Why the Declaration of Independence We Display Isn’t the Original
Our American Stories
iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 817 Ratings
🗓️ 16 March 2026
⏱️ 10 minutes
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Summary
On this episode of Our American Stories, The Declaration of Independence is one of the most famous documents ever written. Its words helped launch a revolution and have inspired independence movements around the world ever since.
But the parchment signed in 1776 faded badly over time. By the early twentieth century, it was nearly impossible to reproduce clearly. The version most Americans recognize today exists because of Theodore Ohman, an immigrant craftsman who settled in Memphis, Tennessee. Mark Hill tells the story of how Ohman created the detailed reproduction that preserved the Declaration’s appearance for generations.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.6 | Guaranteed human. |
| 0:13.8 | And we continue with our American stories. |
| 0:18.1 | The Declaration of Independence is one of, if not the most important documents in |
| 0:23.3 | American history, and for that matter, world history. And it goes deeper than just its historical |
| 0:29.7 | relevance. For most Americans, their very idea of what constitutes our core values comes directly |
| 0:36.0 | from the words in the Declaration. But for all of its weight and power, |
| 0:40.7 | we don't hang a replica of the original on our walls. That's because the document is nearly |
| 0:46.4 | faded into oblivion. We hang a copy, a readable copy on our walls, and we can thank an immigrant for that, Theodore Oman. |
| 0:57.0 | Here to share the story of the man who made America's favorite copy of the Declaration is Mark Hill. |
| 1:03.5 | So, Theodore Oman was born in 1892. |
| 1:10.3 | Interestingly enough, he actually lived very close to Franz Ferdinand's castle. Franz Ferdinand, |
| 1:16.4 | who many may know, it was the assassination of him and his wife in 1914 that started World |
| 1:24.0 | War I, the ignited World War I. So when Oman grew up, it really wasn't the freest country in the world. |
| 1:31.2 | They did have a government, but the Austro-Hungarian Empire was trying to maintain control. |
| 1:37.9 | The last thing they wanted was for democratic ideas to be taught. |
| 1:43.3 | But Oman did have a teacher who taught her class about the Declaration of Independence. |
| 1:49.0 | And he thought it was the greatest document ever written. |
| 1:52.2 | Another important thing that happened in his life as he was growing up in Bohemia is he was |
| 1:56.7 | taught about the art of lithography from his grandfather. |
| 2:00.3 | The process was taking a image. taught about the art of lithography from his grandfather. |
| 2:10.5 | The process was taking a image and transferring that image onto a metal plate, which sometimes was made out of zinc or some other materials, and they would burn the image into the plate |
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