Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Welcome to the Podcast. I'm Holly Frye and
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy me Wilson. So, doctor Carla Hayden, who has
Speaker 1: been the Librarian of Congress since twenty sixteen, was fired
Speaker 1: by the sitting President on May eighth of this year.
Speaker 1: The President also fired Shira Pullmutter, the Registrar of Copyrights,
Speaker 1: which is of course very linked to the Library of Congress.
Speaker 1: This has sparked a lot of controversy for a number
Speaker 1: of reasons. For one, Librarian of Congress at this point
Speaker 1: is a role that's typically appointed to ten year terms.
Speaker 1: Many historically have served much longer than that. Doctor Hayden
Speaker 1: had not served that period of time. And for another,
Speaker 1: federal law outlines the process of appointing a librarian, and it,
Speaker 1: like many other positions, is filled by the President nominating
Speaker 1: candidate and then the Senate has to confirm that candidate.
Speaker 1: But it was very clear in this case that the
Speaker 1: intention was simply to replace doctor Hayden, and the President
Speaker 1: named Deputy Attorney General Todd blanche as acting head of
Speaker 1: the Library. He's the President's personal attorney. He absolutely does
Speaker 1: not have a library science degree or any practical knowledge
Speaker 1: of the field. And in addition to those reasons for
Speaker 1: this being controversial, another one that should not be overlooked
Speaker 1: is that doctor Hayden has long been described by her
Speaker 1: peers and her colleagues as an exemplary librarian in every
Speaker 1: position that she has had, without exception. And in response
Speaker 1: to this dismissal, American Library Association President Cindy Hole issued
Speaker 1: a statement on behalf of the organization in support of
Speaker 1: doctor Hayden. And this is a case where even GOP
Speaker 1: congress people have raised a red flag over this move, because,
Speaker 1: in addition to feeling as though the power of Congress
Speaker 1: has kind of been sidestepped, there are also so concerns
Speaker 1: about the White House having improper access to information regarding
Speaker 1: the Congressional Research Service, which handles confidential research requests all
Speaker 1: the time. We're going to talk about the origin point
Speaker 1: of that service today. When two officials from Blanche's office
Speaker 1: arrived at the library on Monday, May twelfth, claiming to
Speaker 1: have jurisdiction there, they were denied entry. And that move
Speaker 1: on the part of the library was supported by congressional
Speaker 1: leadership from both sides of the aisle, and then when
Speaker 1: questioned about that dismissal, the president's Press secretary said that
Speaker 1: doctor Hayden was fired because she was quote putting inappropriate
Speaker 1: books in the library for children. Okay, that's a needle
Speaker 1: scratch moment for me, because the Library of Congress doesn't
Speaker 1: lend books to children. It's not a circulating library. It
Speaker 1: doesn't lend books to anyone. It's a research library, and
Speaker 1: that means that all of the books and other materials
Speaker 1: stay on the premises. There is also an age limit.
Speaker 1: No one under the age of sixteen is allowed to
Speaker 1: do research there. Well, there are some children's programs, anyone
Speaker 1: under the age of sixteen, even attending those has to
Speaker 1: be accompanied by an adult, and there are children's collections,
Speaker 1: but most of that material is held as part of
Speaker 1: the library's responsibility as the nation's center for copyright. So
Speaker 1: that excuse didn't really hold water. And it also evidence
Speaker 1: the fact that there are people that do not know
Speaker 1: what the Library of Congress is or does. So today
Speaker 1: we are going to talk about its history, how it
Speaker 1: came to have some of the responsibilities it does. I'm
Speaker 1: qualifying that by saying some of the responsibilities because the
Speaker 1: Library of Congress has a lot of responsibilities. It is
Speaker 1: a massive place in both physical scale and in the
Speaker 1: scale of its services. We're going to start in eighteen hundred,
Speaker 1: which was an important year in US history. Up to
Speaker 1: that point, as we've mentioned at various times on the show,
Speaker 1: the US government was operating out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but
Speaker 1: that year the government moved to Washington, d C. The
Speaker 1: move to DC had been planned for a decade. In
Speaker 1: the Residents Act of seventeen ninety, Washington had been selected
Speaker 1: as the new capital in an effort to find a
Speaker 1: neutral spot that was not considered either north or south.
Speaker 1: This is part of a compromise over the issue of slavery.
Speaker 1: Pro slavery southern states were concerned that a capital in
Speaker 1: an abolitionist state would automatically be slanted against their interests,
Speaker 1: which meant that the other states are willing to kind
Speaker 1: of appease the South on this. There were other factors
Speaker 1: in the mix as well, but this decision was made
Speaker 1: that a new city would be developed on at tract
Speaker 1: of land that straddled Virginia and Maryland, and in the meantime,
Speaker 1: Philadelphia would continue to serve as the capital for another
Speaker 1: decade while this new municipality was being planned and built.
