Kirsten McKnight's List: Book and Print History

The Anastatic Facsimile of the Declaration of Independence
A Case Study in Records Management in Early American Times
October 15, 2008

Introduction
Tom Lingenfelter, a dealer in rare historical documents and artifacts in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, has discovered the truest copy of the 1776 engrossed (handwritten) Declaration of Independence. A rarity in its own right, this anastatic facsimile also sheds some light on how the Declaration obtained its current status as a faded remnant of its original glory.

To truly understand the evolution of the Declaration of Independence, how we view it today and the significance of Lingenfelter's find, a review of the several methods used to spread the awareness of the document and its ground-breaking effects on the rights of man is in order.

The Original Engrossed Declaration
If we travel back in time to June 7, 1776, we would witness Richard Henry Lee of Virginia introducing a resolution in the Second Continental Congress "that these United States are and of right ought to be Free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved."

On June 11th, Congress nominated a drafting committee of five under the direction of Thomas Jefferson, who created the Declaration along with John Adams (Massachusetts), Benjamin Franklin (Pennsylvania), Roger Sherman (Connecticut) and Robert Livingston (New York).

Over the course of three weeks, America's elegant founding document was drafted among these five men. It was submitted to Congress for consideration on June 28th. On July 2nd there was a call for a vote. Twelve states voted "yes" with New York abstaining. On July 4th, after two days of vigorous debate and revision, Congress adopted the text of Declaration of Independence as we know it today.

On July 19th, Congress ordered an engrossed (handwritten) copy on vellum. It is believed Timothy Matlack, assistant to Secretary Charles Thomson, was the actual scribe who provided the final document to be signed by the representatives. By that time, Matlack was able to reflect the addition of New York's affirmative vote on July 9th by titling the document "The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America."

There is some question as to when all the final signatures were attached to this official engrossed copy. According to history books, many of them signed on August 2nd, but some hesitated before affixing their signatures at a later date. Their reluctance is understandable, considering that the document represented an act of treason, and in turn its signers would be branded as traitors to the Crown.

It is known that Thomas McKean of Pennsylvania was the last to affix his signature to the engrossed Declaration. An early official printing, ordered from Baltimore printer Mary Goddard in January 1777, did not include McKean's name. McKean's signature, possibly added as late as 1781, brought the final number of signers on the engrossed Declaration to 56.

Currently housed and displayed at the National Archives in Washington DC, the original engrossed Declaration is the most revered document in America, but in a condition quite diminished from its original glory. There is very little documentation of its condition over the years or how it came to be so diminished.

An audit performed by The National Academy of Sciences in 1891 asserted that the poor condition of the Declaration was attributed to attempts of a wet copy technique.

The Dunlap Copies
Once the Declaration's text was revised into final form on July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress commissioned its official printer, John Dunlap, to typeset and print copies. Dunlap, working from a corrected manuscript and supervised by the drafting committee, produced approximately 200 broadsides for distribution to the thirteen states and elsewhere.

Dunlap is believed to have worked feverishly through the night of July 4th to produce his broadsides so they could be posted and read aloud on July 5th to alert the citizenry of this momentous event in time. As John Adams later wrote, "We were all in haste."

The Dunlap copies do not carry the same title of unanimity as the original engrossed copy due to New York's abstention until July 9th. Instead, the Dunlap copies carry the title "In Congress July 4, 1776, A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America in General Congress Assembled."

One of these Dunlap copies was reportedly delivered to George Washington at Valley Forge to be read aloud to the troops. Another, currently housed at Independence National Historic Park in Philadelphia, was donated to the park by the heirs of Colonel John Nixon, the man appointed by the sheriff of Philadelphia to read the Declaration aloud in the State House yard on July 8, 1776.

Only 25 Dunlap Copies are known to still exist. The last Dunlap copy sold at auction was offered by Sotheby's on eBay on June 29, 2000 and brought $8.14 million from collector Norman Lear, who partnered with Silicon Valley investor David Hayden. This copy made a tour of the country to allow Americans to view it.

