As part of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, the US National Archives is launching a nationwide cultural initiative titled “Freedom Plane.” The project will take key historic documents on tour across the country, transporting them aboard a specially modified Boeing 737 and exhibiting them in museums in eight cities from March through August.
The initiative is inspired by the “Freedom Train” exhibition held during the US bicentennial in 1976, which traveled to 138 cities. Unlike that earlier project, the aircraft itself will not be open to the public. Instead, exhibitions titled Freedom Plane National Tour: Documents That Forged a Nation will be hosted at participating museums and offered free of charge.
The tour will begin at the National WWI Museum and Memorial in Kansas City between 6 and 22 March. It will then continue to the Atlanta History Center, the Fisher Museum of Art in Los Angeles, the Houston Museum of Natural Science, the History Colorado Center in Denver, the HistoryMiami Museum, the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in Michigan, and the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle.
Documents on display will include the 1774 Articles of Association, oaths of allegiance to the Continental Army, and the 1783 Treaty of Paris, through which Great Britain formally recognized the United States as an independent and sovereign nation. A rare engraved copy of the Declaration of Independence dating from 1823 will also travel across the country as part of the tour.
Officials from the US National Archives state that the initiative aims to make the nation’s historical heritage accessible to audiences beyond Washington, DC. The project is supported by major partners including Boeing, Microsoft, Comcast, and Procter & Gamble, and is expected to be one of the most prominent cultural programs marking the United States’ 250th anniversary.
