The Library of Congress was founded in the year 1800, about the
time that the government was first established in Washington. Five
thousand dollars was the first appropriation, made April 24, 1800,
while Congress was still sitting in Philadelphia. Some of the
Democratic Congressmen, as strict constructionists, opposed the idea
of a governmental library, but their party leader, Thomas Jefferson,
then President, warmly favored it. He called it, later in life, with
a sort of prophetic instinct, the “Library of the United States,”
and his support of it from the very beginning was so hearty and
consistent that he may perhaps be regarded in the broad sense as the
real founder of the institution.
The Library was shelved from the first in a portion of the Capitol
building. The first catalogue was issued in April, 1802. It appears
that there were then, in accordance with the old-fashioned method
of dividing books according to size, not subject, 212 folios, 164
quartos, 581 octavos, 7 duodecimos, and 9 maps.
=The Burning by the British Troops.=--The War of 1812 wrecked the
slender accumulations of the first dozen years of the Library’s
existence. The collection was entirely destroyed by fire by the
British troops which entered Washington August 24, 1814. The burning
is described by a writer in an old magazine. “The British,” he
says, “first occupied the Capitol, only the two wings of which
were finished, and connected by a wooden passageway erected where
the Rotunda now stands. The leading officers entered the House of
Representatives, where Admiral Cockburn of the Royal Navy (who was
co-operating with General Ross), seating himself in the Speaker’s
chair, called the assemblage to order. ‘Gentlemen,’ shouted he,
‘the question is, Shall this harbor of Yankee democracy be burned?
All in favor of burning it will say Aye!’ There was a general
affirmative response. And when he added, ‘Those opposed will say
Nay,’ silence reigned for a moment. ‘Light up!’ cried the bold
Briton; and the order was soon repeated in all parts of the building,
while soldiers and sailors vied with each other in collecting
combustible material for their incendiary fires. The books on the
shelves of the Library of Congress were used as kindling for the
north wing; and the much admired full-length portraits of Louis XVI.
and his queen, Marie Antoinette, which had been presented by that
unfortunate monarch to Congress, were torn from their frames and
trampled under foot. Patrick Magruder, then Clerk of the House of
Representatives and Librarian of Congress, subsequently endeavored to
excuse himself from not having even attempted to save the books; but
it was shown that the books and papers in the departments were saved,
and that the Library might have been removed to a place of safety
before the arrival of the British.”
=The Acquisition of Jefferson’s Library.=--Jefferson was then living
in retirement at Monticello. He was in some financial difficulty
at the time, and he offered the Government the largest portion of
his library, comprising some 6,700 volumes, for the price which he
had originally paid for them--$23,700. The offer was accepted by
Congress, although it met with much opposition. Among those who
objected to the bill were Daniel Webster, then a Representative from
New Hampshire; while Cyrus King, a Federalist member of the House
from Massachusetts, “vainly endeavored to have provision made for the
rejection of all books of an atheistical, irreligious, and immoral
tendency”--a curious example of the many attacks of a similar nature
made upon Jefferson by his political opponents.
With Jefferson’s books as a nucleus, the Library of Congress began
to make substantial gains. In 1832, a law library was established as
a distinct department of the collection. At present it numbers some
85,000 volumes, but for the greater convenience of the Supreme Court,
which sits in the old Senate Chamber of the Capitol, it has not been
removed from its former quarters in that building. It is always
reckoned, however, as a portion of the collection of the Library of
Congress.
In 1850, the Library contained about 55,000 volumes. December
24, 1851, a fire broke out in the rooms in which it was shelved,
consuming three-fifths of the whole collection, or about 35,000
volumes. A liberal appropriation for the purchase of books in place
of those destroyed was made by Congress, and from that time to the
present day the growth of the Library has been unchecked.
