Library of Congress Established
President John Adams approves legislation to
appropriate $5,000 to purchase “such books as may be necessary for the use of
Congress,” thus establishing the Library of Congress. The first books, ordered
from London, arrived in 1801 and were stored in the U.S. Capitol, the library’s
first home. The first library catalog, dated April 1802, listed 964 volumes and
nine maps. Twelve years later, the British army invaded the city of Washington
and burned the Capitol, including the then 3,000-volume Library of Congress.
Former president Thomas Jefferson, who
advocated the expansion of the library during his two terms in office,
responded to the loss by selling his personal library, the largest and finest
in the country, to Congress to “recommence” the library. The purchase of
Jefferson’s 6,487 volumes was approved in the next year, and a professional
librarian, George Watterston, was hired to replace the House clerks in the
administration of the library. In 1851, a second major fire at the library
destroyed about two-thirds of its 55,000 volumes, including two-thirds of the
Thomas Jefferson library. Congress responded quickly and generously to the
disaster, and within a few years a majority of the lost books were replaced.
After the Civil War, the collection was
greatly expanded, and by the 20th century the Library of Congress had become
the de facto national library of the United States and one of the largest in
the world. Today, the collection, housed in three enormous buildings in
Washington, contains more than 17 million books, as well as millions of maps,
manuscripts, photographs, films, audio and video recordings, prints, and
drawings.