century. Their two-part display comes as the centerpiece of We the People, a collaboration between Duke and Durham marking the 250th anniversary of the original Declaration of Independence signing.
The documents’ journey in the Bull City began at the Durham County Main Library, where they were on display from September 8th through the 20th; now, they’ve moved on to the Nasher Museum of Art, where they’re featured alongside Nari Ward’s We the People and Turn the volume up!, two exhibits that touch on American identity and activism. The Declaration of Independence will be on display at the Nasher through January 3rd and is free for the public to visit.
Meg Brown, Conservator and Exhibits Coordinator at Duke Library, played a large role in bringing the documents to the Durham Public Library. Brown. She said it takes a village to put an exhibit like this together.
“There was somebody who had to deal with the contracts,” Brown said. “There was somebody who dealt with the publicity. There was someone who dealt with security. There was a person whose job was to communicate with the library, and make sure that the library had all of the security issues at hand.” The list goes on.
Brown’s job, however, has more to do with the actual objects being displayed. Although these copies of the Declaration are not the original from 1776, they are nevertheless over 200 years old. Thus, any public display means battling the destructive forces of light, temperature, and humidity. Brown has been one of the people responsible for waging that battle.
“We think about a lifetime as being forever in conservation,” Brown said. “These documents in here are over 200 years old. We want, 200 years from now, for them to still be as readable as they are today.”
To learn more about the work that has gone into getting these artifacts to Durham, the history behind them, and some thoughts on a certain Nicholas Cage film, The INDY sat down with Brown earlier in September to talk all things Declaration. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
INDY: So this exhibit contains not necessarily the Declaration of Independence, but several copies. Can you describe what is being displayed in Durham?
Brown: There are three copies. They all were early 19th-century copies, [made] at a time that the nation was really thinking about the Founding Fathers, because there were only three still living. They were thinking about the fact that the Declaration of Independence itself was a single document, that there weren’t any official copies of it.
The Binns copy is really a presentation copy. In the early 19th century, it was really common for printers to steal each other’s work, and when Binns started announcing that he was doing that, Tyler, another printer, made a copy before Binns finished his so that he could sort of beat him to the punch. So those two copies were really about nationalism and people being interested in the history and the building of the nation.
And then the Stone copy, which is called the Stone copy because Stone is the name of the printer, is literally an exact facsimile. And facsimile means it’s the exact size. It takes on every attribute of the original. The [exhibit] copy is on vellum; the first 200 copies were printed on vellum. It was actually [John Quincy] Adams who got the government to request that it be printed, and it was printed as an official national document.
When you look at your textbook, [what you see] is from that Stone copy, as opposed to the original, because for 30 years, the original copy was on the wall in front of a window. That’s one of the reasons why it’s extremely faded. This copy, done in 1820 before that fading happened, is actually more representative.
Along with the Stone copy, the Tyler copy is also printed on vellum. Could you explain what that is, and what kinds of risks the documents face because of it?
Vellum is a skin, animal skin. Historically, it was common to use the skin for important documents because of its permanence. [However], it’s a very sensitive material. It’s hygroscopic, which means that in any kind of humidity, it will take the water in and as it gets dry, that water will pop out of it. When it’s really dry, it gets brittle, and when it’s wet, it gets soft. And so, if it goes from being really dry to really hot, it will physically move. You can see great videos of vellum books falling off shelves, because the change in temperature and relative humidity can be enough to physically move the object
The conservators, or the preparators, of the framed items in [the exhibit] have already done work to stabilize the balance so that it won’t move, but keeping those environmental conditions tight is super important. It’s also important for paper, but it’s not quite as dramatic a change.
We worry about light. Primarily, light can absolutely affect the color of paper. You might take a white piece of paper and put it in the window of your car, and you’ll see over time that it turns yellow, right? So you want to keep the color of the paper and the vellum as close to its original as possible.
The Declaration of Independence is often referred to as a living document. What do you think the relationship is between copies like the ones in this exhibit, and the national ethos about the Declaration being an active idea?
I would say that there’s two different ways that I might look at that, personally. One is that [the original Declaration of Independence] literally is a piece of skin made out of an animal. The inks that were used were made from organic materials that have a lifespan. It’s seen some really difficult conditions that have caused it to have some decay. [Conservators are] doing everything they can to make it available to the public, as a really emotional document. I’ve been to visit [the National Archives Museum], and it is powerful for people to see it—to think about a moment in which this country was started, that some commitments were made for us to be a united nation.
Ok, this is sort of a lighter, off-the-wall question, but say there was a Nicholas Cage wannabe. Does this exhibit prepare for any sort of National Treasure type operation?
Like somebody in Durham coming in?
Yes!
I want to give a total thumbs up to the security staff here. They’ve been incredible. They’re super thoughtful, and they’re really paying attention. I’ve come in a couple of times, and they don’t all know me, and so they all come over like, ‘What are you doing?’ So I have no doubt that they’re on it.
What else would I say about Nicholas Cage? I keep meaning to watch that again. I haven’t seen it in about a decade, but they didn’t do a terrible job with that movie [and] bringing up some of the interesting historical pieces.
Following the history of a single document can be really exciting and tell a whole story, just by studying what’s happened to this object: Where it came from, how it was made, why it was made—and then what happened to it throughout its life, its provenance.”
Personally, I don’t get super excited about the Founding Fathers, and that story of what happened. I tend to see all the problems with it. But when I started renewing my knowledge about these documents, it really excited me about that history and made me remember how following the history of a single document can be really exciting and tell a whole story, just by studying what’s happened to this object: Where it came from, how it was made, why it was made, and then what happened to it throughout its life, its provenance. That story is so exciting, so interesting to me, and is a way to tell an objective history. You get so many different people who are involved, in so many different centuries. You look at the history of the document—it tells a lot of people’s stories.
Any final thoughts about why it’s important to bring documents like this to local communities and to make them accessible?
I think that sometimes I get frustrated at the idea that Durham feels far away from New York or D.C.—a big city where maybe you grow up having an opportunity to see things that feel really important. These are things that not everyone gets to see, and every person in Durham has access to them in two different ways.
And I think that words are still important … I think that getting people to actually think about history, and the truth of history, and finding ways to anchor that in a physical object that can’t be changed. Someone can take a picture of that and do AI to it, right? But no one can go into that exhibit case and change that document. And right now, where we live right now, to me that feels really important.
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