UCLA scholar reimagines the Declaration of Independence for America’s 250th anniversary

Most people don't look at the Declaration of Independence and think, "What if we took words away?" But UCLA scholar Johanna Drucker did just that, and the result is a striking new way to read one of America's most iconic documents.

Drucker, a distinguished research professor emerita in the UCLA Department of Information Studies and an internationally recognized scholar of printing, typography and book history, was commissioned by the American Philosophical Society (of which she is a member) to create "The Re-Declaration Project" for the nation's 250th anniversary.

Rather than rewriting the document, she used a literary technique known as erasure, carefully removing its direct references to the American Revolution - such as historical references to King George III - so that its enduring ideals of liberty, equality and self-government emerge with fresh relevance for the 21st century.

The hardest part, Drucker said, was "trying to think how to be respectful to this text while also doing something that would be a meaningful intervention."

The effect of her new version, which still preserves most of the words from the original 1776 broadside, is powerful. It invites readers to think less about a revolution against a monarch and more about the nation's continuing pursuit of the principles it declared to be "self-evident."

A master printer who has spent more than four decades working with letterpress, Drucker also reimagined the document visually. Drawing from historic printings of the Declaration, she hand-rendered the seals of all 50 states (adding the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam) and replaced some of the more traditional patriotic flourishes with solar panels and wind turbines - a timely nod, she said, to "energy independence." She even signed the piece "Johanna Hancock," a playful wink to the Declaration's most famous signatory, John Hancock.

On display in Philadelphia through January 2027 as part of the American Philosophical Society's exhibition "These Truths: Declarations of Independence," Drucker's project isn't intended as celebration of America's founding or a critique of it.

"These do not open a space for conversation about where we are as a nation, a people, and how we envision a future in which 'these truths' can be fulfilled with respect," she said.

In the end, she hopes it sparks conversation about how the country's founding ideals have evolved and how Americans can continue working to fulfill them.

This piece was adapted from a longer article on Drucker's "Re-Declaration Project" that can be read on the UCLA School of Education & Information Studies website.