Speaker 2: That's a whole separate story.
Speaker 1: Yeah. One of the elements that was on the wish list,
Speaker 1: of course, for the new federal city was a library.
Speaker 1: And this may not have been as much of a
Speaker 1: concern if the capital had stayed in Philadelphia, where there
Speaker 1: were established library resources, or if it had been in
Speaker 1: New York, which had been another option and also had
Speaker 1: library resources. But because the new capital was also a
Speaker 1: new city, a library was going to have to be created.
Speaker 1: On April twenty fourth, eighteen hundred, as part of a
Speaker 1: larger congressional Act that officially moved the government to Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. Five thousand dollars was allocated for books, and
Speaker 1: that made it the first budget of what would become
Speaker 1: the Library of Congress. A committee was also formed to
Speaker 1: administer those funds and oversee the day to day functions
Speaker 1: of this new library, which was going to be housed
Speaker 1: in the Capitol building. The first iteration of the collection
Speaker 1: was just one hundred and fifty two items, and it
Speaker 1: was kept in the Secretary of Senate's office. An order
Speaker 1: was placed in spring of eighteen hundred with a bookseller
Speaker 1: in London to purchase seven hundred and forty more items
Speaker 1: to expand the library's holdings. In eighteen oh two, during
Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson's presidency, the library was moved to its own
Speaker 1: room in the capital's North Wing. That same year, the
Speaker 1: position of Librarian of Congress was established as a presidential appointment.
Speaker 1: So let's clarify this a little bit. This library is
Speaker 1: a legislative office. It's not a lending library like a
Speaker 1: local library branch. The Library of Congress was always intended
Speaker 1: to serve Congress research materials. There were consulted when legislation
Speaker 1: was being drafted or when Congressmen wanted to study up
Speaker 1: on a topic that was being discussed. In addition to books,
Speaker 1: that meant research materials like maps and surveys that could
Speaker 1: inform the way the country would grow. In that initial period,
Speaker 1: when the Librarian of Congress was paid two dollars a day,
Speaker 1: only members of Congress, the President, and vice president could
Speaker 1: access this collection.
Speaker 2: The first Librarian.
Speaker 1: Of Congress was John James Beckley. Beckley was born in
Speaker 1: England in seventeen fifty seven, and he had moved to
Speaker 1: the Virginia Colony in the late seventeen sixties when he
Speaker 1: was still a boy to work there as an office scribe,
Speaker 1: and as he grew into adulthood he moved into politics.
Speaker 1: He actually became one of the first city councilmen of Richmond, Virginia,
Speaker 1: and as he rose through the ranks politically, he moved
Speaker 1: first to New York and then to Philadelphia, and along
Speaker 1: the way he became a close ally of Thomas Jefferson.
Speaker 1: He actually campaigned for Jefferson and against Federalist politicians, often
Speaker 1: writing political commentaries in various papers under pseudonyms.
Speaker 2: When it came.
Speaker 1: Time to appoint a librarian in eighteen oh two, Jefferson
Speaker 1: immediately picked Beckley. In those early days of the institution,
Speaker 1: the Congressional Committee was making most of the decisions regarding
Speaker 1: the library, but one of Beckley's importants was creating the
Speaker 1: library's first catalog, which was printed just months after he
Speaker 1: was selected for the job. That's an impressive feat because
Speaker 1: the librarianship was not his only job. He was also
Speaker 1: Clerk of the House of Representatives. The catalog of the books, maps,
Speaker 1: and charts belonging to the Library of the two Houses
Speaker 1: of Congress was a guide to the initial collection of
Speaker 1: nine hundred and sixty four items in that initial small offering.
Speaker 1: Beckley held the library in office until eighteen oh seven,
Speaker 1: when he died. During the later part of his tenure,
Speaker 1: the collection moved from its dedicated space as that area
Speaker 1: was reallocated to use for the House of Representatives, and
Speaker 1: the library was temporarily kind of nomadic. It moved from
Speaker 1: room to room while a more permanent solution was sought after.
Speaker 1: I don't know why that tickles me, knowing it literally
Speaker 1: was getting shuffled around from like conference room to coucy.
