Original Declaration of Independence printed on 100% hemp paper?
Lon Stowell
> I've looked all over trying to find some reference to whether this is
> bullshit or not. I recently saw it in an article where that particular
> comment suited the author's purpose quite well (which was what raised
> my suspicions to begin with). Anyone (with a cite) know one way or the
> other?
In looking for this, found so many other interesting things
forgot the original question. e.g. always presumed parchment
to be sheepskin in nature, but even back then vegetable
parchment was around. Also that West Wing stole their name
from the document.
TdN
An important document, then as now, would be printed on rag paper.
The first typeset, printed copies of the Declaration (the "Dunlap
Broadsides") were printed on European paper.
http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/books/gnrlpub/inde6.htm
The copies for the Continental Congress's archives were, by order
"engross'd on parchment." I've never seen an analysis of an engrossed
copy, but the conservation precautions described below are more
appropriate to animal than vegetable parchment:
http://www.historychannel.com/exhibits/declaration/preserve.html
Now, the question is, were there cheap knockoffs of the Declaration
printed on paper made from hemp fiber?
Given that even newspapers and broadsheets were published on rag paper
in the 18th century, it seems unlikely to me. I studied Colonial and
early Federal watermarks as part of an American paleography course in
grad school, but very few of the references I recall are on the web,
so here are some more accessible cites:
http://www.loc.gov/preserv/usnppr.html
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/book_arts/11620
http://www.miltontimes.com/News/2002/0418/Columns/pieceofhistory418.html
It seems pretty safe to assume that all contemporary copies of the
Declaration were printed on rag paper. Were some of the rags used to
make this paper hemp? Absolutely; hemp was a very popular and durable
fabric of the time. Were 100% of any batch of paper rags hemp? Very
unlikely, as rags were collected from households and businesses by
itinerant collectors ("rag-and-bone men") and weren't sorted by plant
content before being macerated, shredded, and pulped.
http://www.vitan-papier.de/e_funk2c.htm
T "paper tiger" dN
Burroughs Guy
> On 19 Jan 2003 10:23:36 -0800 in
> <314a4ba6.03011...@posting.google.com>,
> triann...@hotmail.com (TdN) graced the world with this thought:
> >An important document, then as now, would be printed on rag paper.
> >The first typeset, printed copies of the Declaration (the "Dunlap
> >Broadsides") were printed on European paper.
European paper doesn't tell us what it was made of (unless it was made of
Europeans). Most paper at the time was hemp.
> >http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/books/gnrlpub/inde6.htm
This page says the paper was made by D & C Blauw, but does not tell us
what the paper was made of. If you know that it was or was not hemp,
please provide a cite.
> Thanks for the info, it makes a lot of sense... this person <did> say
> "the original," so subsequent copies don't really matter.
> Thanks again.
The oldest we have is the Dunlap Broadsides, and these are generally
refered to as originals. The true original would be the hand written copy
signed by Hancock and Thomson right after Congress approved it. This copy
has been lost (perhaps discarded by Dunlap).
I believe Jack Herer's claim applies to the Dunlap Broadsides, since that
is what is generally called original. I am a friend of Jack Herer, and
knowing the quality of his scholarship he may not even know the term
"Dunlap Broadside". I believe the engrossed copy is on vellum (animal
skin paper).
--
Burroughs Guy
I knew the MCP when it was just a chess program.
Hatunen
<BurroughsG...@aol.com> wrote:
>bizbee wrote:
>
>> On 19 Jan 2003 10:23:36 -0800 in
>> <314a4ba6.03011...@posting.google.com>,
>> triann...@hotmail.com (TdN) graced the world with this thought:
>
>> >An important document, then as now, would be printed on rag paper.
>> >The first typeset, printed copies of the Declaration (the "Dunlap
>> >Broadsides") were printed on European paper.
>
>European paper doesn't tell us what it was made of (unless it was made of
>Europeans). Most paper at the time was hemp.
Now there's a blanket statement that cries, "Citation., please!"
[...]
************* DAVE HATUNEN (hat...@cox.net) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *
Burroughs Guy
> >European paper doesn't tell us what it was made of (unless it was made
of
> >Europeans). Most paper at the time was hemp.
>
> Now there's a blanket statement that cries, "Citation., please!"
No problem. Of course, every citation is going to be traced back to Jack
Herer, so I'll just cite Jack:
http://www.jackherer.com/book/ch02.html
Until 1883, from 75-90% of all paper in the world was
made with cannabis hemp fiber including that for
books, Bibles, maps, paper money, stocks and bonds, newspapers, etc.
