Just a few hours after the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, the first committee to design a seal for the United States was appointed, and its design began. After undergoing numerous changes, on June 20, 1782, the seal was officially adopted by the Continental Congress.
The Great Seal of the United States is the symbol of our sovereignty as a nation.
Its obverse is used on official documents to authenticate the signature of the
President and it appears on proclamations, warrants, treaties, and commissions
of high officials of the government. The Great Seal's design, used as our national
coat of arms, is also used officially as decoration on military uniform buttons,
on plaques above the entrances to U.S. embassies an consulates, and in other places.
Both the obverse and the less familiar reverse, which is never used as a seal,
are imprinted on the one-dollar bill.
The history of the Great Seal begins with the day of our founding as a nation.
The Continental Congress appointed a committee to design a seal for the United
States on July 4, 1776, just a few hours after they adopted the Declaration
of Independence. The committee members—Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson,
and John Adams—prepared a very complicated design that was promptly tabled
by Congress. However, one prominent feature of their design appeared in the
design that was originally adopted—the motto E Pluribus Unum, "Out
of Many, One."
In 1780, a second committee—James Lovell of Massachusetts and John Morin
Scott and William Churchill Houston of Virginia—developed a second design,
but it was also tabled by Congress. Like the first design, the second had elements
that were later incorporated into the final seal, including the olive branch,
the constellation of 13 stars, and the shield with red and white stripes on
a blue field.
A third committee was appointed in May of 1782. This committee's design employed
the eagle for the first time, in the crest.
Early in 1782, Congress referred the three designs to Secretary of the Continental
Congress Charles Thompson. Thompson made a fourth design that was revised by
William Barton, a Philadelphia student of heraldry. Thompson submitted a written
description of his final version to the Continental Congress that described
the design and explained its symbolism. The Continental Congress approved this
design on June 20, 1782.
(Information excerpted from The Great Seal of the United States. National
Archives and Records Administration: Washington, DC, 1986.)