Speaker 1: We need this one for a meeting. Yeah, you got
Speaker 1: to move the Library of Congress out of it before
Speaker 1: a permanent space was found. Though. In eighteen fourteen, during
Speaker 1: the War of eighteen twelve, Washington, d c. Was burned
Speaker 1: down by British forces, and this destroyed the Library of
Speaker 1: Congress in its entirety. Thomas Jefferson, who had steered the
Speaker 1: early years of the library as we've discussed, had retired
Speaker 1: to his home Monticello at this point, and he read
Speaker 1: about the fire in the paper. He almost immediately wrote
Speaker 1: to a friend quote, I learned from the newspapers that
Speaker 1: the vandalism of our enemy has triumphed at Washington over
Speaker 1: science as well as the arts, by the destruction of
Speaker 1: the Public Library with the Noble edifice in which it
Speaker 1: was deposited. Jefferson had himself amassed a pretty impressive library
Speaker 1: with a lot of rare volumes collected from Europe over
Speaker 1: the years, and he had always intended that he was
Speaker 1: going to leave the collection to the Library of Congress
Speaker 1: when he died, although he wanted the government to pay
Speaker 1: his estate for it. This is a thing that I
Speaker 1: find kind of funny. There are write ups about this
Speaker 1: that are like, he donated his No, he didn't donate,
Speaker 1: he sold it. Let's be clear. There was a transaction involved.
Speaker 1: But in light of the fire, he just sped up
Speaker 1: his plan and he offered his full collection, which was
Speaker 1: believed to be six four hundred eighty seven books, to
Speaker 1: replace that lost Library of Congress collection, which had at
Speaker 1: that point been less than half that size, and he
Speaker 1: was paid twenty three, nine hundred and fifty dollars for
Speaker 1: the entirety of it, which it actually turned out was
Speaker 1: larger than he had realized when he started really going
Speaker 1: through it and prepping it. It was six thousand, seven
Speaker 1: hundred seven books total. He did not ask for any
Speaker 1: additional money for the extra books. This was actually kind
Speaker 1: of controversial in a variety of ways. Some people thought
Speaker 1: volumes in his collection were not appropriate for the government
Speaker 1: to own and that he was making a cash grab.
Speaker 1: But in any case, it did replenish the library, and
Speaker 1: Jefferson used the money to settle a number of debts,
Speaker 1: and he sent the collection, including its bookcases, to Washington.
Speaker 1: The last wagon load was sent to the Capitol on
Speaker 1: May eighth, eighteen fifteen. Coming up, we'll talk about the
Speaker 1: newly replenished library collection and where it was stored, but
Speaker 1: first we will hear from the sponsors that keep the
Speaker 1: show going. Initially, the new Library of Congress collection acquired
Speaker 1: from Thomas Jefferson, as well as new volumes as they
Speaker 1: were added, lived in the hotel that served as the
Speaker 1: temporary home of the Capitol post fire, and then in
Speaker 1: eighteen eighteen it moved back into the rebuilt Capitol building,
Speaker 1: where it was stored in the attic as a temporary option.
Speaker 1: This was like an attic that had functional use, It
Speaker 1: wasn't just like shoved up there. It took six years, though,
Speaker 1: for a purpose built room in the building to be
Speaker 1: created by architect Charles Bullfinch. On December twenty second, eighteen
Speaker 1: twenty five, just a year after that new room was ready,
Speaker 1: there was another fire. This one was an accident. It
Speaker 1: was started by a candle, and the fire was caught
Speaker 1: relatively early and extinguished, but it instigated discussions about fireproofing
Speaker 1: to prevent this growing collection from being lost as the
Speaker 1: first one was. But nothing came of these discussions, and
Speaker 1: on December twenty fourth, eighteen fifty one, there was another
Speaker 1: fire at the Library of Congress. This one also an accident.
Speaker 1: Thirty five thousand books were destroyed, including more than half
Speaker 1: of the books that had come from Jefferson's collection. The
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty one fire made it apparent that the Library
Speaker 1: of Congress would always be vulnerable unless steps were taken
Speaker 1: to help ensure the safety of the collection.
Speaker 2: Thomas U.
Speaker 1: Walter was hired for another project, which was designing a
Speaker 1: fireproof room for the library. That new room, which was
Speaker 1: made of iron and ran along the west front of
Speaker 1: the Capitol, was officially opened on August twenty third, eighteen
Speaker 1: fifty three. Two additional wings, which were also fireproof, were
Speaker 1: added in eighteen sixty six. Those wings, which had been
Speaker 1: built with a budget of one hundred sixty thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: filled up very quickly. One of the big space fillers
Speaker 1: was the newly acquired Library of the Smithsonian Institution. That
Speaker 1: new material on its own totaled about forty thousand volumes.
Speaker 1: It really was starting to seem like the library's physical
Speaker 1: home could just never keep up with its very rapid expansion.
