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Never have a few pieces of animal hide been subject to such
meticulous and expensive attention. But these aren't just any old
pieces of parchment. They are America's priceless Charters of
Freedom: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the
Bill of Rights. On "Saving the National Treasures," NOVA tells how a
seemingly simple project became a five-year, multimillion-dollar
technological odyssey.
With the newly restored documents now on display at the National
Archives, NOVA offers the exclusive behind-the-scenes story of how a
team of specialists created the gleaming high-tech encasements for
the Charters, which have experienced flaking ink, improper storage,
and overexposure to light during their long and sometimes perilous
history.
"Saving the National Treasures" not only gives viewers a fascinating
glimpse of cutting-edge preservation technology, it also explores
the background and meaning of these documents, particularly the
Declaration of Independence, whose significance changed over time
from a simple catalog of grievances against the English king to a
stirring proclamation of the rights of all people.
The Declaration of Independence is also the most imperiled of the
founding Charters. Penned with the purpose of officially dissolving
colonial ties with Great Britain in 1776, the document led a
fugitive existence throughout the American Revolution, traveling
from town to town in a strongbox with other records of the
Continental Congress, often barely ahead of advancing British
troops.
After the Revolution, the Declaration was almost loved to death by
the new nation (see
The Damage Done). An
engraver made a copy in the early 1800s, probably by moistening the
original and transferring some of its ink to a clean sheet in order
to engrave a copper plate. Later, the original hung for decades
opposite a sunny window, further fading the already disappearing
text (see
Fading Away).
In 1952, the Declaration of Independence was put on display at the
National Archives along with the Constitution and the Bill of
Rights—all sealed in airtight enclosures of tinted glass
filled with helium gas. The encasements were unsurpassed when they
were created, but over time they have developed unanticipated
problems. The glass began to deteriorate and form tiny crystals,
with unknown effects on the documents inside.
NOVA captures the consultations of a blue-ribbon panel appointed to
preserve the Charters using whatever technology necessary. The
project goes hand-in-hand with a complete redesign of the Rotunda at
the National Archives, where more than one million visitors a year
view the documents.
Given the stakes and the range of disciplines represented on the
panel—from archivists to conservators to scientists and
engineers—there is a healthy debate about what course to take.
Will specially milled titanium and aluminum frames hold a vacuum?
Should the humidity inside the frames be controlled with silica gel,
which has proven trouble free in similar applications? How far
should conservators go in repairing physical damage to the Charters?
(To hear from the conservators, see
A Conservative Approach.)
A riveting moment comes after the decisions are made, the frames are
built to perfection, and the team begins the painstaking process of
removing the documents from their 1950s mounts and making them ready
for their new metal boxes designed to protect against every
imaginable natural and human-made disaster. Only then do we see the
Declaration of Independence out in the open on a table for the first
time in half a century, much as it was over 200 years ago when a
group of brave patriots took quills in hand to affix their
signatures.
But the crowning moment comes in the refurbished Rotunda, with the
Charters of Freedom in their lustrous cases (see
Case Closed), as new
American citizens from every corner of the globe swear allegiance,
not to a ruler or a piece of geography but to a set of
ideas—words written with quills on the skins of animals, more
than two centuries ago.
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