Free to follow every thread. No paywall, no dead ends.
Library of Congress
On the 24th of August 1814, British forces marched into Washington, D.C., and set fire to the Capitol Building, destroying over 3,000 volumes of the Library of Congress. This was not merely an act of war but a calculated retaliation for American destruction in Canada, and it left the nation's legislative library in ruins. Among the few items to survive the flames was a government account book from 1810, which was taken by British Admiral George Cockburn as a souvenir. The book remained in the Cockburn family for over a century before being returned to the United States in 1940. The loss was catastrophic, wiping out the original congressional collection and leaving Congress without a functional research library. In the aftermath, the nation faced a critical question: how to rebuild a library that had been reduced to ashes. The answer came from an unlikely source, a former president who had lost his own library to fire decades earlier.
Jefferson's Universal Collection
Thomas Jefferson offered his personal library of 6,487 books to replace the destroyed collection, a gift that transformed the Library of Congress from a specialized legislative tool into a universal repository of knowledge. Jefferson's collection, gathered over 50 years, was organized according to Francis Bacon's system of Memory, Reason, and Imagination, covering 44 subdivisions of human knowledge. He believed that no subject was too obscure for Congress to study, stating, I do not know that it contains any branch of science which Congress would wish to exclude from their collection. The purchase, approved by Congress in January 1815 for $23,950, doubled the size of the library and introduced works on science, philosophy, and foreign languages that had never been part of a legislative library. Some House members, including Daniel Webster, opposed the purchase, fearing the inclusion of atheistical or immoral books, but Jefferson's vision prevailed. His library became the foundation for a national institution that would eventually house materials from all parts of the world and in more than 470 languages.
The Fire That Changed Everything
On the 24th of December 1851, a fire in the Capitol Building destroyed 35,000 books, including two-thirds of Thomas Jefferson's original collection. This disaster marked the beginning of a conservative period in the library's administration, as librarians John Silva Meehan and James A. Pearce restricted the library's scope to American materials of obvious use to Congress. The fire also led to the transfer of the Smithsonian Institution's non-scientific library of 40,000 volumes to the Library of Congress in 1866, after the Smithsonian building was damaged by fire. The library's growth was slow and hampered by a lack of funding and understaffing, but the Civil War increased the importance of legislative research. In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln appointed John G. Stephenson as Librarian of Congress, a physician who spent equal time serving as librarian and as a physician in the Union Army. Stephenson's most significant achievement was hiring Ainsworth Rand Spofford as his assistant, who directed the library in his absence and later became the driving force behind its expansion.
Common questions
When did British forces destroy the Library of Congress?
British forces set fire to the Library of Congress on the 24th of August 1814, destroying over 3,000 volumes of the collection.
Who donated the collection that rebuilt the Library of Congress after the 1814 fire?
Thomas Jefferson donated his personal library of 6,487 books to replace the destroyed collection, and Congress approved the purchase in January 1815 for $23,950.
When did the second fire destroy two-thirds of Thomas Jefferson's collection at the Library of Congress?
A fire in the Capitol Building on the 24th of December 1851 destroyed 35,000 books, including two-thirds of Thomas Jefferson's original collection.
Who served as Librarian of Congress from 1899 to 1939 and expanded foreign acquisitions?
Herbert Putnam held the office of Librarian of Congress from 1899 to 1939 and expanded foreign acquisitions including the 1904 purchase of a 4,000-volume library of Indica.
When was Carla D. Hayden sworn in as the fourteenth Librarian of Congress?
Carla D. Hayden was sworn in as the fourteenth Librarian of Congress on the 14th of September 2016, becoming the first woman and the first African American to hold the position.
