Visitors can explore an 1823 William Stone print of the Declaration of Independence, as commissioned by then Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, as well as colonial-era legal documents signed by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Philip Livingston, and Roger Sherman.
The exhibit also invites visitors to reflect on works by writers throughout American history that reference the Declaration, including Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harvey Milk and Martin Luther King Jr.
At an interactive erasure poetry station, guests can edit the founding document into their own words, inspired by an erasure poem from Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Tracy K. Smith.
Currently on display in person at the American Writers Museum, American Prophets is a powerful exhibit that takes you on the ultimate exploration through spirituality and storytelling. Travel through vibrant spaces that trace the many paths of American faith, from pre-European Indigenous rituals to the religiosity of the Founding Fathers and much more. This isn’t just an exhibit—it’s a shared journey of reflection, inspiration, and connection through the stories that move us all.
Delve into more than 400 years of American writing, from Indigenous storytelling traditions to the explosion of new American voices in the 20th century and beyond. Organized by chronological eras of literary innovation, the exhibit highlights select authors who each played a role in creating the unique character of American writing. Founding-era figures and former presidents appear alongside writers like Frederick Douglass and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who challenged and expanded the nation’s ideals with their powerful words.
In our exhibit My America, hear from more than 30 leading immigrant and refugee writers who talk about their experiences, carving community through writing, reimagining what “home” is, and more. Many signers of the Declaration were themselves immigrants to this land, or first or second generation immigrants. Featuring powerful, intimate stories from the likes of Viet Thanh Nguyen, Reyna Grande, Edwidge Danticat, and more, learn how immigrants and refugees have shaped the fabric of the nation.
Check out some brief bios of significant intellectuals and thinkers of the past, adapted from our exhibit American Voices.
“Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding. The books of an older period will not fit this.“
“One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.“
“They hate because they fear, and they fear because they feel the deepest feelings in their lives are being assaulted and outraged. And they do not know why; they are powerless pawns in the blind play of social forces.“
“The American Negro has the great advantage of having never believed the collection of myths to which white Americans cling: that their ancestors were all freedom-loving heroes, that they were born in the greatest country the world has ever seen…“
