{"id":419001,"date":"2026-01-20T16:15:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T16:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/419001\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T16:15:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T16:15:08","slug":"usc-to-host-historic-national-archives-founding-era-documents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/419001\/","title":{"rendered":"USC to host historic National Archives founding-era documents"},"content":{"rendered":"

USC will host the National Archives<\/a> \u201cFreedom Plane National Tour: Documents That Forged a Nation\u201d from April 17 through May 3, bringing original founding-era documents to Los Angeles for a once-in-a-generation opportunity. The exhibition is part of an eight-city national tour celebrating the 250th anniversary of the United States.<\/p>\n

The USC Fisher Museum of Art<\/a>, the oldest art museum in the city of Los Angeles, will display rare founding documents including William Stone\u2019s 1823 engraving of the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Association from 1774, the Treaty of Paris that recognized American independence, and a draft of the U.S. Constitution \u2014 most of which are leaving Washington, D.C., for the first time in many decades.<\/p>\n

\"Freedom<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cUSC is honored to host this historic exhibition as part of our country\u2019s 250th anniversary,\u201d USC Interim President Beong-Soo Kim<\/a> said. \u201cThese founding documents will offer members of our community \u2014 both at USC and throughout the region \u2014 an opportunity to reflect on the enduring principles underlying our constitutional democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAmericans across the country can bear witness to the people and principles that shaped our nation through the Freedom Plane National Tour,\u201d said Jim Byron, senior advisor to the Archivist of the United States. \u201cThere is no more noteworthy an occasion than America\u2019s 250th \u2018birthday\u2019 to share this history, to inspire our fellow Americans to champion our nation\u2019s founding ideals into the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe founders lived in a world very different from ours,\u201d said Peter Mancall<\/a>, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities and professor of history, anthropology and economics at USC. \u201cThey tolerated enslavement, denied political voice to women and excluded Native Americans. Yet the ideals they articulated in these famous documents have inspired Americans for nearly 250 years. The notion that all people are created equal and that each of us has inalienable rights that no government can violate remain core ideas in our society. USC\u2019s location near the heart of a thriving city enables a wide public to view documents that helped establish these ideals.\u201d<\/p>\n

The exhibition will be free and open to the public during regular museum hours. It will include the following historical documents:<\/p>\n

William Stone Engraving of the Declaration of Independence, 1823: One of only about 50 known original engraved copies of the Declaration of Independence, printed from a copperplate of the original, commissioned by John Quincy Adams and made by engraver William J. Stone. The engraving captured the size, text, lettering and signatures of the original document (on loan from David M. Rubenstein).
\nArticles of Association, 1774: The most important agreement at the time that was adopted by the First Continental Congress and signed by all 53 delegates that urged colonists to boycott British goods.
\nGeorge Washington\u2019s, Alexander Hamilton\u2019s and Aaron Burr\u2019s Oaths of Allegiance, 1778: Oaths of Allegiance that all officers of the Continental Army signed during the Revolutionary War.
\nTreaty of Paris, 1783: Signed by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and John Jay, the treaty with Great Britain formally recognized the United States as an independent nation.
\nSecret Printing of the Constitution in Draft Form, 1787: A rare copy of the U.S. Constitution in draft form, with delegate handwritten notes made during the Constitutional Convention in 1787.
\nTally of Votes Approving the Constitution, 1787: The voting records of the Constitutional Convention reflecting the debates, resolutions and eventual vote on the final text that would become the Constitution.<\/p>\n

Inspired by the Bicentennial Freedom Train, the Freedom Plane National Tour brings these documents together for the first time in history. The tour will visit eight cities across the nation:<\/p>\n

Kansas City, Mo.: National WWI Museum and Memorial, March 6-22.
\nAtlanta: Atlanta History Center, March 27-April 12.
\nLos Angeles: USC Fisher Museum of Art, April 17-May 3.
\nHouston: Houston Museum of Natural Science, May 8-25.
\nDenver: History Colorado Center, May 28-June 14.
\nMiami: HistoryMiami Museum, June 20-July 5.
\nDearborn, Mich.: Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, July 9-26.
\nSeattle: Museum of History and Industry, July 30-Aug. 16.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"USC will host the National Archives \u201cFreedom Plane National Tour: Documents That Forged a Nation\u201d from April 17…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419002,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,8649,98642,2420,473,3,21,19,22,20,25,24,200361,22570,46949],"class_list":["post-419001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-democracy","tag-democracy-dialogue","tag-government","tag-history","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-usc-fisher-museum-of-art","tag-usc-news","tag-usc-news-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}