National Archives will fly six Founding-era documents on a Freedom Plane tour

The National Archives and Records Administration is launching a "Freedom Plane" that will carry six rare 18th-century documents to museums in eight U.S. cities beginning in March, the agency announced. The traveling exhibition, titled "Documents That Forged a Nation," is loosely inspired by the 1976 American Freedom Train and is intended to bring representatives of the Charters of Freedom to audiences who cannot travel to Washington.

The project will use a specially painted Boeing 737; visitors will be able to view the documents in museums but will not be able to board the plane. The selection traces the Founding Era from the 1774 Articles of Association through the drafting and ratification of the Constitution.

Items include a rare original printing from the 1823 Stone engraving representing the Declaration, 1778 oaths of allegiance signed at Valley Forge by George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, the last page of the 1783 Treaty of Paris, and two Constitution-related items: a draft printed during the 1787 convention with a delegate’s handwritten notes and a tally of the approving votes.

The tour’s first stop is the National World War I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, Mo. (March 6–22) and the final stop is the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle (July 30–Aug. 16); other cities include Atlanta, Los Angeles, Houston, Denver, Miami and Dearborn, Mich.

Key Topics

Culture, National Archives, Freedom Plane