Community Meeting Room, 40 Washington Street, Quincy, MA, 02169
Join us as author and historian Stephen Puleo discusses his book 
American Treasures
, which explores the secret efforts to save the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Gettysburg Address.
On December 26, 1941, Secret Service Agent Harry E. Neal stood on a platform at Washington’s Union Station, watching a train chug off into the dark and feeling at once relieved and inexorably anxious. These were dire times. Hitler’s armies were plowing across Europe, seizing or destroying the Continent’s historic artifacts at will, and three weeks earlier Japan unleashed its devastating attack on Pearl Harbor. American officials now feared an enemy attack on Washington, D.C.
So, President Franklin D. Roosevelt set about hiding the country’s valuables. On the train speeding away from Neal sat four plain-wrapped cases containing the documentary history of America – including the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Gettysburg Address – guarded by a battery of agents and bound for safekeeping in the nation’s most impenetrable hiding place.
American Treasures charts the creation and little-known journeys of these priceless American documents. From the risky and audacious adoption of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 to our modern Fourth of July celebrations, shows how the ideas captured in these documents underscore the nation’s strengths and hopes, and embody its fundamental values of liberty and equality.
Stephen Puleo weaves exciting stories of freedom under fire—from the smuggling of the Declaration and Constitution out of Washington days before the British burned the capital in 1814, to their covert relocation during WWII—crafting a sweeping history of a nation united to preserve its democracy and the values embodied in its founding documents.
Stephen Puleo
 is an author, historian, teacher, public speaker, and communications professional. He is the author of eight books, including his most recent, The Great Abolitionist: Charles Sumner and the Fight for a More Perfect Union, published by St. Martin’s Press in April, 2024.
Books will be available for purchase courtesy of The Next Chapter Books and More.
This program is made possible by the generous sponsorship of the Friends of the Thomas Crane Public Library.
Information Source: Thomas Crane Public Library | eventbrite

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