On April 24, 1800, President John Adams authorized the spending of $5000 for “such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress.” This act was the beginning of the Library of Congress. From that first purchase of 740 books and three maps 225 years ago, the Library has grown to be the largest library in the world, with collections numbering over 178 million items, including books, maps, manuscripts, films, photos, audio recordings, and periodicals. Let’s look back over the 225 years of the Library of Congress through a tour of its buildings.
The Library’s first home was in the U.S. Capitol, and it would remain there for nearly a century, through fires, wars, twenty-four presidents, and the exponential growth of its collections. This drawing from 1806 by architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe, shows the United States Capitol in its early years.
The challenge of storage for the collections grew exponentially in 1870, when President Grant signed a law requiring all copyright deposits to flow into the Library. The legislation followed Librarian of Congress Ainsworth Rand Spofford’s advocacy for the centralization of copyright registration and deposit in the Library of Congress as a way to build the collection into a national library. Spofford also made a case for the Library to have its own building. The building we now know as the Thomas Jefferson Building opened to the public on November 1, 1897, a beautiful new addition to Capitol Hill, located just east of the U.S. Capitol.
The Great Hall and its colorful glass ceiling, paintings and mosaics, along with sculpted details throughout, greeted visitors. The Library of Congress was also the first building in D.C. designed with electric lighting, as seen in the lamps held aloft at the foot of each staircase.
The spectacular Main Reading Room welcomed researchers to read under the newest dome in Washington, D.C.
The staff and collections continued to increase, so the Library added the Annex, now the John Adams Building, to Capitol Hill. It opened to the public on January 3, 1939.
While the Adams Building provided much-needed storage for books, it also added additional reading room space, as seen in an early design drawing below.
Lee Lawrie, the sculptor for the Adams Building, included owls, symbols of wisdom and knowledge, as one of the decorative motifs to appear throughout the Adams Building, seen in just two of numerous examples below.
The last building to join the Capitol Hill complex is the James Madison Memorial Building, and the current home of the Prints & Photographs Division. It opened to the public on May 28, 1980, just across Independence Avenue from the Jefferson Building. The information kiosk on the plaza in front of the main entrance pays homage to the dome on the original Library of Congress building.
The Madison Building also serves as a memorial to founding father, James Madison. A larger than life sculpture of James Madison, by sculptor Walter Kirtland Hancock, is visible just inside the lobby in a memorial hall, which is also lined with quotations by Madison. Below, you can see the early maquette for the sculpture as well as the final work.
In this aerial photo, all three Library of Congress buildings on Capitol Hill are visible, with the Madison in the foreground, the Jefferson in the center, and the Adams to the right. As we celebrate 225 years, we hope you will come visit our exhibit galleries, research in our reading rooms, and explore your national library!
Learn More:
- Read about the History of the Library of Congress.
- See photos of the Library of Congress by photographer Carol M. Highsmith:
- Learn more about the Art and Architecture of the John Adams Building from the staff of the Science & Business Reading Room.
- See the architecture of the Jefferson Building through an online presentation: Finding Pictures: The 125th Anniversary of the Thomas Jefferson Building.