Creating the United States October 11, 2012

In the crucial weeks leading up to the election, with the future of America hotly debated every day, discover how our nation’s founders managed to build a strong and resilient republic—even in the face of political turmoil in their own time.

Organized by the Library of Congress, Creating the United States illuminates how the founding documents—the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights—were forged out of insight, invention, and creativity, as well as collaboration, competition, and compromise. While fulfilling the principles laid down by the founders has been a struggle throughout the centuries, the documents they painstakingly wrote are living instruments, essential to the evolution of America and its future.

On view are original documents and autograph letters by George Washington, John Adams, John Hancock, and Thomas Jefferson; a first edition of Common Sense by Thomas Paine (1776); engravings by Paul Revere; a William J. Stone copy of the Declaration of Independence (1847); a Members Edition of the United States Constitution (1787); a facsimile of Jefferson’s desk on which he drafted the Declaration of Independence; and an original copy of Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation (1863). Rarely has the history of American democracy been so vividly assembled for public exhibition in Southern California.

Official Website: http://www.skirball.org/exhibitions/creating-the-united-states