In a vault deep inside the USS Midway on July 3, Christie Manning silently rotates the dial on the door of a safe while Scott McGaugh, the museum’s marketing director, watches. A guard stands outside the door, and inside the tiny steel room, the air is heavy and warm.
The safe clicks, the door unlatches and a small nondescript case roughly the dimensions of a full sheet of newspaper is removed. A place is cleared on the countertop nearby and Manning pulls a set of keys from around her neck. She unlocks the case, raises the lid and takes a step back. Under a sheet of glass in a hermetically sealed frame is a 232-year-old copy of the Declaration of Independence, the birth certificate of the United States.
The rare document ” displayed July 3 aboard the Midway ” is one of only 25 remaining copies of the first “broadsides” that were printed by John Dunlap in Philadelphia shortly after it was signed by John Hancock and Charles Thomson on July 4, 1776.
The roughly 200 broadsides made that day were the first copies of the Declaration of Independence. They were read aloud to citizens throughout the 13 colonies and used to transmit the news of the rebellion against the British Crown.
The copy in Manning’s hands onboard the USS Midway 232 years later has an interesting history itself.
A flea-market browser bought a painting for $4 in Philadelphia because he liked the frame that it was in. When he attempted to remove the painting, the frame fell apart, and the copy of the Declaration of Independence was found folded up between the painting and the wooden backing. The document sold at auction in 1991 for $2.42 million.
The document’s current owner, television producer Norman Lear, then purchased it for more than $8 million in 2000.
Lear subsequently founded the nonprofit group Declare Yourself in 2003 and began a campaign to encourage young people to register and vote by bringing his copy of the Declaration of Independence to as many cities as possible, holding events aimed at the 18- to 29-year-old demographic.
“We’re here today because some people took a chance in 1776,” said Manning during the USS Midway event. “The least we can do is to register and vote.”
The organization claims to have registered 1.2 million people to vote in the 2004 and 2006 elections, and Manning said Declare Yourself has already registered more than 500,000 voters this year.
Manning, a program manager for Declare Yourself, carefully replaced the case in the safe. Back up on the hangar deck, a roped-off area had been been set up for the Fourth of July festivities.
The copy of the Declaration of Independence was on public display onboard the USS Midway for just one day, followed by two more at the New Children’s Museum downtown.
Declare Yourself organizers said the document will continue to tour the country, providing an opportunity for Americans to see the document that launched the United States.
For more information, visit www.declareyourself.com.