Anthony McCafferty
<YmFydGljdXM=.2f89eff60a2395f2...@1043366157.cotse.net>,
"Burroughs Guy" <BurroughsG...@aol.com> writes:
>European paper doesn't tell us what it was made of (unless it was made of
>Europeans). Most paper at the time was hemp.
No. So very much so "no" that Briquet was able to make a (bigger) name for
himself by showing that cotton's dominance came quite late. See:
http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byorg/abbey/ap/ap05/ap05-5/ap05-503.html
Pay close attention to the dates in question. Note also the bald statement
"Cotton was the main fiber used for printing and writing paper in the US. for
about 80 years, until 1870," seen upfront in the second paragraph.
( Note the complete lack of the phrases "hey, wow" or "it's, like,
na-a-a-tural" while you are at it.)
Early American paper manufacture seems to have been centered on rag fiber,
which meant mostly cotton or linen. Early US hemp production was mostly
dew-retted stuff intended for cheap rope, a problem (good rope was an important
requirement for navies and merchant marines) which persisted past the US Civil
War...that is to say, about 80 years after the Declaration was printed. .(The
ropewalk created for Civil War-time needsat the Boston Naval Shipyard lasted
almost until 1970s or so, amazingly.)
Anthony "calm down, Bart. Or maybe get a little less calm" McCafferty
Hatunen
<BurroughsG...@aol.com> wrote:
>Hatunen wrote:
>
>> >European paper doesn't tell us what it was made of (unless it was made
>of
>> >Europeans). Most paper at the time was hemp.
>>
>> Now there's a blanket statement that cries, "Citation., please!"
>
>No problem. Of course, every citation is going to be traced back to Jack
>Herer, so I'll just cite Jack:
>
>http://www.jackherer.com/book/ch02.html
>
> Until 1883, from 75-90% of all paper in the world was
> made with cannabis hemp fiber including that for
> books, Bibles, maps, paper money, stocks and bonds, newspapers, etc.
Mr Herer was around in the late 18th century, then? Or does he manage
a footnote citation for that rather bald claim?
Anthony McCafferty
<YmFydGljdXM=.9f0580edfefb0ad0...@1043370869.cotse.net>,
"Burroughs Guy" <BurroughsG...@aol.com> writes:
>> Now there's a blanket statement that cries, "Citation., please!"
>
>No problem. Of course, every citation is going to be traced back to Jack
>Herer, so I'll just cite Jack:
And this, of course, doesn't tell you anything. Doesn't even suggest
anything, does it? Most accurate information about a couple of thousand years
history or three can be cited back to a single source, right?
>
>http://www.jackherer.com/book/ch02.html
Following Jack Herer looking for an error or overstatement is like
following a lit fuse in search of an explosion.
Reading through the op. you've cit.-ed, the first paragraph I've found that
doesn't contain something wrong or grotesquely exagerated is one imploring you
not to smoke your hempen shirt for recreational purposes.
Anthony "Sounds like he found the right level for his intended audience,
Bart-boy" McCafferty
Anthony McCafferty
writes:
>> Until 1883, from 75-90% of all paper in the world was
>> made with cannabis hemp fiber including that for
>> books, Bibles, maps, paper money, stocks and bonds, newspapers, etc.
>
>Mr Herer was around in the late 18th century, then? Or does he manage
>a footnote citation for that rather bald claim?
By 1884, hemp and linen were so eclipsed in paper-making that the
realization that cotton was -not- the dominant fiber in the incunabula was
revolutionary.
Anthony "Scholars are attacking! Circle the footnotes!" McCafferty
Hatunen
McCafferty) wrote:
>In article <3e309f9a....@news.west.cox.net>, hatu...@cox.net (Hatunen)
>writes:
>
>>> Until 1883, from 75-90% of all paper in the world was
>>> made with cannabis hemp fiber including that for
>>> books, Bibles, maps, paper money, stocks and bonds, newspapers, etc.
>>
>>Mr Herer was around in the late 18th century, then? Or does he manage
>>a footnote citation for that rather bald claim?
>
> By 1884, hemp and linen were so eclipsed in paper-making that the
>realization that cotton was -not- the dominant fiber in the incunabula was
>revolutionary.
I have not doubt that might be true of the late 19th century. But back
to my question.