Speaker 1: But things were actually about to get much more intense
Speaker 1: in terms of collection growth. In eighteen seventy, the Library
Speaker 1: of Congress became the center of copyright in the US.
Speaker 1: This happened as part of the Copyright Law of eighteen seventy,
Speaker 1: which began as an act to revise, consolidate, and amend
Speaker 1: the statutes relating to patents and copyrights. By making the
Speaker 1: Library of Congress so central to copyright claims, Congress U
Speaker 1: and President Grant had inadvertently created a new problem. As
Speaker 1: part of the law, the library was given two copies
Speaker 1: of all copyrighted items. Soon that meant it was under
Speaker 1: an avalanche of copyright deposits and it ran out of room.
Speaker 2: That happened really quickly.
Speaker 1: Really quickly, because by the end of eighteen seventy one,
Speaker 1: just eighteen months after the library was made the Copyright
Speaker 1: Deposit Center, Congress received word from Ainsworth Rand Spofford, the librarian,
Speaker 1: that a new building was absolutely necessary. He had campaigned
Speaker 1: for the library to become the hub of copyright in
Speaker 1: the US, but he had created a massive job for
Speaker 1: himself in terms of its management.
Speaker 2: He mentioned in an.
Speaker 1: Update the following year that library staff had resorted to
Speaker 1: piling books all over the floor because there was nowhere
Speaker 1: else to put them. Among other issues, the library had
Speaker 1: also continued to take in large collection editions, often in
Speaker 1: the form of gifts. Teen sixty nine, for example, nearly
Speaker 1: one thousand books were sent as a gift from the
Speaker 1: Emperor of China. Although there was an acute need for
Speaker 1: a new building, it took years for one to be built.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until eighteen eighty six that Congress authorized the
Speaker 1: construction of a purpose built building for the library. Yet
Speaker 1: another decade passed before that got built. Although Spofford made
Speaker 1: it clear that the crowding problems were just making it
Speaker 1: unfit for use in a lot of cases, he also
Speaker 1: made growth predictions to make it clear that Congress needed
Speaker 1: to be thinking long term about this collection. He said
Speaker 1: that he expected that by the nineteen seventies there would
Speaker 1: be two point five million items in the collection. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was an underestimation, but at the time it was
Speaker 1: a pretty good guess. The new building, though, did open
Speaker 1: on November first, eighteen ninety seven, just sixteen years from
Speaker 1: when Spofford notified Congress of the space issues. By that point,
Speaker 1: rush full forty percent of the library collection had been
Speaker 1: acquired through copyright deposits, and along the way, Spofford had
Speaker 1: continued to write updated reports, noting in early eighteen ninety
Speaker 1: one that the collection had swelled to six hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty thousand books and more than two hundred thousand pamphlets.
Speaker 1: But the completed library, long though its gestation had been,
Speaker 1: was a marvel. It was touted as the largest and
Speaker 1: the safest library in the world, and it had also
Speaker 1: come with a very high price tag. It had taken
Speaker 1: years of process, arguments, debate, and setbacks. There had been
Speaker 1: two architects on it initially, although each of them had
Speaker 1: been dismissed along the way, and ultimately the second one
Speaker 1: was replaced in eighteen ninety two by Edward Pierce Casey.
Speaker 1: But then when Casey's father died in eighteen ninety six,
Speaker 1: Bernard R. Green stepped in to finish the building, and
Speaker 1: this building featured not only a beautiful Italian Renaissance exterior,
Speaker 1: but an interior that was filled with art and sculpture
Speaker 1: commissioned from USR artists, and it was nicknamed the Temple
Speaker 1: of the Arts. Also in eighteen ninety eight, the process
Speaker 1: for appointing a Librarian of Congress changed under the presidency
Speaker 1: of Grover Cleveland. From then on, the President has been
Speaker 1: able to select a candidate, but the Senate has to
Speaker 1: approve that candidate. The eighteen ninety seven legislation also changed
Speaker 1: the role of the library and officially. While it was
Speaker 1: initially a position that had less authority to make decisions
Speaker 1: about the collection than Congress did, Ainsworth Spofford had taken
Speaker 1: on a lot more responsibility in that role as the
Speaker 1: library had grown far beyond anything that could be managed
Speaker 1: as kind of a side job or part time project.