The Stone Copies
In 1820, in response to a wave of patriotism following the War of 1812 and in advance of the nation's 50th birthday, John Quincy Adams commissioned Washington DC engraver William Stone to produce a facsimile of the original engrossed Declaration's text and the 56 signatures of the members of the Continental Congress.

Stone required three years to complete his task and the results were a remarkably accurate engraved copper plate. History does not record his exact technique or methodology, but various rumors over the years included the employment of a tracking device, tracing and even a suspicion that Stone's skills included those of a master forger.

A simpler answer, however, is much more likely. It is now widely accepted that Stone utilized carefully placed mirrors and his exemplary engraving skills in a painstakingly tedious process to create his printing plate.

Stone completed the engraving of the copper plate in 1823 and sold it to the State Department. A congressional resolution passed on May 26, 1824 ordered 200 copies on vellum to be distributed to official repositories, significant office holders and the surviving signers of the Declaration, including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Charles Carroll. Two copies were given to the Marquis d'Lafayette when he visited America in 1824.

At 24 x 30 inches, the Stone facsimile is very close to the original engrossed Declaration in size. At the top is a line that reads "Engraved by W.I. STONE for the Department of State by order of J.Q. Adams Secy of State July 4, 1823." After the 1823 printing this imprint line was burnished from the copperplate and a new imprint, "W. J. STONE WASHN," was added at the bottom left, below the first column of signatures.

Later printings from the Stone copperplate are the same size but printed on paper, not parchment or vellum, and have the revised printer's imprint bottom left. Even with this alteration, collectors still prize the later Stone copies.

Stone's copper plate is currently in the National Archives in Washington DC.

The Anastatic Declaration
Finally we come to the fascinating story of the Anastatic Declaration discovered by Tom Lingenfelter.

Lingenfelter found his copy of the Declaration in a lot sale where it was originally alleged to be a memorabilia copy created for the Centennial. The document was covered in varnish. When he saw the words "ANASTATIC FAC-SIMILE" at the bottom left of his broadside he decided to Google the word anastatic.

"That's when the name Edward Law of Ireland came to my attention and I began an e-mail correspondence with a collector of anastatic prints and books and subsequently became familiar with this long forgotten method of printing," said Lingenfelter.

Law's website defines anastatic printing as "a form of facsimile reproduction invented and developed in Germany in the early 1840s and subsequently in England. It has been intended to reproduce old and rare works, but had the major failing that it sometimes destroyed the original without producing a copy."

It is the latter portion of this statement that makes the Anastatic Declaration even more important and certainly much more rare than Dunlap or Stone copies. Lingenfelter believes the anastatic process radically accelerated the deterioration of the original engrossed Declaration, now housed at the National Archives in Washington DC.

"Those who go to see the engrossed copy at the National Archives are shocked that it is barely visible. Its pale brown text on off-white parchment is impossible to read," Lingenfelter said. "The Anastatic Declaration is a facsimile from a plate produced by a chemical transfer process that nearly destroyed the original engrossed Declaration."

The Anastatic Declaration is clearly significant as a rare, direct and exacting facsimile of the original engrossed Declaration. But because the anastatic process itself had a detrimental effect on the original that led to its current faded condition, the significance of the Anastatic Declaration is enhanced by an order of magnitude over Dunlap and Stone copies.

The Anastatic Process and John Jay Smith
The process was discovered by Carl Friedrich Baldamus of Erfurt, Germany in about 1840 and developed in conjunction with Werner Siemens. Edward Law reports that Baldamus and Siemens sought a patent on the process from Berlin that was granted on October 25, 1845 by the United States Patent Office.

John Jay Smith, Librarian of the Library Company of Philadelphia from 1829-51, brought the anastatic process from England to America. Smith visited Europe in 1845 and the following year published a two-volume recollection of his tour of England, Ireland, Scotland and Continental Europe, A Summer's Jaunt Across the Water. Much of Law's information about the anastatic process comes directly from A Summer's Jaunt.

Soon after Smith's arrival in London a friend called his attention to the investigation of the new art of anastatic printing. Michael Faraday conducted a major public demonstration of the process at the Royal Institution.

