Printer John Dunlap was momentously busy on the evening of July 4, 1776.
Earlier that day, the Second Continental Congress had delivered the approved text of the Declaration of Independence to Dunlap's printing shop in Philadelphia. Dunlap, a 29-year-old Irish immigrant, toiled late into the night setting type, correcting proofs, and churning out 200 broadsides bearing Thomas Jefferson's immortal words founding a nation based on the ideals of equality and liberty.
Dunlap's broadsides were distributed throughout the thirteen colonies, where they were read aloud in town squares and reprinted in newspapers. One copy was pasted for posterity in the journal of the Second Continental Congress. (The famous handwritten copy of the declaration displayed at the National Archives was not signed until Aug. 2, 1776.)
