New Yorkers have until Sept. 27 to visit “The Promise of Liberty: Words That Shaped a Nation,” a landmark exhibition at the South Street Seaport Museum marking America’s 250th anniversary with an extraordinary collection of historic documents, printed materials and artifacts.
Presented in the historic 1868 A.A. Thomson & Co. building at 213 Water Street, the exhibition examines how ideas about liberty, equality, freedom of expression and self-government have developed across American history.
One of the exhibition’s major highlights is a rare 1787 “Official Edition” of the United States Constitution. Printed by Dunlap and Claypoole for delegates to the Constitutional Convention and Confederation Congress, the copy is one of only 14 known surviving examples. The document is on loan from the Kenneth C. Griffin Collection and is being displayed publicly after decades out of view.
The Constitution is displayed alongside other defining documents, including the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights. Visitors can also see handwritten pages from an undelivered inaugural address by George Washington, the Emancipation Proclamation and an advance copy of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “March on Washington” speech.
The exhibition also highlights lesser-known materials that illuminate pivotal moments in American history. Among them are a 1765 account of the trial of printer John Peter Zenger, Thomas Paine’s influential 1776 pamphlet Common Sense, engravings documenting Washington’s 1789 inauguration and a 1790 publication of the Treaties of Hopewell.
A first edition of Frederick Douglass’s 1855 autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom, is another featured item. The exhibition also includes a collection of broadsides and ephemera documenting the women’s voting rights movement between 1914 and 1918, along with a signed 1937 press release concerning a speech by President Franklin D. Roosevelt marking the 150th anniversary of the Constitution.
New York’s role in the nation’s development receives particular attention. As the country’s first capital and an important center for commerce, printing and political activity, Lower Manhattan helped shape how news and ideas circulated. Historic printing materials, broadsides and a working printing press connect the documents on display to the city’s role in the development of public discourse and freedom of the press.
The exhibition is organized in cooperation with Sail4th 250 and curated by Seth Kaller and the South Street Seaport Museum.
The Promise of Liberty is open Wednesday through Sunday at 213 Water Street. The museum lists special exhibition tickets at $10, although its current website also notes that admission pricing may vary.