=Mr. Spofford’s Administration.=--In December, 1864, the present
Librarian, Mr. Ainsworth Rand Spofford, was appointed by President
Lincoln[2]. The general management of the Library has always been
in the hands of a joint committee of Congress; but the membership
of the committee is constantly changing, so that the Librarian is
practically the real head and director of the institution. During the
time that Mr. Spofford has occupied his position, not only has the
growth of the collection been little short of marvellous, but so
many changes of system have been introduced as almost completely to
transform the old Library of half a century ago. The year following
Mr. Spofford’s appointment, the previous copyright law was modified
so as to require the deposit in the Library of Congress of a copy of
every publication on which copyright was desired, the second copy
required being deposited elsewhere. The administration of the law
was still divided, however, in that each State had its own office
for copyright--some States more than one--with the result that the
volumes due the Government were sometimes received and sometimes
not. There was no way to call the negligent publisher or author to
account, for no single office contained the complete information
necessary. Such system as existed was often invalidated by the
carelessness of the officials--the Clerks of the United States
District Courts--in charge in the various States. In 1870, therefore,
Congress still further amended the copyright law by consolidating
the entire department in the hands of the Librarian of Congress, as
Registrar of Copyrights, with the provision that both copies of the
publication copyrighted should go to the Library. Since then, the law
has worked with perfect smoothness, and with the result of enormous
additions to the Library--numbering, in the year 1896, no less than
55,906 publications of all kinds.
Naturally enough, therefore, the Library has grown in the last
quarter of a century to be by far the largest in the country. In 1896
it contained, roughly estimated, 755,000 volumes of books, 250,000
pamphlets, 500,000 separate pieces of music, 25,000 maps, and 256,000
engravings, photographs, lithographs, etchings, photogravures, and
pictorial illustrations in general.
=The Old Quarters in the Capitol.=--For many years the Library had
been kept in the west front of the Capitol. Here there was provision
for perhaps 350,000 volumes. With the great increase, the old
quarters had long been utterly inadequate. The crypts in the basement
of the Capitol afforded room for storage, but the hundreds of
thousands of books, pieces of music, and engravings thus stored were
for the most part entirely inaccessible to the student--a serious
loss to the usefulness of the Library, in spite of the fact that, so
far as the books were concerned, only duplicates and such volumes as
were seldom called for were thus laid away. The copyright business
could be kept up to date only by the greatest effort. The rooms
regularly devoted to the Library were so small, and so over-crowded
with books, that there was almost no opportunity for quiet study,
while the ordinary official routine was carried on with the greatest
difficulty and inconvenience. That the Library should be able to keep
its doors open at all, much more that it should continue promptly to
furnish books to applicants, was a sufficient cause for wonder.
=The Agitation for a New Building.=--In his report for 1872, Mr.
Spofford first laid before Congress the necessity of a new building
for the accommodation of the Library. It was fourteen years, however,
before any decided action was taken in response to this appeal,
annually repeated, and twenty-five years before the present building
was finally ready for occupancy. During these fourteen years, to
quote Mr. Spofford, “various schemes for continuing the Library
within the Capitol were brought forward. One was to extend the west
front of the edifice one hundred feet, to hold the books; another, to
project the eastern front two hundred and fifty feet, thus making a
conglomerate building out of what is now a purely classic edifice; a
third, and more preposterous scheme, was to accommodate the Library
growth within the great inner concave of the dome, which was to
be literally honeycombed with books from the floor of the Rotunda
to the apex: a plan which would have given space for only twelve
years’ growth of the Library, besides increasing incalculably all
the difficulties of its administration. Every plan for enlarging the
Capitol would have provided for less than thirty years’ increase,
after which Congress would be confronted with the same problem again,
and forced to erect a new building after all the cost (estimated
at four millions of dollars) of such enlargement. At length a
commission of architects reported against disturbing the symmetry
of the Capitol, and that illusive spectre was laid to rest. Then
ensued difficulties and dissensions about a site, about plans, about
architects, and about cost. Some wanted to save money by planting a
building in the Botanic Garden, or on the Mall, sites which have been
twice under water in the last twenty years, from the overflow of the
Potomac River. Some wanted a plain storehouse of brick, after the
model of the Pension Building, but it was wisely concluded that one
such architectural monstrosity was enough for our Government.
“At length all differences between Senate and House were harmonized;
the act for a separate building received over two-thirds majority
in 1886; a site of ten acres was purchased on a plateau near the
Capitol for $585,000; work was begun on a large scale, but cut down
in 1888 to smaller dimensions, with a limitation of ultimate cost of
$4,000,000; restored in 1889 to the original size, and the limitation
of cost was raised to $5,500,000, in addition to sums heretofore
appropriated, thus providing for an ample and thoroughly equipped
edifice, with ultimate accommodations for four and one-half millions
of volumes.”
[Illustration: THE ENTRANCE PAVILION.]