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Resources for Students and Teachers In 2003, the U.S. State Department produced an excellent 18-page pamphlet on the history the Great Seal (3 Mb PDF). In 2007, the United States Diplomacy Center created a comprehensive Exhibition Celebrating the 225th Anniversary of the Great Seal. On their website, you can download any of the exhibit's ten panels and reproduce them for classroom use. (Shown below are Panels 4 and 5.) A trifold brochure of the exhibit is also available. The Great Seal Awareness Project (GreatSeal.net) can help communities display the Exhibit at local events. Primary Reference for GreatSeal.com The Eagle and the Shield: A History of the Great Seal of the United States This is by far the best source of accurate information about the Great Seal. This extremely well-documented book by Richard S. Patterson and Richardson Dougall was published in 1976 by the Office of the Historian, Bureau of Public Affairs, Department of State, under the auspices of the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration. (681 pages, 92 illustrations) A reprint was published in 2005 (by University Press of the Pacific) and used copies of the original are available. You could also borrow it with an interlibrary loan.