Common Press invites the public to learn, practice, and celebrate typesetting and letterpress printing in this year-long exploration of the materiality of the Declaration of Independence in commemoration of its 250th anniversary. The first edition of the Declaration of Independence was produced at John Dunlap’s Philadelphia printshop over the night of July 3, 1776. Using the best technology available at the time, the words were set in Caslon metal type and printed by a team of workers using a hand press. Common Press will use this grant to purchase new Caslon movable type, which will be used during fifteen free, public hands-on demonstrations, workshops, and events in Spring 2026. In seven of the planned workshops, participants will creatively reinterpret the text from the Declaration using movable type and letterpress printing; another seven open studio demonstrations will invite the public to print broadsides paying tribute to the printers, typesetters, and papermakers who made the Declaration. The Typography of Independence project will culminate in a 24-hour event in May 2026, during which everyone in the Philadelphia community will be invited to help typeset an historically accurate replica of the first edition of the Declaration, word by word.
