The Bill of Rights Tour: safeguarding freedom's symbol.

Two hundred years ago, the Founding Fathers spelled out our basic American freedoms in a remarkable document called the Bill of Rights. These first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution were elegantly inscribed on sheepskin parchment by scribes wielding quills dipped in ink made from iron sulfate

and the galls of oak trees. The honeyed patina of age now coats the 12 remaining originals, whose words are as relevant today as when they were penned. All but one of those fragile originals are stored away in darkened climate-controlled security vaults, rarely seen except by hostorians and rare-document conservators. (The exception is the Congressional copy, which is on permanent exhibition at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.)

In 1989, curators and historians at the National Archives began planning an exhibit that would explain the heritage of liberty guaranteed by the Bill of Rights to Americans, many of whom know little about it, according to polls. Their intention was to celebrate the 1991 bicentennial of the adoption of the Bill. They decided that the best way to accomplish this goal in a dramatic and personal way was to take the Bill of Rights on the road to all 50 states--an odyssey of more than 40,000 miles. The Virginia State Library and Archives (Richmond) offered its recently restored copy of the Bill of Rights, while tobacco and processed-food giant Philip Morris Companies Inc. (New York) agreed to put up $60 million over three years to finance the project, which would include the exhibit, touring and promoion costs, the printing of three million copies of the document, and an educational program for schools.

Faced with the daunting demands of rare-document conservation, the difficulty of mounting a lengthy road show, and the then-looming threat of Persian Gulf-inspired terrorism, the project planners had to answer the question: How do you safely bring this living symbol of American freedom to the people? "Very, very carefully," said Bran Ferren, who leads the 50-person design and engineering firm commissioned to create the Bill of Rights exhibit. "After all, nobody wants to be responsible for losing the Bill of Rights."

Taking that charge to heart, the 15,000-square-foot Bill of Rights pavilion was developed over a seven-month period by Ferren's engineering and design firm, Associates & Ferren (Wainscott, N.Y.). The pavilion uses the state of the art in document-preservation systems; lightweight traveling exhibit structures; robotic motion and lighting controls; television, audio, and communications technology; and security systems to safeguard the document as it moves across the country.