The following is a guest post from Vianne Scheidecker, 2025 Research Intern at the Kluge Center.
This post is part of the Kluge Center’s 25 for 25, in honor of the Kluge Center’s 25th anniversary, celebrating 25 books that were written thanks to the Kluge Center’s support. Read the introductory post to the series here.
In an 1899 address, Ainsworth Rand Spofford, the sixth Librarian of Congress, described the Library of Congress as “our great national conservatory of books in which the works of all of you will be welcomed and forever preserved.” This quote underscores the Library’s leading role in shaping the nation’s intellectual life—a theme that Jane Aikin explores in her book The Library of Congress: From Jefferson’s Vision to the Digital Age (Georgetown University Press, 2025).
The book traces the origins of the Library of Congress back to 1800, when President John Adams officially established the institution. Members of Congress needed books, especially law books, to inform their policymaking, but Washington, DC, had no libraries at the time. The Library’s original law-focused collections consisted of only 740 books and 3 maps that were considered useful for legislators. Back then, the compact collection was housed in the Capitol Building.
Just 12 years after its founding, a fire started by British forces—retaliation for the destruction of York (part of present-day Toronto) by American forces—destroyed the Capitol, and all the books inside. Thomas Jefferson, who was passionate about knowledge, had dedicated over 50 years to building a personal collection of more than 6,000 volumes in the fields of politics, science, law, fine arts, philosophy, and history. He offered to sell his own library to Congress to help reestablish the collections that had been ravaged by the fire.
Initially, some members of Congress objected to the purchase of Jefferson’s library because his books went beyond law and governance. Jefferson, however, famously made the case that “There is, in fact, no subject to which a member of Congress may not have occasion to refer.” Ever since then, this outlook has served as one of the guiding principles for the Library’s acquisitions.
In 1897, the Library of Congress relocated to the newly constructed building that would later be named the Jefferson Building, situated directly across from the Capitol. Modeled after the Paris Opera House in the Beaux Arts style, Aikin notes that the building boasted numerous technological innovations, including a pneumatic tube and conveyor system, which allowed books to reach the Capitol within 10 minutes.
In addition to recounting landmark historical events that shaped the Library, Aikin traces the Library’s evolution as Librarians of Congress with diverse backgrounds brought their own vision to the role.
Among them, Herbert Putnam, the eighth Librarian of Congress who served from 1899 to 1939, enhanced the Library’s capacity to provide reference and bibliographic assistance, which encouraged resource-sharing among national libraries. Additionally, in 1901, he inaugurated an interlibrary loan program, which has since expanded to serve academic institutions across the globe.
Herbert Putnam also played a crucial role—along with philanthropist Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge and Music Division Chief Carl Engel—in establishing a Trust Fund Board in 1925 which, Aikin explains, created the legal provision for the Library, as a federal agency, to accept private funding for the development of collections and employment of subject matter specialists. The first gift was from Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge to build a chamber music hall in the Thomas Jefferson Building. Today, Aikin notes, the Trust Fund Board supplements appropriations, enabling the Library to host events like the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, National Book Festival, Live! At the Library, and concerts.
The Library’s concert series has presented world-class performances at no cost to the public since October 1925. Historical highlights of the concert series include commissioning Martha Graham and Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring” in 1944, which received the Pulitzer Prize, nationwide radio broadcasts that connected the American people to the Library, and a distinguished resident quartet program that featured the Budapest String Quartet, performing with the Library’s Stradivari instruments for 22 years, and later the Juilliard String Quartet beginning in 1962. The Coolidge Auditorium hosts concerts from October to June each year and features chamber music, jazz, American music, and contemporary music. Attendees have an opportunity to view treasures from the Library’s performing arts collections related to each concert, making the experience truly unique. Major artists from Clint Black and Stevie Wonder to Carole King and Yo-Yo Ma have appeared at the Library.
While the Library has become a vital educational institution on both national and international levels, Aikin writes that the Library’s top priority remains serving Congress. To enhance information flow between experts and members of Congress, the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970 renamed and expanded the Legislative Reference Service into the Congressional Research Service, which provides legal and policy analysis to both the House and the Senate. The research service employs experts in the fields of Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade; American Law; Domestic Social Policy; Government and Finance; and Resources, Science and Industry. To satisfy the demand for nuanced information about countries worldwide, Aikin notes, the Library also continues to collect and make available books and newspapers from across the globe. Since 1973, the Library has published Foreign Newspaper and Gazette Reports, delivering insights into legal developments in foreign nations.
Aikin explains that the establishment of the Copyright Act in 1870 elevated the Library’s role as a national library by requiring publishers to deposit two copies of their copyrighted works. This deposit mechanism enabled the Library to acquire the most comprehensive collection of published works in the nation, transforming it into an archive for US culture, knowledge, and creativity. Ainsworth Rand Spofford, who served as Librarian of Congress from 1864 to 1897, played an important role in this since he strongly advocated for consolidating all US copyright Services within the Library of Congress. Aikin quotes Spofford, who argued that the copyright deposits would form the “optimum base for an American national library” by giving the Library the right to the nation’s publishing output.
During her fellowship at the Kluge Center, Aikin drew on primary resources, including the Herbert Putnam Papers, the Annual Reports of the Librarians of Congress, and specialized secondary sources such as “Poetry and Poets Laureate,” by Prosser Gifford, which gives insight into the establishment of the office of the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry.
At the end of the book, Aikin recounts the appointment of Dr. Carla Hayden, the first woman and first African American Librarian of Congress, who wrote the book’s foreword, expressing her recognition for the women and men who dedicated their careers to making knowledge and cultural heritage resources accessible throughout both times of peace and of social upheaval.
More information on the history of the library can be found here.
This post, and others in this series, does not constitute the Library’s endorsement of the views of the individual scholar or an endorsement of the publisher.