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Our Part 3 featured image
The 125th anniversary logo along with a photo of the Binding Office, c. 1950. Credit: Chantal Martin, 2025. Photographs, Illustrations, and Objects Series, Library of Congress Archives.

125 years of Binding, Part Three: Annexed

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This is part three of a four-part series. Part one covered the early years, up to 1900. Part two covered 1901 to 1940.

As we continue our retrospective on 125 years of binding at the Library of Congress, we should also note the important partner to the Library for much of this time, the Government Printing Office (GPO). This post is being released on May 8th, which is the 125th anniversary of Librarian of Congress Herbert Putnam writing Public Printer Frances W. Palmer to request a binding branch be installed at the then new Library building. For the GPO, it was just another step in a history that started 40 years earlier.

The GPO was created in 1860 as the official print shop for Congress, which had previously tried contracting and electing individual printers. In 1857, the House of Representatives elected the firm of Wendell & Van Benthuysen of Albany, NY under owner Cornelius Wendall. Wendall’s firm had previously won a bid for a term and quickly found itself overworked. To better handle the workload, he built a new print shop and bindery at the corner of H Street NW and North Capitol Street in the District of Columbia. The act creating the GPO empowered the Superintendent of Printing to build or purchase a bindery, and he agreed to purchase Wendall’s District of Columbia plant for $135,000.

History of the Government Printing Office
The first GPO bindery, originally built by Wendell & Van Benthuysen; Cornelius Wendall, original owner and second superintendent; the original GPO bindery 1861; Henry Clay Espey in the bindery foreman’s office. Credits: Lincoln and His Printers-GPO in the Civil War; 100 GPO Years, 1861-1961; International Bookbinder, Vol 1, No. 6, June 1900.