Museums, Galleries & Exhibitions
Free and Independent: The Declaration of Independence and the Words That Made the United States April 29, 2026
A library is the perfect place to explore the origins of a country founded on words.
What did Congress mean when they declared that “all men are created equal,” that people had an unalienable right to “the pursuit of happiness,” that the British King was a “tyrant,” or that the former colonies were now “Free and Independent States”? How did contemporaries of all kinds in 1776 interpret these words? And how might our own understandings differ, 250 years later?
This exhibition at the Newberry Library, anchored by a rare early copy of the Declaration of Independence, invites visitors to survey the words of the founding document of the United States, to consider some of the surprising ideas behind those words, and to trace their circulation and impact in the age of the American Revolution.
