Happy Independence Day!

Before the ink was dry, the Declaration was already on its way to the people. In this special Independence Day episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, recorded for America's 250th Birthday on July 4, 2026, Professor Robert Allison welcomes master printer Gary Gregory of the historic Edes & Gill Print Shop to explore how the words that founded a nation were transformed into printed broadsides and carried into towns across Massachusetts.

Their conversation centers on the remarkable story of the official Massachusetts printing of the Declaration by Ezekiel Russell in Salem, the broadside ordered distributed to every parish in the Commonwealth, where it was read aloud to congregations, entered into town records, and shared in one of the first truly statewide civic moments in American history. Gregory also offers a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the painstaking craft of recreating the 1776 document using period presses, hand-set type, traditional paper, and the same printing techniques employed two and a half centuries ago.  Find out more in Haverhill's Museum of Printing! 

Released on the 250th anniversary of American independence, this episode celebrates not only the ideals expressed in the Declaration, but also the printers, craftsmen, and ordinary citizens who helped carry those ideals from a single sheet of paper into communities across a new nation. It is a fitting reflection on how words became action, how print became revolution, and why the Declaration continues to inspire Americans 250 years later.

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