President John Adams signed an act appropriating $5,000 to Congress for books, establishing the Library of Congress, on this day in 1800. By 1802, the library housed 964 books and nine maps. But in 1814, while invading the U.S., British troops burned the Capitol building and destroyed the collection. Former president and noted bibliophile Thomas Jefferson then sold his personal library (numbering almost 6,500 books) to Congress. But in 1850, a fire again tore through the library, destroying two-thirds of the 55,000-volume collection.
By then, Congress was willing to throw more money at the problem, replacing most of the books within a few years. The Library of Congress started to expand more rapidly after the Civil War, becoming one of the largest libraries in the world by the 1900s. At that time, it started to take on the role of a kind of national library by housing key historical documents and providing most of its collection to the public.
Nowadays, the Library of Congress spans three buildings and includes over 17 million books, as well as millions of other items in all sorts of mediums. Each day, it receives around 15,000 items and adds about 12,000 to its catalog.
It's free to visit the Library of Congress and get your library card. The buildings are worth seeing if you're in the D.C. area (for events like, say, fly-in or our workshops), as is the collection, but you'll have to get a timed-entry ticket. You can learn more about visiting here.