On August 2, 1845, three weeks before he sailed back to America, Smith signed an agreement with Charles William Siemens, acting for himself under power of attorney for his brother Werner and Baldamus for the promotion of the process in America. Smith brought with him to Philadelphia the necessary apparatus and information to pursue the business sufficiently to offer patents for sale in the different states.

"Being requested to control the patent for America, my son as well as myself passed as much time as we could spare in acquiring the knowledge of the manipulations necessary to teach the art," Smith later wrote.

Smith was prepared to grant licenses and had a "small anastatic press is at work taking transfers and executing orders for copies of printed and manuscript matter." He included a specimen page of printed matter with woodcuts in his Weekly Volume.

Smith's detailed account of the process notes its importance to the United States as it "copies wood cuts, and even copper and steel engraving." It also notes the shortcomings: "it had not yet arrived at its destined perfection, nor has the steam-press been entirely adapted to the work of printing zinc plates rapidly."

Smith boasted that he was turning out "plans of roads, bridges, elevations, termini &c with magic rapidity which saves months of the time of copiers" and that "it is only necessary that any plan should be drawn in lithographic ink brought to the anastatic office and in a few moments facsimiles are handed to the artist."

He also predicted that as soon as the application of steam gave rapidity to the process, whole books and magazines would be reproduced: "The London Illustrated News, Punch, and such works with costly woodcuts may be republished in American at a small price."

According to Law, the earliest likely notice of the availability of anastatic printing appeared in Smith's November 1845 Weekly Volume, A Select Circulating Library for Town and Country Comprising the Best Popular Literature. It mentioned the Washington patent for a "process of obtaining transfers or reversed fac-similes on metallic surfaces from designs or writing in lithographic ink and from prints and printing in general."

The Library Company posted flyers during 1846 in which they advertised the Anastatic Printing process:

Research at the Library Company reveals several examples of anastatic printing, as Mr. Smith and his son desired to make the business venture successful by vigorous promotion of the process. It is this desire to promote the process that is thought to be responsible for the attempts to accurately image the Declaration of Independence, which by this point in time was becoming ever more popular in the eyes of the public.

Another popular item that drew the interests of the Smiths was the 1681 Holmes Map of Pennsylvania. This was the first map of the Province of Pennsylvania and reflects the visual manifestation of William Penn's Deed. Smith published the Holmes Map using the anastatic process and the document still resides in The Library Company's Collection.

Later in 1846, three substantial books made use of the anastatic process and all three are in the Library Company Collection. The first was a pattern book for artisans: [A] "guide for workers in metal and stone consisting of designs and patterns for gate, piers, balcony and cemetery railings, window guards, balustrades for staircases, verandahs, fanlights, lamps and lampposts, palisades, monuments, mantel, gas fitting, stoves, stands, candlesticks, silver and plated ware, chandeliers, candelabra, potters ware etc with various useful ornaments at large."

Issued in four parts of 25 plates at $2.00 per part, the contents were selected by the architect Thomas U. Walter (noted for his Greek Revival building for Girard College and extensions to the Capitol in Washington) and John Jay Smith. The publisher was Lloyd P. Smith or Carey & Hart, both of Philadelphia.

Smith was also known to publish in 1846 the following works: "Two Hundred Designs for Cottages and Villas," "Designs for monuments and mural tablets: adapted to rural cemeteries, church yards, churches and chapels with preliminary essay on the laying out, planting and managing of cemeteries and on the improvement of church yards" (John Jay Smith is the sole author), as well as the two volume set "American historical & literary curiosities: consisting of facsimiles of original documents relating to the events of the revolution."

Some of the surviving plates have the imprint ANASTATIC OFFICE 144 CHESTNUT STREET, PHILA.

Society benefited from this new printing process, as it made documents more readily distributed and the cost of owning a piece of history was reduced to allow for more widespread access. This is witnessed by the fact that Anastatic prints of the Holmes map are not very rare.

This is further evidence of the value of introducing new techniques for distributing near perfect copies of historic documents that exist today due