Miniature Printing of the Declaration

Extreme miniaturization of printing was popular in the nineteenth century, with small, micrographic versions of the Lord’s Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the Declaration of  Independence circulating in the 1840s and 1850s. In 1840, Charles Toppan, the founder of the American Bank Note Company, engraved the version featured here. The firm made frequent reprints of Toppan’s mini Declaration, including this one, printed in 1871 at the Cincinnati Industrial Exposition and sold to attendees for twenty cents each.