Burroughs Guy
> >European paper doesn't tell us what it was made of (unless it was made
of
> >Europeans). Most paper at the time was hemp.
>
> No. So very much so "no" that Briquet was able to make a (bigger)
name for
> himself by showing that cotton's dominance came quite late. See:
>
> http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/byorg/abbey/ap/ap05/ap05-5/ap05-503.html
>
> Pay close attention to the dates in question. Note also the bald
statement
> "Cotton was the main fiber used for printing and writing paper in the
US. for
> about 80 years, until 1870," seen upfront in the second paragraph.
The cotton gin was invented in 1793. Note the approximate corelation with
the phrase "about 80 years, until 1870" in your cite. Before the
invention of the cotton gin, cotton was a marginal crop. July 4, 1776 was
prior to 1793.
> Early American paper manufacture seems to have been centered on rag
fiber,
> which meant mostly cotton or linen.
The Dunlap Broadsides were printed on Dutch made paper. Netherlands was a
seafaring country. Sails were made of canvas; canvas is Dutch for
cannabis. There was a large supply of discarded sails for paper
manufacture.
> Early US hemp production was mostly
> dew-retted stuff intended for cheap rope, a problem (good rope was an
important
> requirement for navies and merchant marines) which persisted past the US
Civil
> War...that is to say, about 80 years after the Declaration was printed.
American flax was retted the same way. Furthermore, cloth described as
linen was often hemp not flax.
Burroughs Guy
> Most accurate information about a couple of thousand years
> history or three can be cited back to a single source, right?
One person cites one thing, someone else cites something which contradicts
it, and in the end we know nothing. That's how AFU works. Were you
expecting more?
> >http://www.jackherer.com/book/ch02.html
>
> Following Jack Herer looking for an error or overstatement is like
> following a lit fuse in search of an explosion.
Well put. At times I tried to explain to Jack that he was overstating his
case. Once, Jack was adding maximum fiber production per acre to maximum
seed production per acre. I told him that when you grow hemp for seed you
plant a lot fewer seeds per acre than when you plant it for fiber. He had
no idea what I was talking about. This is the world's greatest authority
on hemp[1] we're talking about, and he didn't know this basic fact of
cannabiculture.
Which makes it all the more impressive, that no one has collected on his
challenge. If you're so smart, go take $100,000 of Jack Herer:
http://www.jackherer.com/catalog/100000.php
[1] He really is, and that's sad
TdN
>
> The Dunlap Broadsides were printed on Dutch made paper. Netherlands was a
> seafaring country. Sails were made of canvas; canvas is Dutch for
> cannabis. There was a large supply of discarded sails for paper
> manufacture.
Cite? Cite? Cite? Please find me one cite that says that *any*
paper was made from "discarded sails," let alone fine laid paper of
the sort on which the Dunlap Broadsides were printed.
Goff refers to the paper as "fine quality." Fine quality paper was
whiter than ordinary paper. The whiter the paper, the whiter the rags
used to make it. Hempen cloth is darker than linen cloth. Therefore,
the likelihood that the majority of rags used in this fine quality
paper were linen, and not hempen, seems high.
But don't take my word for it--let's have a cite:
"During the eighteenth century paper was made from rags. The supply
and quality of these tended to be irregular, a mixture of all kinds
and varying in degrees of cleanness. White paper, especially White
Writing, was the best and was made from furnishes composed almost
entirely of linen rags, employing only the whitest of these."
http://www.wovepaper.freeserve.co.uk/process.html
Remember that the original claim was not that "there was hemp in the
paper" but that "the paper was 100% hemp."
The odds against any single batch of fine white laid paper produced in
the 1770s being 100% **ANYTHING*** are incredibly high. There was no
incentive for rag sorters to sort by fiber, only by color; it seems
almost impossible that any pulp produced for fine white laid paper
wouldn't include some linen, some cotton, and some hempen rags.
The fact that every single professional source on paper conservation
says that the primary constituents of European paper pre-1840 are
"cotton and linen rags" seems like a pretty strong argument to me that
the papers the Dunlap Broadsides are printed on are not "100% hemp."
http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/don/dt/dt2462.html
(BTW, sorry about supplying a busted link in my first; it was good
when I posted, and it's still Google-cached)
> Furthermore, cloth described as
> linen was often hemp not flax.
Um, CITE? "Cloth described as linen was often hemp not flax?" People
knew the difference between hemp and flax in those days--that's why
the words "hempen" and "linen" existed, to make that distinction.
