This 1890 image of a Library of Congress book stack depicts a rare situation. Books coming out of every corner and stacked to the ceiling was more the norm in the days before the creation of the Thomas Jefferson Building in 1897. Before 1897, the Library was housed in the U.S. Capitol Building.

The Library of Congress was established by an act of Congress in 1800 when President John Adams signed a bill providing for the transfer of the seat of government from Philadelphia to the new capital city of Washington. The legislation described a reference library for Congress only, containing "such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress - and for putting up a suitable apartment for containing them therein...."

Established with $5,000 appropriated by the legislation, the original library was housed in the new Capitol until August 1814, when invading British troops set fire to the Capitol Building, burning and pillaging the contents of the small library.

Within a month, retired President Thomas Jefferson offered his personal library as a replacement. Jefferson had spent 50 years accumulating books, "putting by everything which related to America, and indeed whatever was rare and valuable in every science"; his library was considered to be one of the finest in the United States. In offering his collection to Congress, Jefferson anticipated controversy over the nature of his collection, which included books in foreign languages and volumes of philosophy, science, literature, and other topics not normally viewed as part of a legislative library.

In January 1815, Congress accepted Jefferson's offer, appropriating $23,950 for his 6,487 books, and the foundation was laid for a great national library. The Jeffersonian concept of universality, the belief that all subjects are important to the library of the American legislature, is the philosophy and rationale behind the comprehensive collecting policies of today's Library of Congress.

Today's Library of Congress contains over 130,000,000 individual items in its collections

Medium : 1 photographic print

Created/Published : April, 1890

Creator : Not attributed

Housed in the Prints and photographs Division of the Library of Congress

Availability: Usually ships in one week

Product #: cph3c05956