As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, a BYU professor is bringing the nation's first printed Declaration of Independence back to life.
Nearly 250 years after printers rushed the Declaration of Independence into existence, BYU adjunct professor Robert Buchert is retracing history one letter, one sheet and one impression at a time.
As America prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary, Buchert’s recreation offers a reminder that the nation's founding document is more than words on a page — it is a physical record of a pivotal night in history and of the people who worked through the night to bring it to life.
Just hours after the Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, Thomas Jefferson carried the final text through the streets of Philadelphia to a nearby print shop.
There, under the pressure of an unfolding revolution, printers worked through the night to produce 200 copies before morning.
Known today as the Dunlap Broadside, this first official printing of the Declaration became the urgent, tangible announcement that the colonies had chosen to become a new nation.
Nearly 250 years later, Buchert, who has taught BYU’s Intro to Letterpress class for more than two decades, set out to recreate it.
The result is a painstaking replica that mirrors not only the Declaration's words but also the paper, typography and printing imperfections of the original.
Buchert's re-creation required more than 1,300 hours of research, design, and hand craftsmanship, unlike the original, which was produced in a single night.
The project began with an unexpected phone call. Gove Allen, a BYU emeritus faculty member and an organizer of Orem's Colonial Festival, contacted Buchert looking for authentic 18th-century paper.
Allen explained that the festival's George Washington reenactor needed more historically accurate paper. While studying colonial papermaking, Buchert discovered the Dunlap Broadside and realized the nation's 250th anniversary was approaching. Seeing a perfect opportunity to apply his skills, he set out to replicate the Declaration of Independence.
"I make papermaking equipment. I make paper. I do type design. I do letterpress printing," Buchert said. "That's sort of a strange skill set to have. It is very niche. But it was like, 'Oh, but that's the skill set you need to do this thing.'"
Those skills became the foundation of a four-month effort to recreate the document as accurately as possible.
The recreation began with Buchert exploring a high-resolution scan of one of the 26 surviving original Dunlap Broadsides preserved by the Library of Congress.
Buchert scaled the scan to its original dimensions and began dissecting every detail of the document.
He engineered a specialized screen to match the original's unusual 1.05-inch chain lines. He digitally uncovered the document's watermark and hand-shaped the wire design, soldering it to the mold. He then produced sheets from flax, hemp, and cotton fibers.
Buchert rejected modern fonts as they didn’t offer the same authenticity that the declaration needed and rebuilt the typeface from historical specimens. He even used type believed to have come from the same foundry that supplied the original, according to evidence from a specimen book.
As he studied the document, he discovered that the Declaration's physical appearance told a story.
Because the original printers worked under an overnight deadline, the text curves slightly across the page and contains irregular spacing throughout. To most readers, those details may seem like flaws. To Buchert, they reflect the urgency of that historic night, when the printers had little time to correct mistakes or begin again.
"It's not just a document of their complaint," he said. "It's a document of that night, and the excitement and the rush they had to go into to do it."
Replicating the curvature and imperfect spacing was one of the most time-consuming parts of the project.
Buchert manually adjusted every character to match the original spacing and alignment. What would normally take minutes stretched into days as he recreated each subtle bend and irregularity.
After four months of work, the project was finally ready for the press, but even then, Buchert hesitated. “What if I screwed it up?” Buchert recalls thinking. When the first successful impression emerged, months of uncertainty gave way to relief.
The experience also gave Buchert a new appreciation not only for the rudimentary lettering, but also for the language of the Declaration itself.
"I think the language would be the dignity of the declaration," he said. "The language chosen was really dignified for a complaint. The level of statesmanship that was put into this, and the bar it sets, was sort of the big revelation to me."
As a professor, Buchert hopes the project inspires students to see the value of creating things by hand.
"I hope that they can see the importance of objects in our mortal experience and how the things that we do — the things that we make — can carry meaning that's significant to other generations," he said."When we are creative in any form, it is important to be present in that creation. Because the process can have meaning."
