The Declaration of Independence was fading away, and the government had no plan to restore it. A Bohemian immigrant named Theodore Ohman did — and then spent 25 years putting his restorations on classroom walls across America. Jenny Beth Martin sits down with Mark Hill, owner of the Theodore Ohman collection and founder of BigParty250.com, for one of the great untold stories of American preservation, told with the collection itself on camera.
Ohman was taught the Declaration of Independence as a schoolboy in Bohemia under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, learned lithography from his grandfather, and came to America in 1912. When he saw the original Declaration faded and torn, he bought an 1823 William Stone print and the 1903 Handy glass-plate negatives and rebuilt the document letter by letter. He printed his Declaration in 1942, his Constitution with the Bill of Rights in 1953, and then went town to town selling sets to hometown banks so every local school could hang them.
In this episode:
• The schoolteacher who taught the Declaration under an empire that wanted it silenced
• The stone print the Library of Congress received in 1939 and cannot explain
• The glass negative that stunned the National Archives
• The on-camera tour: glass plates broken on purpose, silvering, and the original printing plates
• The signature Constitution: President Trump signed on the fifth or sixth try, alongside Ted Cruz, Charlie Kirk, Jesse Watters, and more
• How to put these documents in your local school with promo code JENNY at BigParty250.com
Watch every episode at jennybethshow.com. Learn more about Tea Party Patriots Action at teapartypatriots.org.
00:00 — The mission: founding documents in every school
01:47 — Who was Theodore Ohman
03:20 — Ohman's authentic restoration of the Declaration
05:27 — The 1953 Constitution and the every-school bank mission
07:50 — How Mark Hill ended up with the collection
12:35 — Human Events and the 1,200 originals
16:07 — The Library of Congress mystery
19:49 — The mission in 2026: America's 250th
23:14 — Human nature, checks and balances, and socialism
25:50 — Inside the collection on camera
31:30 — The signature Constitution: Trump's five tries
33:38 — Promo code JENNY and your local school
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