Episode No. 30 – Printing the Revolution, Part 2

The American Revolution was messy and improvised. Nothing was inevitable. We’ll take a look at the events, and key documents, leading up to the printing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, to understand why its printing was messy, improvised, and anything but inevitable.

Guests

• Emily Sneff, historian of early America, leading expert on the Declaration of Independence, author of When the Declaration of Independence was News, consulting curator for exhibits at the Museum of the American Revolution and Historic Trappe
• Jessica Peterson, Director of the Common Press, University of Pennsylvania’s Letterpress and Typography Research Lab

Things To Do

• Our audio engineer, Carolina Duque, is from Colombia. Join me in supporting earthquake victims at Give It to Colombia or the Colombian Red Cross.
• Register to print your own copy of the Declaration of Independence at the Common Press.
• View many of these early print documents at the American Philosophical Society’s exhibit These Truths: The Declarations of Independence.
• Experience the colonial printing process at the Franklin Court Printing Press.

Credits

This episode was mixed by Carolina Duque, audio engineer.

Music arranged by Steve Sechi for Funk Soul Productions.

Resources

Adelman, Joseph M. Revolutionary Networks: The Business and Politics of Printing the News, 1763-1789. Studies in Early American Economy and Society, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019.

Allen, Danielle. Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality. Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2014.

Anon. “Enslaved Soldiers in the Revolutionary War.” Northeast Slavery Records Index Website. https://nesri.commons.gc.cuny.edu/enslaved-soldiers-in-the-revolutionary-war/. Accessed July 25, 2026.

Boyd, Julian P. “The Declaration of Independence: The Mystery of the Lost Original.” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 100, no. 4, 1976, pp. 438–67.

A Declaration by the Representatives of the United Colonies of North-America, Now Met in General Congress at Philadelphia, Seting [sic] forth the Causes and Necessity of their taking up Arms. 1775. Pennsylvania State Libraries website. https://digitalcollections.statelibrary.pa.gov/Documents/Detail/a-declaration-by-the-representatives-of-the-united-colonies-of-north-america-now-met-in-general-congress-at-philadelphia-seting-forth-the-causes-and-necessity-of-their-taking-up-arms/1169626?item=1169638. Accessed July 24, 2026.

Goff, Frederick R. The John Dunlap Broadside: the first printing of the Declaration of Independence. Library of Congress, 1976. Online at https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000740580.

Jasanoff, Maya. Liberty’s Exiles: Loyalists in the Revolutionary World. Vintage Books, 2012.

Ruppert, Bob. “The Winter of 1774–1775 in Boston.” Journal of the American Revolution Website. October 17, 2023. https://allthingsliberty.com/2023/10/the-winter-of-1774-1775-in-boston/. Accessed July 24, 2026.

Sneff, Emily. When the Declaration of Independence was News. Oxford University Press, 2026.

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