Magna Carta on View at the Clark

Declaration of Rights of the Women 1876When Eleanor Roosevelt chaired the 1948 United Nations committee that drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, she remarked that it “may well become the international Magna Carta of all men everywhere.” Now, an original copy of Magna Carta—a document sealed by King John in 1215—can be seen alongside a host of important documents of American political thought, including the UN’s Universal Declaration.

On view at the Clark Art Institute, “Radical Words: From Magna Carta to the Constitution” unites Magna Carta, which established the principle that no individual is above the law, with documents from Williams College’s libraries. Among them are a broadside original of the Declaration of Independence printed on July 4, 1776; a draft of the U.S. Constitution; an 1863 official copy of the Emancipation Proclamation; and an 1876 original of the Declaration of Rights of the Women of the United States.

These documents are brought together in a conversation about the limits of government, individual rights, and the rule of law. “Both Magna Carta and the U.S. founding documents are concerned with establishing certain freedoms and legal principles, albeit to varying degrees,” says classics professor Edan Dekel. “Both were produced in high-stakes situations where the power of the written word was inextricably linked to the larger social and political hierarchies of their time.”

Having the documents in the same intimate space underscores the intersection between their content, context, and form,” says Dekel, pointing out that there is no true original copy of any of these documents because they were produced with the intention of being circulated as widely as possible. “The multiplicity of the documents is itself a symbol of the democratic principles that they have all come to embody.” 

Such themes of preservation and transmission of information are at the heart of The Book Unbound, a year-long initiative at Williams that explores the theme of books, libraries, and information. Says Dekel: “It is the dialogue between the documents that best captures the spirit of the initiative, which, above all, explores and celebrates the endless variety of conversations and exchanges that define the academic, intellectual, and creative experience at Williams.”


“Radical Words: From Magna Carta to the Constitution” is on view at the Clark through Nov. 2.