The appropriation paid for "such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress" and a room in the new Capitol to hold them. The first order, 740 books and three maps, arrived from London in 1801. British troops burned the Capitol and its library in 1814, and Thomas Jefferson sold Congress his personal library of 6,487 volumes to replace it. Today the Library of Congress is the de facto national library of the United States and one of the largest libraries in the world.
The act Adams signed on April 24, 1800, dealt mainly with the practical business of moving the federal government from Philadelphia to the half-built city of Washington. Tucked into it was $5,000 for books and "for fitting up a suitable apartment for containing them". A joint committee of Congress chose the titles, which were bought from London booksellers and stored in the Capitol.
That first collection was largely law, history and geography, and it did not last. On August 24, 1814, British soldiers set fire to the Capitol, and the library's roughly 3,000 volumes burned with it. Thomas Jefferson, retired at Monticello and in debt, offered his own collection, the largest in the country, as a replacement. After some debate over its French books and works of philosophy, Congress bought it in 1815 for $23,950.
Jefferson's range of interests set the library's character: he believed there was "no subject to which a member of Congress may not have occasion to refer". A second fire in 1851 destroyed about two-thirds of his books. The Library of Congress now holds well over 170 million items.
Key people: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson