This free printable booklet explains the origins and development of the Great Seal of the United States.

Before it adjourned on JULY 4, 1776, the Continental Congress of the newly independent United States passed a resolution:

Resolved, that Dr. Franklin, Mr. J. Adams and Mr. Jefferson, be a committee, to bring in a device for a seal for the United States of America.

Thus, three of the five men who had drafted the Declaration of Independence were brought together in further service to their country. The revolutionaries needed an emblem and national coat of arms to give visible evidence of a sovereign nation and a free people with high aspirations and grand hopes for the future. The task proved far more difficult than anticipated; it took 6 years, two more committees, and the combined efforts of 14 men before the Great Seal of the United States became a reality on June 20, 1782.

Click here to print this 18-page booklet, originally published by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, in July, 2003.