backstory: New York’s Declaration
Big weekend coming up, with lots to do to celebrate our nation’s 250th anniversary. Fireworks. Tall ships. And over here at the Neuberger on Saturday, we’re opening The Declaration Distributed: Westchester County’s Holt Broadside of 1776.
What is that, you might be asking?
In the United States we have come to celebrate July 4th as our nation’s Independence Day, but, in fact, only twelve of the thirteen colonies adopted the Declaration on that day.
New York was the hold-out, adopting the Declaration five days later, on July 9, 1776, and immediately engaged printer and publisher John Holt (1721-1784) to typeset and print the adoption in order to spread the word.
Westchester County’s Holt Broadside is extremely rare, one of only a handful of sheets left from Holt’s print run. And we’ve got it here at the Neuberger.
Hope you’ll come see it and learn about the role of this important historic document.
Tracy Fitzpatrick
Director, Neuberger Museum of Art
PS. We are holding a joint press conference with the Westchester County Executive’s office tomorrow at 11a.m. about the Holt Broadside. If you are interested, you can watch the livestream here.
