Bunglers altered America’s treasured founding document
Mary Lynn Ritzenthaler, former US National Archives chief of conservation
Has the United States’ Declaration of Independence been defaced? Did someone rewrite and enhance signatures on the hallowed parchment?
And is that – and a grimy handprint on the document – the result of 20th-century bungling?
Two retired experts with the National Archives who have carefully scrutinised the declaration believe the answers are yes.
Some time between 1903 and 1940, officials with access to the declaration marred the treasured document, rewriting or overwriting famous signatures and leaving behind the left handprint, the experts believe.
They contend that it was also during this period that the handwriting on the declaration was mysteriously diminished, costing it more of its already dwindling original ink. Little of that ink now survives.
‘‘Between 1903 . . . and 1940, someone . . . took drastic steps that altered the document significantly . . . [in] what can only be described as the defacement – even if unintentional – of the declaration,’’ Mary Lynn Ritzenthaler, the archives’ retired chief of conservation,
Somebody might have tried something and didn’t have very good results, and this was their reaction.
and Catherine Nicholson, the retired deputy chief, write in the latest issue of the National Archives’ quarterly magazine.
‘‘The defining damage that made the declaration what it is today was not the result of 19th-century copying or excessive exhibition, but occurred in the 20th century,’’ they said.
‘‘Something happened after 1903 that caused that damage, and made people . . . enhance the signatures,’’ Ritzenthaler said.
Perhaps it was a botched mounting technique or a flattening procedure, she said. ‘‘Somebody might have tried something and didn’t have very good results, and this was their reaction.’’
The handprint is also a mystery. ‘‘A dirty hand. An inky hand. Why would you do that?’’ Ritzenthaler said.
‘‘The document is sufficiently big that . . . if it’s on table, when someone’s leaning over, it’s kind of a natural action to put your hand down in that corner,’’ she said. ‘‘So you can envision how it happened.’’
The 240-year-old declaration, which is housed in a special case in the National Archives rotunda in Washington, DC, is now extremely faded, and much of it is barely legible.
In 2002, Ritzenthaler and Nicholson removed it from its 50-year-old case and examined it in preparation for mounting it in a new case.
‘‘We did a whole lot of close examination and photography,’’ Ritzenthaler said. ‘‘It was like being a detective.’’
While the the handprint was clear, the alterations were scarcely noticeable, she said. But for conservationists, they are crucial, and something that would never be done today.
The scholars reached their conclusions by examining old photographs, mainly one taken in 1903 that shows few of the current flaws in the document that gave birth to the US on July 4, 1776.
Photographs of the declaration were commissioned by the US Congress in 1922, but they have never been found.
It was only during research in 1940 that the image of the handprint in the lower left corner was first mentioned, the scholars wrote.
Ritzenthaler said it also looked like someone may have tried to rub out the handprint.
In addition, the changes to the signatures, first noticed in the 1940s, did not appear in the 1903 photograph, the scholars wrote.
Fifty-six men, including Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and John Hancock, signed the declaration.
Many of the signatures, including Jefferson’s, are either gone or barely visible today, and the enhancements were probably done to try to reverse this, the scholars wrote. In particular, the ‘‘J’’ and the ‘‘H’’ in Hancock’s ornate signature were enhanced.
Other names visible in the centre columns ‘‘show evidence of partial enhancement or recreation of missing signatures’’, Ritzenthaler said.
She said there was nothing in public or official records about the alterations or the handprint.
‘‘We don’t really know under whose watch these things happened. I suspect in response to this damage that people probably felt terrible.’’