T "MDR of fiber" dN
TdN
> Anthony McCafferty wrote:
>
> > Most accurate information about a couple of thousand years
> > history or three can be cited back to a single source, right?
>
> One person cites one thing, someone else cites something which contradicts
> it, and in the end we know nothing. That's how AFU works. Were you
> expecting more?
My guess is that the Library of Congress, the Stanford University
Libraries' "Conservation On Line" project, and the British Association
of Paper Historians are slightly more convincing on this topic than
Jack Herer.
Paper conservators have to know what's in the paper they're
conserving. They go to great lengths to find this stuff out. If, for
some reason, the paper the Dunlap Broadside was printed on differed
from all other fine white laid paper of its time by being "100% hemp,"
they would certainly need to know it, and it would be interesting and
anomalous enough that it would be mentioned somewhere in the
literature.
But believe what you like.
T "100% fabricated" dN
TdN
> bizbee wrote:
>
> > On 19 Jan 2003 10:23:36 -0800 in
> > <314a4ba6.03011...@posting.google.com>,
> > triann...@hotmail.com (TdN) graced the world with this thought:
>
> > >An important document, then as now, would be printed on rag paper.
> > >The first typeset, printed copies of the Declaration (the "Dunlap
> > >Broadsides") were printed on European paper.
>
> European paper doesn't tell us what it was made of (unless it was made of
> Europeans). Most paper at the time was hemp.
>
> > >http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/books/gnrlpub/inde6.htm
>
> This page says the paper was made by D & C Blauw, but does not tell us
> what the paper was made of. If you know that it was or was not hemp,
> please provide a cite.
I think I've provided pretty good cites on this elsewhere in the
thread, so I won't repeat myself. Remember, the claim wasn't that "it
had hemp in it," but rather that it was "100% hemp." I'm certainly
willing to believe that there was *some* hemp in it, but the primary
constituents of mid-18th-century European paper are linen and cotton
rags.
>
> > Thanks for the info, it makes a lot of sense... this person <did> say
> > "the original," so subsequent copies don't really matter.
> > Thanks again.
>
> The oldest we have is the Dunlap Broadsides,
Nope. It's the holograph draft by Jefferson, which is on display in
the Library of Congress:
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trt001.html
Not written on "100% hemp paper," either, but on fine laid European
watermarked paper:
http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9907/jeffpres.html
It is Jefferson's holograph that seems to be most often claimed
(falsely) to be written on "100% hemp paper."
http://naihc.org/hemp_information/hemp_facts.html
http://www.tree.org/b3.htm
http://www.viperrecords.com/newprohibition/truestory.shtml
Another claim on most of these hemp pages is that "Betsy Ross sewed
the first American flag out of hemp."
A) No one knows who sewed the first American flag. There is only one
historic document surviving that links Elizabeth Ross's workshop with
American flags--that
is, a voucher dated May, 1777 authorizing payment for "Pennsylvania
ships' flags."
http://www.usflag.org/about.betsy.ross.html
http://www.vfw.org/yourtown/you_TheBetsy.htm
B) Most flags existing from that period that were made in the US are
made out of wool or silk.
http://www.timesreview.com/st08-08-02/stories/news2.htm
None of the 20 "Stars and Stripes" flags still extant and generally
agreed to date from before 1815 are made of hemp.
http://www.oldfortniagara.org/flag.htm
http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues98/oct98/mall_oct98.html
T "grand old rag" dN
Lisa Cech
bizbee <tub...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> I've looked all over trying to find some reference to whether this is
> bullshit or not. I recently saw it in an article where that particular
> comment suited the author's purpose quite well (which was what raised
> my suspicions to begin with). Anyone (with a cite) know one way or the
> other?
Obviously, the definition of the "Original" Declaration of Independence
is clearly open to interpretation, and the document that best fits the
description has probably been lost to the mists of time.
The Declaration of Independence which is on display at the National
Archives, however, is written on parchment[1], which the Preservation
page describes as "usually calf, goat, or sheep skin."
I happened to watch a show on the current efforts to preserve the
Declaration of Independence over the past weekend, and the program
stated unequivocally that the document was animal skin.[3]
--
Lisa "Too baaaaad" Cech
[1]As are the five pages of the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights,
and the Articles of Confederation.[2]
[2]<http://www.archives.gov/preservation/archival_formats/paper_and_parch
ment.html>
[3]More information about the show can be found at
<www.historychannel.com/exhibits/declaration/preserve.html>