When the Declaration of Independence Was News

Tracing the moments after its creation, this groundbreaking story follows how news of the Declaration of Independence spread to people throughout the thirteen colonies and the Atlantic world.
In 1776, people could hear the Declaration of Independence proclaimed in public squares and could read it in the pages of their local newspapers. Although stories of the Declaration typically recount the work of the Continental Congress, the work of spreading the news involved printers, post riders, ship captains, civic leaders, soldiers, clerks, orators, preachers, diplomats, and translators.
When the Declaration of Independence Was News reveals the stories behind how the Declaration was communicated in the New and Old worlds. Tracing the travels of the founding document of the US from Philadelphia to New York, Boston, Charleston, Europe, and beyond, Emily Sneff shows how people both celebrated and critiqued the Declaration. In the weeks after the document was penned, it was printed in newspaper columns, translated into German and French, and shared with Native American allies. The document compelled some people to make public their privately held beliefs about whether they wanted the United States to be independent or to reconcile with King George III. The questions of who experienced the news of independence, when, and how reveal an expansive and complex history of a critical moment in the American Revolution.
Published for the 250th anniversary of US independence, When the Declaration of Independence Was News returns to a time before the legacy of these words was known to reconsider what the founding of the US meant to the people who were living through it.