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Arts and Humanities
Date June 25, 2026
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‘1776 Across the Americas’: Exhibition at Brown examines year of American Revolution

A John Carter Brown Library exhibition explores events and milestones of 1776, from the signing of the Declaration of Independence to the mapping of San Francisco Bay and beyond.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — The Continental Congress’s confirmation of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia in July of 1776 happened in the context of events and milestones across the Americas in that consequential year — a theme explored through books, documents, maps and artifacts in an exhibition at Brown University.

On view through the end of 2026 at the John Carter Brown Library, “1776 Across the Americas: A Hemispheric History from the Collection of the John Carter Brown Library” takes a dynamic and wide-ranging view of the year of the American Revolution and its influence across the Western Hemisphere. 

“We wanted to put the year 1776 into a broader context,” said Karin Wulf, director and librarian of the John Carter Brown Library and co-director of Brown 2026, a campus-wide initiative to demonstrate the role of research and teaching universities in fostering open and democratic societies. “The American Revolution had an impact beyond the East Coast of North America and beyond the British colonies. But we also wanted to show that in some ways, 1776 was just a year and there were a lot of other things going on.” 

The exhibition, which Wulf curated with the library’s 2026 postdoctoral fellow Kathleen Telling, explores the significance of events in North America, Central America, South America and the Caribbean in 1776. The Caribbean sugar colonies, for example, held greater wealth and significance for the British Empire than the American colonies did at the time, Wulf said. 

The items on view illustrate the influence of printed materials produced in 1776 and how they reflected diverse experiences. Throughout the exhibition, items of intimate and local consequence are juxtaposed with those of imperial, national and international significance to tell the story of the year. 

One display case, for example, places an early copy of the Declaration of Independence in conversation with the first map of San Francisco Bay, drafted in 1776 by a Franciscan priest exploring Mexico's northern frontier. 

The copy of the Declaration of Independence on view was owned and annotated by a Revolutionary War soldier named Daniel Gould. On this copy, printed in Boston, Gould individually numbered along the margin every grievance listed against King George III. At the bottom, beneath the printed signatures of John Hancock and Charles Thomson, president and secretary of the Continental Congress, respectively, Gould wrote: “Agreed to by Daniel Gould.” 

In 1776, copies of the declaration were not treated as sacred relics, Wulf said, but more like daily newspapers, printed on broadsides to be folded up, stuffed into pockets, read from and posted on tavern walls.

Early copy of Common Sense
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A copy of Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" that was printed in Providence in 1776 and owned by Nicholas Brown.

exhibition room at John Carter Brown Library
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The John Carter Brown Library exhibition "1776 Across the Americas" is free and open to the public through the end of the year.

John Carter Brown Library
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The John Carter Brown Library is an independent research library dedicated to the study of the early Americas located on Brown University's campus.

Historical book from the John Carter Brown Library
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The items on view illustrate the influence of printed materials produced in 1776.

The exhibition also recognizes that the Americas were still principally Indigenous prior to 1776. 

“1776 is the first moment, as best we can tell, that the number of Europeans matched and then surpassed the number of Indigenous people in North America,” Wulf said. “Up until 1776, Indigenous people had dwarfed the population of European settlers, so it’s a really consequential year in all kinds of ways and seeing it in its broadest context was important to us.” 

The exhibition begins with artifacts related to the Brown family, Rhode Island and New England, and includes a smallpox inoculation certificate from the autumn of 1776 for Nicholas Brown’s children; an early copy of Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” that was printed in Providence; and the diary of Samuel Harris, who recorded his experiences as a soldier. 

It also includes an exploration of how the American Revolution may have carried the ideals of independence and self-determination into other areas of the Americas. For example, Haitian revolutionary leader Toussaint Louverture’s proclamation to Haitian citizens is on display, as well as a medal owned by Latin American independence leader Simón Bolívar.

To expand access for viewers beyond Providence and Rhode Island, Telling created a robust online version of “1776 Across the Americas” that will remain on the library’s website after the physical exhibition closes in December. 

“We’re committed to having a digital version of all of our exhibitions because it helps us preserve them beyond when they are physically on display at the library,” Wulf said. “It also means that anyone who comes to see it, as well as people who can’t get here, can view the objects and use them for their own research, teaching and learning.” 

Free and open to the public, the exhibition is part of  “2026 and Beyond,” the John Carter Brown Library’s year-long acknowledgement of the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding that explores themes including democratic revolutions, freedom of religion and how libraries shape historical knowledge. 

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