Ainsworth Rand Spofford, who directed the Library of Congress from 1865 to 1897, built broad bipartisan support to develop it as a national library and a legislative resource. He began comprehensively collecting Americana and American literature, led the construction of a new building to house the library, and transformed the librarian of Congress position into one of strength and independence. Between 1865 and 1870, Congress appropriated funds for the construction of the Thomas Jefferson Building, placed all copyright registration and deposit activities under the library's control, and restored the international book exchange. The library also acquired the vast libraries of the Smithsonian and of historian Peter Force, strengthening its scientific and Americana collections significantly. By 1876, the Library of Congress had 300,000 volumes; it was tied with the Boston Public Library as the nation's largest library. It moved from the Capitol building to its new headquarters in 1897 with more than 840,000 volumes, 40 percent of which had been acquired through copyright deposit.
The Architect of Modernity
Herbert Putnam, who held the office of Librarian of Congress from 1899 to 1939, transformed the library into a modern institution by instituting interlibrary loan services and expanding access to scientific investigators and qualified individuals. He made the library more accessible and useful for the public and for other libraries, transforming it into what he referred to as a library of last resort. Putnam also expanded foreign acquisitions, including the 1904 purchase of a 4,000-volume library of Indica, the 1906 purchase of G. V. Yudin's 80,000-volume Russian library, and the 1908 Schatz collection of early opera librettos. He established the Legislative Reference Service in 1914, which provided informed answers to Congressional research inquiries on almost any topic. Putnam's tenure saw the library become the first in the United States to hold one million volumes, and he broadened the diversity of its acquisitions to include collections of Hebraica, Chinese, and Japanese works.
The War and the World
During World War II, Librarian Archibald MacLeish, who served from 1939 to 1944, encouraged librarians to oppose totalitarianism on behalf of democracy and dedicated the South Reading Room of the Adams Building to Thomas Jefferson. He commissioned artist Ezra Winter to paint four themed murals for the room and established a democracy alcove in the Main Reading Room of the Jefferson Building for essential documents such as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and The Federalist Papers. The Library of Congress assisted during the war effort, ranging from storage of the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution in Fort Knox for safekeeping to researching weather data on the Himalayas for Air Force pilots. MacLeish's successor, Luther H. Evans, created Library of Congress Missions worldwide, which played a variety of roles in the postwar world, including assisting participants in the meeting that established the United Nations and aiding in the creation of the National Diet Library in Japan.
The Digital Revolution
Under James H. Billington, who served as Librarian of Congress from 1987 to 2015, the library doubled the size of its analog collections from 85.5 million items to more than 160 million items and established new programs to digitize its collections. Billington created American Memory in 1990, which became the National Digital Library in 1994, providing free access online to digitized American history and culture resources. He launched the THOMAS.gov website in 1994 to provide free public access to U.S. federal legislative information, and Congress.gov in 2012 to provide a state-of-the-art framework for both Congress and the public. Billington also established the Kluge Center, which brings international scholars and researchers to use library resources and to interact with policymakers and the public, and the Open World Leadership Center, which administered 23,000 professional exchanges for emerging post-Soviet leaders. He raised more than half a billion dollars of private support to supplement Congressional appropriations for library collections, programs, and digital outreach.
The People's Library
Carla D. Hayden, sworn in as the fourteenth Librarian of Congress on the 14th of September 2016, became the first woman and the first African American to hold the position, and the first professional librarian to do so since 1974. She continued the work of digitizing as much as possible of the collection and of expanding electronic access to the collection, initiating programs to modernize the library, expand access from rural areas, and expanding the infrastructure and technological capacity of the library. In 2017, Hayden announced the Librarian-in-Residence program, which aims to support the future generation of librarians by giving them the opportunity to gain work experience in five different areas of librarianship. On the 6th of January 2021, the Library's Madison Building and the Cannon House Office Building were the first buildings in the Capitol Complex to be ordered to evacuate as rioters breached security perimeters before storming the Capitol building. Hayden clarified two days later that rioters did not breach any of the Library buildings or collections and all staff members were safely evacuated. Her leadership has been characterized as wise and faithful stewardship of the Library of Congress, transforming it into a more open, accessible, and celebrated U.S. institution.