Library of Congress Research Papier

I haven't posted in a while, so I decided I would get something up. This was mainly so you my loyal readers didn't think I was up to nothing important here at school. I wrote some of my ten page research paper today. It is actually a chunck out of the middle, and it is a completely unedited version, so take it with a grain of salt. I am not even going to put it in large font because it is so far from done. LTM. I will have an essay up by the end of Sunday hopefully, so if any of you weekenders want to read on that you can.


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II.History of Library (1800-1886)
The Library of Congress had a rough beginning. The first library was established on 24 April 1801when John Randolph drew up an act which needed approval by Congress. On 17 November 1801,Thomas Jefferson, the only person who could possibly be credited for founding the library, donated his entire personal book collection to the library. To Thomas Jefferson, learning and books were of the up most importance. He spent much of his life collecting book subjecting foreign languages, law, philosophy, geography and even cook books. He felt "there is in fact no subject to which a member of Congress may not have occasion to refer." (If you can get this quote from the book... if not get it off of the website in the “extra research”)This donation along with $5000 was all that the first library consisted of.
After the establishment of the library, congress created a committee, headed by John Randolph which would be in charge of running and solving the problems of the library. On 26 January 1802 this committee created a role for a Librarian of Congress who was to be chosen by the president. This committee also pointed out what the role of the library was to be.{If you can...find out what more you can about what the role of the library is to be}. On 29 January 1802, Thomas Jefferson asked John James Beckley to be the librarian alongside his Clerk of House of Representatives position.

Though the committee for the library was in charge of the library's proceedings Thomas Jefferson and James Beckley were both extremely personally involved. Jefferson often ordered books for the library himself alongside his personal orders causing confusion when orders were being processed. Beckley often gave tours of the library to important figures when they visited the capitol. According to the Library of Congress website, Charles Wilson Peale recorded this in his diary after visiting the library in June of 1804, "We went first to the Library where Mr. Beckley received us with politeness… The Library is a spacious and handsome Room, and although lately organized, already contained a a number of valuable books in the best taste of binding." (http://www.loc.gov/about/librarianoffice/beckley.html)

In 1812 the United States got into a war with England uncreativly called the War of 1812. This was a war that the United States should not have even been involved in. The United States was severely overpowered and attempting the impossible.The library suffered greatly because of the war. On 25 August 1814 English soldiers burned the capitol building. At that time, the Library was contained in a room within that building. At the very least one third of Jefferson's original donation was torched. No longer was there a building to contain few remaining books. The library was out of business.