An original print of the Declaration of Independence will be part of the “America 250” exhibit – celebrating the document’s 250th birthday – at the Peoria Riverfront Museum beginning in January. (Images courtesy of the Peoria Riverfront Museum)

PEORIA – An original print of the Declaration of Independence, a Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington and an original tintype of Abraham Lincoln using a photo taken in Peoria are among the items heading to the Peoria Riverfront Museum as part of its upcoming “America 250” exhibit.

The collection will celebrate the 250th birthday– or semiquincentennial– of the Declaration of Independence.

“This will be the biggest exhibit we’ve ever done, and will involve at least 250 objects, documents and works of art,” said John Morris, president and CEO of the Riverfront Museum. “We hope to bring everyone in the whole region together to celebrate.”

On Feb. 21, local media got a sneak preview of the exhibit, which won’t be open to the public until Jan. 30. The preview featured a video message from guest curator and documentarian Ken Burns, who promised the America 250 exhibit would attract significant historical items, robust programming and unique guest speakers to Peoria.

“It is my pleasure to serve as the guest curator for the Peoria Riverfront Museum, helping inspire the yearlong exhibition and series of programs that tell original American stories through the lens of Central Illinois,” said Burns, a filmmaker whose six-part “The American Revolution” documentary will debut on PBS this fall. “The exhibit starts in the beginning, looking out over the Illinois River Valley and considering the indigenous Americans who made this beautiful prairie their home for thousands of years.

“Curators next examine the French explorers who settled right here nearly a century before our revolution.”

The exhibit will also shine a light on Central Illinois’ agricultural, entrepreneurial and cultural assets, including crafters of folk art quilts and carvers of waterfowl decoys.

Filmmaker Ken Burns will be the guest curator for the Riverfront Museum exhibit.

“I don’t think there will be another celebration quite like it,” Burns promised.

Only 26 original prints of the Declaration, known as “Dunlap Broadsides,” are believed to exist.

According to the Library of Congress the broadsides were printed by John Dunlop, the official printer of the Congress, in Philadelphia on the evening of July 4,1776 and the early morning of July 5, 1776.

“This is the anchor of our exhibit,” Morris said of the rare print, which was secured through the cooperation of Seth Kaller, a renowned document authenticator and appraiser.

In addition to the Declaration of Independence print, Kaller will loan more than 40 historical documents to the America 250 exhibit, including a signed copy of the U.S. Constitution, Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

Together the documents will comprise the centerpiece of the America 250 exhibit, “The Promise of Freedom” collection.

The exhibit’s logo

Bill Conger, chief curator for the Riverfront Museum, said the Lincoln tintype image was taken near the museum – at Main and Washington streets by Roderick Cole, a daguerreotypist and photographer who operated a studio in Peoria. The item will be on loan from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.

“The photo was taken at a crucial moment in Lincoln’s career, and we will talk more about that in the exhibition,” said Conger.

Also providing items for the exhibit are the Smithsonian, American Museum of Natural History in New York, Alice Walton’s Art Bridges Foundation and Colonial Williamsburg, which is lending its “dollar bill” George Washington portrait by artist Gilbert Stuart.

Conger called the America 250 exhibit a “massive undertaking” that his curatorial team has pieced together for the past year.”

“The Peoria Riverfront Museum has the best museum curators in the country, and (with this exhibit) they are going to show you why,” he said.

Museum CEO Morris described the potential for the exhibit as being so large that all five of the museum’s major galleries, jumbo-screen theater, planetarium and other spaces could be utilized over the course of the yearlong showcase.

“We know a few more of the exhibit items but we haven’t announced them yet. As we get them, we will roll them out, and I think people are going to be excited. The items will represent every corner of our community,” he said.

“This is a national-level exhibition,” Morris added. “We’ve got a chance to do something really exciting here in Peoria. We want to get this announcement out and get the party started.”