The Federal Government in 1876 lent the Declaration to the city of Philadelphia, site of the national Centennial Exposition. On July 4 Richard Henry Lee, grandson of the signer, read it publicly. It was then exhibited in a fireproof safe behind a plate glass window and seen by more people than ever before. Philadelphians, deploring its condition, fought to retain it and only reluctantly returned it to Washington. Heeding the outcry of those who had viewed the timeworn parchment, a Government commission studied the possibility of restoration and in time concluded that such an attempt might be damaging.
Meantime, in 1877, as a safeguard the Declaration was moved from the Patent Office to a more fireproof building at 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW. shared by the State, War, and Navy Departments. It had narrowly escaped destruction, for only a few months later fire gutted the Patent Office. Finally, in 1894, for protection from the light, State Department officials sealed the 118-year-old sheet between two glass plates and locked it in a safe in the basement. There it lay, except for rare occasions, in darkness and unobserved for more than a quarter of a century.
In 1921 the Department of State, responding to the recommendation of a special commission, relinquished custodianship of the Declaration to the Library of Congress. The transfer was made personally by Herbert Putnam, the Librarian, using a library mail truck, a Model T Ford. At first he kept the document in his office. In 1924, however, he placed it together with the Constitution, on public exhibition in a bronze-and-marble shrine on the second floor. At this time, the Declaration was encased between heavy glass panes specially treated to keep out harmful rays of light.
The Declaration and the Constitution remained there until the outbreak of World War II. On December 26, 1941, just 19 days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, they left Washington under heavy guard by train en route to Fort Knox, Ky., where they arrived the following day. Specialists took advantage of the opportunity and cleaned and restored the Declaration to the maximum degree. In 1944 both it and the Constitution were taken back to the Library of Congress. They remained there until 1952, at which time a tank under military escort carried them to Washington’s National Archives Building, repository of the Nation’s permanent records, which are under the jurisdiction of the National Archives and Records Service of the U.S. General Services Administration.
Constitution Avenue entrance of the National Archives Building, Washington, D.C.
This marble shrine at the rear center of Exhibition Hall, National Archives Building, contains the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.
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Still enshrined there today, along with thousands of other priceless national records, is the parchment copy of the Declaration. The massive bronze doors at the Constitution Avenue entrance to the building lead to the circular Exhibition Hall. At its rear center stands a marble shrine containing the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. They are sealed in helium-filled bronze and glass cases, screened from harmful light rays by special filters, and can be lowered within seconds into a large fireproof, shockproof, and bombproof vault.