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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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