The Living Declaration: America's Founding Text

No text is as essential as the Declaration of Independence to understanding our history as a people and the unique contribution our political culture has made to the world. Edited and published with support from an NEH grant, The Living Declaration: A Biography of America’s Founding Text from the Library of America weaves together sixty-eight essential writings by a broad spectrum of American and international figures—radicals and conservatives, revolutionary insurgents and civil rights leaders, presidents and philosophers— to trace the remarkable story of how America’s founding text came to be and how it has shaped democratic aspirations across the globe for more than two centuries.

An NEH Public Impacts Project grant is supporting a related public humanities initiative, The Living Declaration: Rediscovering America’s Founding Text, a five-part public program series and multimedia online resource interpreting the origins, historical development, and continued importance of the language and ideas of the Declaration of Independence. 

Presented in partnership with cultural organizations and public libraries across the country, these programs draw on the historical texts compiled in the Library of America volume to show how the Declaration came to be in 1776 and why it has remained a crucial cultural and political touchstone ever since.