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After the Founders Declared Independence, Printers Quickly Translated the Text for German-Speaking Americans
Key takeaways
- Christian Thorsberg | Daily Correspondent
- That was hard to do in an era when public communication depended on horseback postage networks and old-fashioned oration.
- But sharing only English-language copies, in a nation made up of immigrants, would have been a poor strategy.
Christian Thorsberg | Daily Correspondent
Add as preferred source. A first printing of the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in German, from July 6-8, 1776 © Deutsches Historisches Museum After the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, in Philadelphia, the founding fathers faced a new challenge: spreading the word that the United States of America was an independent nation.
That was hard to do in an era when public communication depended on horseback postage networks and old-fashioned oration. Overnight, printers worked to produce some 200 English-language copies of the Declaration of Independence on broadsides—large, cheap paper sheets that could be pasted onto walls in public spaces—that were distributed throughout the colonies.