Pasadena-area residents can see two original 1776 printings of the Declaration of Independence and hear historians explain how the document traveled across a continent, all for free, at The Huntington on Wednesday, July 8.
The evening panel, titled "American Landmarks: Declaration of Independence," runs from 5 to 6:30 p.m. in Haaga Hall at The Huntington, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino. Reservations are required, but admission costs nothing.
The discussion features UC Riverside historian Steven Hackel, who specializes in the Spanish Borderlands and colonial California; Olga Tsapina, the Norris Foundation Curator of American History who has worked at The Huntington since 1998 and whose forthcoming article on the institution's unique Declaration printings has been accepted by the American Historical Review; and Diego Godoy, associate curator of California and Hispanic collections, who joined in 2024. Susan Juster, the W.M. Keck Foundation Director of Research at The Huntington and a former University of Michigan professor, moderates.
The panel asks how news of the Declaration reached the wider world, including California.
Hackel has studied that question for years. In a previous interview with LAist, he noted that in 1776, California was "one of the most densely settled regions in the Western Hemisphere," home to more than 100 tribal nations. The region wasn't cut off from the revolution, either. When Spain joined France to back the colonies against England, California missions paid a tax to fund the Spanish military's efforts.
"Wherever there was land — and animals and plants — people were living," Hackel said.
The panel anchors around two annotated July 1776 printings of the Declaration now on display in The Huntington's "This Land Is …" exhibition at the MaryLou and George Boone Gallery. One is a broadside published in New York by John Holt, annotated by John McKesson, secretary of New York's Fourth Provincial Congress, in the days following July 4, 1776.
Ticketholders can enter the grounds as early as 2 p.m. on July 8 for a self-guided tour of the exhibition, which also features an inscribed Woody Guthrie guitar, early Native American treaties, and a cross section of a 250-year-old Pasadena oak tree uprooted in a 1993 windstorm.
The panel is part of the American Landmarks series, presented with the USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute as part of the LA2026 project, funded in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The "This Land Is …" exhibition runs through Monday, January 11, 2027. General admission to the exhibition on other days costs $29 to $34 depending on the date.
To reserve a spot for the July 8 panel, visit huntington.org or call (626) 405-2100.
Upcoming community events in the Pasadena area
- Wednesday, July 8 — Music at Noon featuring organist Makena James, 12:10–12:40 p.m., Pasadena Presbyterian Church, 585 E. Colorado Blvd. Free.
- Wednesday, July 8 — Caltech Library Outdoor Movie Night: "Pride and Prejudice," 8–10 p.m., Sherman Fairchild Library East Amphitheater, Caltech campus. Free.
- Thursday–Friday, July 17–18 — 12th Annual Plumeria Festival, Los Angeles County Arboretum, 301 N. Baldwin Ave., Arcadia. Included with general admission ($18 adults, $14 seniors/students, $8 children 3–12).
