Courtesy of Bowdoin College

On October 30 and 31, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art (BCMA) displayed a copy of the Declaration of Independence in the rotunda for the Bowdoin and Brunswick communities. This specific copy of the document has been on tour in 16 different locations throughout the state with the Maine Historical Society (MHS) since July 4 to celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence.

According to MHS Exhibition and Content Curator Catherine Cyr ’17, the copy is dubbed the Dunlap Broadside Declaration of Independence because it was printed by John Dunlap the evening of July 4, 1776, immediately after Congress drafted the original declaration.

“This [document] is the closest you can get to the moment of independence,” Cyr said. “This is exactly how Continental Congress wanted word to go out, to the military … to the state officials, and the state legislatures …, to large towns and cities and to the people themselves. And it was through this document that [they] were able then to spread the word and have reprintings done.”

Interim Director of the BCMA Stephen Perkinson collaborated with Cyr and the MHS to bring the Broadside copy to Bowdoin. Perkinson appreciated that while the Broadside does not include the original signatures from the 56 delegates of the colonies, its significance is still quite visible.

“[It has] simple black and white text, no illustrations, no real flourishes. But you can also see signs of the care they took in printing it, and the speed with which they carried out the project—for example, a ghostly letter E that was carried across the page when the document was folded for dispatch while the ink was still wet,” Perkinson wrote in an email to the Orient. “This gives you a powerful sense of the urgency of the whole project, and drives home the radical nature of what the printer and the authors were up to at a moment when the entire American democratic experiment was in its formative stages.”

Cyr played a key role as a historical interpreter, standing alongside the Declaration of Independence as it traveled the state to provide interpretation and ensure it was properly cared for. According to Cyr, the idea for the tour was a collaboration between MHS employees, led by the Society’s executive director Steve Bromage.

“[Bromage] was thinking about ways in which we can highlight our collection, but also bring our collection to a wider statewide audience, especially with the 250th birthday of America,” Cyr said. “And through conversations with staff members, the folks in communities across the state,… it morphed into the idea to take the document to all 16 counties in Maine to give, quite literally, anybody in the state the opportunity to interact with this incredibly important document at an incredibly important and poignant time period.”

According to both Perkinson and Cyr, the exhibit’s stop at Bowdoin garnered over 2,400 visitors over the course of two days. The stop was the most trafficked of the entire tour, a testament to the nature of the Bowdoin and Brunswick communities.

“Students and their parents were here, of course. We also had dozens of school groups, and many, many members of the general public,” Perkinson wrote. “We had Girl Scout troops, civic clubs, veterans—really, just people of all ages from all walks of life. On Saturday, we even had people in costume for Halloween. It was really magical.”

Further, Cyr noted that Family Weekend was a great time to bring the Broadside to campus.

“[We appreciated] being able to be there during a Family Weekend, knowing that we could capitalize on the audience, not only of the student body and faculty and staff, but also give parents something fun and exciting … to do while they were here,” Cyr said. “And hopefully, showing not only the commitment that Bowdoin has to its greater Maine state community, but also the way that the history of Bowdoin plays into the history of Maine.”

Many visitors expressed their appreciation that the document was available during a period of high civic engagement.

“We consistently heard that our visitors found the experience of seeing this amazing document very moving. Many people spoke of taking the words on it to heart in the particular historical moment we’re in,” Perkinson wrote.

Ultimately, Cyr hopes that visitors found ways to connect their own life experience and their prior understanding of history with this exhibit experience.

“As a material culture scholar, my jam is literally to get folks to understand that objects have an embodied history, and … you can learn so much from literally a piece of paper,” Cyr said. “So, I hope that they too can feel connected and inspired, and think about ways that they can connect with their own history personally—the history of the institution, the history of their community and the history of their nation.”