Speaker 1: So by the end of the nineteenth century, the role
Speaker 1: came with an established salary of five thousand dollars a
Speaker 1: year and a lot more autonomy about how the library
Speaker 1: was staffed and run. A separate role of Superintendent of
Speaker 1: Grounds was also created, for the library, which also came
Speaker 1: with a five thousand dollars salary and perhaps most important
Speaker 1: at least to me, and we could talk about this
Speaker 1: on Friday. In eighteen ninety eight, catalogers were added to
Speaker 1: the library staff to review the collection catalog and to
Speaker 1: create a new classification system that could more effectively encompass
Speaker 1: the existing holdings and those that would be acquired in
Speaker 1: the future. And this was the beginning of the Library
Speaker 1: of Congress Classification System or LCC that's used in many
Speaker 1: academic libraries today. Starting in nineteen oh two, the Library
Speaker 1: of Congress started selling pre printed catalog cards to other libraries.
Speaker 1: That meant that if a library was using the LCC system,
Speaker 1: when it acquired a new volume for its own collection,
Speaker 1: it could just purchase the already cataloged record for it
Speaker 1: and add that card to the card catalog. That would
Speaker 1: save cataloging time for anybody young enough to have never
Speaker 1: used a card catalog. These cards were inserted into drawers
Speaker 1: in a specialty catalog cabinet. They were alphabetical, and users
Speaker 1: could search the catalog by looking for a subject, an author,
Speaker 1: or a title. So every volume typically had three cards,
Speaker 1: one with each possible search approach headlined on it. Every
Speaker 1: one of a volume's associated cards would contain the volume's
Speaker 1: catalog number, so the user could jot that down and
Speaker 1: then go find the book or other material in the stacks.
Speaker 1: The money made from card sales went to the US Treasury.
Speaker 1: The card business grew rapidly as public and educational libraries
Speaker 1: signed on as subscribers. Soon it needed its own staff.
Speaker 1: My local library branch uses an old card catalog cabinet
Speaker 1: as a seed library. Yeah. They've been repurposed in a
Speaker 1: lot of fun ways. I found myself so nostalgic trying
Speaker 1: to write out how a card catalog carn I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, we had to write down the call number.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I remember in elementary school being taken to the library
Speaker 1: and shown how the card catalog works and how to
Speaker 1: lift things up in it. And there was like a
Speaker 1: little stack of little papers on top of it with
Speaker 1: little short pencils where you could write down the call number. Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's like a dopamine hit. In the early twentieth century,
Speaker 1: the identity of the library evolved once more when President
Speaker 1: Theodore Roosevelt signed an executive order that made the library
Speaker 1: the home of a great many important documents. That executive
Speaker 1: order was dated March ninth, nineteen oh three, and it
Speaker 1: made the personal papers of multiple founding fathers and records
Speaker 1: of the Continental Congress part of the Library's collection. And
Speaker 1: this was the beginning of a lot of growth under
Speaker 1: library and Herbert Putnam, who not only enlarged the library's holdings,
Speaker 1: but also expanded the services that the library offered, creating
Speaker 1: more accessible research options for patrons, including a reference service
Speaker 1: with library staff available to assist with research requests. There
Speaker 1: were also new cultural programs like concerts added to the
Speaker 1: library schedule. When World War One began, Putnam, at the
Speaker 1: request of the American Library Association, headed up a project
Speaker 1: to send books, periodicals, etc.
Speaker 2: To US soldiers.
Speaker 1: In nineteen twenty one, the two foundational documents of the
Speaker 1: United States, that's the Declaration of Independence in the US
Speaker 1: Constitution were both added to the Library of Congress collection.
Speaker 1: Before this move, these two documents had been maintained by
Speaker 1: the State Department. The National Archives had not been established yet,
Speaker 1: so the library offered the best environment for preservation and care.
Speaker 1: The documents got a dedicated shrine on February twenty eighth,
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty four, so not only were they carefully preserved,
Speaker 1: but visitors could also see them. They stayed in the
Speaker 1: library until nineteen fifty two, when they were transferred to
Speaker 1: the National Archive. Yeah, there's a little side trip that
Speaker 1: they took that we'll talk about in a minute. In
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty nine, the library got yet another building, designed
Speaker 1: by the architecture firm of Pearson and Wilson. This building
Speaker 1: was simple in its layout, prioritizing workspaces for library visitors
Speaker 1: in addition to the book stacks, but simple did not
Speaker 1: mean small. This building was designed to hold ten million volumes.
Speaker 1: This building was originally called the Annex, and it retained
Speaker 1: that name until it was renamed the Library of Congress
Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson Building in nineteen seventy six under President Gerald Ford.
