Summary

Several of the nation's historical documents are being taken off display for restoration The National Archives held a media availability to display the documents, such as the Declaration of Independence, for the last time for two years

Source CONUS Archive
Record ID 268288
Story Slug NATIONAL ARCHIVES DOCUMENT RESTORATION (2001)
Location WASHINGTON, DC
Format TVD
Date 07/03/2001
Archive Time 23:16
TRT 2:55
Supers 1) Stacy Bredhoff / Curator, National Archives 2) Brody Neuenschwander / Professional Calligrapher
Video Description Speakers one on one w/ cuts of calligrapher writing
Description Several of the nation's historical documents are being taken off display for restoration The National Archives held a media availability to display the documents, such as the Declaration of Independence, for the last time for two years
Script (SUGGESTED TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO) 00:00 Taking on the road some of the most celebrated most milestone important documents in American history And the idea is that while the rotunda is close to the public for two years, there will be original documents that will be taken outside of Washington on the road and including such treasures as the Louisiana Purchase treaty The Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, Thomas Edison's patent application for the electric light, President Kennedy's own handwritten draft for his inaugural address, and many, many others, a lot of the stories are very familiar to people But to see something in say George Washington's own words, in his own hand, is really a different experience than seeing, you know, a second secondary source report about it 00:46 But yes, exactly But also think about the fact that these are very valuable and wonderful words the text is, is a text of deep meaning and great value to our society, even now, obviously, and I must say that I rather enjoy and I'm even very moved by some phrases which have become, of course, for us almost standard phrases in American culture, we hold these truths to be self evident, and so on When I writers of the national archives have looked at this parchment, and they've said that it's, of course, we have not touched the Declaration of Independence, which has been sealed for all these years But it's it's very, very close to the skin that the Constitution is written on The ink is chemically exactly the same And the pens are also made there from made from a feather and cut in exactly the same way And I'm actually would have been written by a professional scribe, the scribe who wrote the Declaration of Independence, I have to say, honestly, it was no great talent His writing is perfectly good and acceptable, but there's no great elegance, the man who wrote the Constitution, whose name was shallot was a better, more more proficient scribe But basically, it's a it's a fine form of small handwriting And the real challenge is just to make sure that takes a bit of a train right there Takes a trained eye to see Yeah, that that that's gone a bit funny Whatever, whatever Yeah, that's right You see how it's coming out of the pen Gray, and then it's going black within a few hours That's the special kind of ink that they used What's the implant? Whoever figured this out? I mean, I don't throw like penicillin who decided to decide? Yeah, that's a three So in any case, it's it oxidizes in front of your eyes to this black so I just wrote this a few moments ago and now that's already very black and not black yet So if you wrote this in the back
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