Speaker 1: If you're familiar with the Library of Congress, you're like,
Speaker 1: that's not the Thomas Jefferson Building. That's because that was
Speaker 1: its name for only four years. In nineteen eighty, when
Speaker 1: another new library building was open, that's the James Madison
Speaker 1: Memorial Building. When that happened, the main library was renamed
Speaker 1: the Thomas Jefferson Building. The former Annex slash Thomas Jefferson
Speaker 1: Building became the John Adams Building. The nineteen forties were
Speaker 1: an interesting time for the library. For one, there was
Speaker 1: a recognition that some of the collection needed to be
Speaker 1: preserved in new ways. Things like archival newspapers, which had
Speaker 1: not been intended to last long term when they were
Speaker 1: initially printed, were literally falling apart. The Library requested a
Speaker 1: small budget to commit some of the more important journals
Speaker 1: to microfilm for long term access that would not further
Speaker 1: degrade the collection, and of course their microfilm procedures and
Speaker 1: program grew a huge amount from there. For another thing,
Speaker 1: World War II was deeply impactful for the library. Just
Speaker 1: as the fires of the earlier years had given rise
Speaker 1: to considerations as to how the collection might be protected,
Speaker 1: the war made Congress, then Library and Archibald MacLeish and
Speaker 1: President Franklin D. Roosevelt aware of the vulnerability of the
Speaker 1: nation's important documents and collections should an enemy power choose
Speaker 1: to attack them. For this reason, during World War II,
Speaker 1: the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, as well as the
Speaker 1: Library's Gutenberg Bible were all moved to Fort Knox, although
Speaker 1: that was not public knowledge at the time. Other valuable
Speaker 1: items were also moved to secret locations. This also included
Speaker 1: the Lincoln Cathedral copy of the Magna Carta, which the
Speaker 1: British had brought to the US for safekeeping. The library
Speaker 1: also changed its hours and it was opened twenty four
Speaker 1: to seven for government officials during the war, while public
Speaker 1: use hours were cut down. The items that had been
Speaker 1: moved out for safety were returned to the library in
Speaker 1: the autumn of nineteen forty four. In nineteen forty four,
Speaker 1: the library was also the debut location for a ballet
Speaker 1: called Appalachian Spring, one of my favorite pieces of music.
Speaker 1: Please don't come at me for how I just said
Speaker 1: the word Appalachian. The music was composed by Aaron Copeland
Speaker 1: and Arthur Graham choreographed it. The story of the ballet,
Speaker 1: which was commissioned by arts benefactor Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, was
Speaker 1: intended to capture a moment in the history of the US.
Speaker 1: It's about a couple in a Pennsylvania Shakertown during westward expansion.
Speaker 1: It starts with their wedding and follows them through their
Speaker 1: lives in a small town that's just getting established. Graham
Speaker 1: named the ballet after a line in a poem by
Speaker 1: Hart Crane called the Bridge. When Copeland asked her if
Speaker 1: the poem had anything to do with the ballet, she
Speaker 1: told him quote, no, I just liked the title and
Speaker 1: I took it. It premiered in the library as Elizabeth
Speaker 1: Sprague Coolidge Auditorium, which had been added to the Thomas
Speaker 1: Jefferson Library building in the nineteen twenties. Story of that
Speaker 1: ballet and Copeland and Graham's collaboration and sometimes lack thereof,
Speaker 1: is its own fascinating story. I highly recommend if you
Speaker 1: like a little arts drama. Yeah, many years ago I
Speaker 1: almost sit an Aeron Copeland episode and I got like
Speaker 1: over wound, and I put it to the side and
Speaker 1: haven't returned to it. Every quote he has given about
Speaker 1: Martha Graham tickles the pants off me. It's so funny.
Speaker 1: It's very like, well, we were working on that. She
Speaker 1: didn't want him to see any of the ballet. He
Speaker 1: didn't see anything until the day before it debuted. He
Speaker 1: was still sending over music very late in the game,
Speaker 1: like there was just a lot of back and forth.
Speaker 1: They were in the same place. So it was a
Speaker 1: very a huge achievement in terms of two artists that
Speaker 1: are maybe struggling to connect creating something that's really unique,
Speaker 1: but it also sounds like a wild ride. I can't
Speaker 1: imagine being one of the performers trying to like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we don't have what now? How soon do we open?
Speaker 1: In just a moment, we are going to talk about
Speaker 1: some of the services that formally became part of the
Speaker 1: Library's offerings after World War Two, but first we are
Speaker 1: going to pause for a sponsor break. In nineteen forty six,
Speaker 1: a specialized research department was created for the Library through
Speaker 1: the Legislative Reorganization Act of nineteen forty six. This was
Speaker 1: the Library Reference Service, which had already existed to assist
Speaker 1: Congress with research needs, but this Act made it its
Speaker 1: own department with a budget so that specialists could be
Speaker 1: hired to make its offerings more robust. In nineteen seventy,
Speaker 1: the LRS was renamed the Congressional Research Service or CRS.
Speaker 1: We referenced that at the very beginning of the episode,
Speaker 1: and it was restructured at that time with an expanded
Speaker 1: list of responsibilities, including assisting individual congress people and committees
Speaker 1: with policy research. In nineteen fifty eight, Librarian of Congress
Speaker 1: el Quincy Mumford established an entered Apartmental Committee on Mechanized
Speaker 1: Information Retrieval. That committee was tasked with figure out if
Speaker 1: there was a way to mechanize the catalog. We mentioned
Speaker 1: the card cataloging system earlier. Over the years since the
Speaker 1: turn of the century, when the card catalog first started
Speaker 1: to be used to the Library of Congress's own card
Speaker 1: catalog had become so huge as to be unwieldy. There
Speaker 1: were more than nine million cards in the catalog in
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties. In the autumn of nineteen fifty eight,
Speaker 1: an amendment to the Agricultural Trade, Development and Assistance Act
Speaker 1: of nineteen fifty four made overseas acquisitions for the library
Speaker 1: more robust. The collection of foreign publications and materials was
Speaker 1: further bolstered in nineteen sixty five. The Higher Education Act
Speaker 1: of nineteen sixty five, as the name States, mandated that
Speaker 1: the library provide more services to academic libraries, but it
Speaker 1: also enabled the library to use funds for collecting materials
Speaker 1: from around the world under the guiding principle that those
Speaker 1: materials had to be quote of value to scholarship. That
Speaker 1: also meant that those materials needed to be cataloged, and
Speaker 1: for those cataloging records to be offered to other libraries
Speaker 1: quickly through their cataloging distribution program. This can be a
Speaker 1: huge challenge. Cataloging foreign language volumes requires a degree of
Speaker 1: linguistic proficiency on the part of the cataloger, so multi
Speaker 1: lingual specialists became an important part of the cataloging staff
Speaker 1: within a short period of time. The library had office
Speaker 1: presences in both London and Rio de Janeiro to acquire
Speaker 1: books from abroad. During the nineteen sixties, the library also
Speaker 1: spearheaded research into book preservation, focusing not on its oldest volumes,
Speaker 1: but books printed in the late nineteenth century. That's because
Speaker 1: changes in paper production actually made a lot of those
Speaker 1: books more susceptible to paper breakdown than a lot of
Speaker 1: older pieces in the collection. This was the the beginning
Speaker 1: of the development of standards of preservation practices and ongoing
Speaker 1: research in preservation science that continues today under the Library's
Speaker 1: Preservation Directorate. In nineteen sixty six, the committee that we
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier that was formed to explore ways to automate
Speaker 1: search in the catalog came up with a system that
Speaker 1: was called machine readable Cataloging. Mark records as they were called,
Speaker 1: still included all of the information that would normally be
Speaker 1: found on a catalog card, but they were the first
Speaker 1: digital cataloging records, searchable through a terminal. Soon, subscribers could
Speaker 1: also get these digital files just as they had catalog cards.
Speaker 1: Although they were initially shipped on magnetic tapes, there were
Speaker 1: still physical cards going into the Library of Congress's catalog
Speaker 1: and being shipped to libraries that had not transitioned to
Speaker 1: electronic data use. But the intention was to move everyone
Speaker 1: away from physical cards. I kind of marveled that this
Speaker 1: started in nineteen six It seems so much earlier than
Speaker 1: I remembered, even from when I was learning about it
Speaker 1: on the job, I had the same response, which led
Speaker 1: me to google it to check, which led me to
Speaker 1: lead to me learning that the person who was really
Speaker 1: the key in the development of this was named Henriette Abraham,
Speaker 1: which is I was like, is this somebody we need
Speaker 1: to talk about on the show. Maybe I looked at
Speaker 1: her and I felt like I didn't have enough handy
Speaker 1: material for an expansion, that she would be awesome if
Speaker 1: we had some time to really dig in. So the
Speaker 1: last day of nineteen eighty, so December thirty first, was
Speaker 1: also the last day that any physical cards went into
Speaker 1: the Library of Congress catalog. Starting in nineteen eighty one,
Speaker 1: Mark supplanted physical cards completely and cataloging new items moved
Speaker 1: entirely online. Older items, though, were still represented in the
Speaker 1: collection by catalog cards. This is all so why I
Speaker 1: remember in my youth there were some things that we
Speaker 1: would look up in the physical card catalog, and some
Speaker 1: things that we would look up in this terminal thing
Speaker 1: that also.
Speaker 2: Exists in the library.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty the James Madison Memorial Building was opened
Speaker 1: as the newest edition to the Library of Congress. This
Speaker 1: project had been in the works for more than twenty years.
Speaker 1: The first architectural proposal for it had been submitted in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty eight. It eventually became a combination project as
Speaker 1: a memorial to the fourth President of the United States
Speaker 1: and a much needed expansion of library space. The two
Speaker 1: point one million square foot building was one of the
Speaker 1: largest in Washington, d C. And, among other services, the
Speaker 1: Copyright Office was moved there. One of the Madison quotes
Speaker 1: on the exterior of the building reads quote Knowledge will
Speaker 1: forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be
Speaker 1: their own governor must arm themselves with the power that
Speaker 1: knowledge gives. I'm sure glad it fell to Tracy to
Speaker 1: read that, because I can't get through that sentence without crying.
Speaker 1: I was thinking this too, because we were discussing that
Speaker 1: quote yesterday. I did not do that on purpose. It
Speaker 1: just I lucked out. In June of nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 1: the Library of Congress launched its website. That too, seems
Speaker 1: earlier than my brain can handle. This site, over the years,
Speaker 1: has become a valuable tool for online research through the
Speaker 1: National Digital Library Program, which also launched in nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 1: although work did not officially begin on that program until
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five. The official mission of the program, per
Speaker 1: the Library of Congress website, is quote assembling a digital
Speaker 1: library of reproductions of primary source materials to support the
Speaker 1: study of the history and culture of the United States.
Speaker 1: This project was only launched after a pilot program had
Speaker 1: been tested for five years, and it began with a
Speaker 1: really robust effort to use the best possible means available
Speaker 1: to accurately reproduce items digitally, ensuring that the results were
Speaker 1: functional research materials. So that meant that, in addition to
Speaker 1: implementing processes for scanning and digitally photographing things like books
Speaker 1: and journals, and photographs and manuscripts. They also had human
Speaker 1: beings working to review that material and create records that
Speaker 1: would make those newly digitized items findable. This program also
Speaker 1: worked with K through twelve teachers and librarians to examine
Speaker 1: the ways that the digitized collections could be used by
Speaker 1: educators and what gaps existed in the system that were
Speaker 1: preventing educators and students from really being able to use
Speaker 1: digital collections effectively. As a result of this work, the
Speaker 1: Library of Congress launched a learning portal that offers things
Speaker 1: like lesson plans, study guides, and context for where digitized
Speaker 1: primary sources fit into history and culture. A related program,
Speaker 1: the World Digital Library, launched in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 1: For this project, the Library joined forces with UNESCO and
Speaker 1: other organizations to digitize and share primary sources related to
Speaker 1: world cultures in a variety of languages, all of which
Speaker 1: is freely available online. On September fourteenth, twenty sixteen, the
Speaker 1: first woman and first black Librarian of Congress was sworn in,
Speaker 1: and that was doctor Carla D. Hayden, who was recently
Speaker 1: terminated from that position. She was the fourteenth Librarian of Congress.
Speaker 1: In her speech at her swearing in, she noted the
Speaker 1: vast distance between times when a person who looked like
Speaker 1: her was not allowed to learn to read and write
Speaker 1: and the moment she was experiencing. Hayden's library background, which
Speaker 1: is impressive, as we mentioned at the top of the show,
Speaker 1: has always been hailed as exemplary by her peers. This
Speaker 1: inc training as a children's librarian, and she sought during
Speaker 1: her tenure as head of the nation's library to make
Speaker 1: its incredible collection accessible to all and to bring history
Speaker 1: alive to children and adults alike through the collection. In
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, she gave an interview to the University
Speaker 1: of Chicago News in which she said, quote, history is.
Speaker 2: A long haul.
Speaker 1: Times we're going through now, yes they're kind of rough,
Speaker 1: but there have been other rough times, and look what's
Speaker 1: happened and where we've come. Once again, I'm so glad
Speaker 1: you had to read that today. The Library of Congress
Speaker 1: is the world's largest library. There are more than one
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty one million pieces in the collection, and
Speaker 1: four hundred and seventy different languages are represented. These items
Speaker 1: include books, of course, but also manuscripts and as we've mentioned, photographs, newspapers,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Twelve thousand items are added to the library
Speaker 1: each day, so about two million items each year. In
Speaker 1: a statement that doctor Hayden gave to the Committee on
Speaker 1: House Administration two days before she was fired, the librarian
Speaker 1: noted that in fiscal year twenty twenty four, quote CRS
Speaker 1: that's at Research Service CRS handled over seventy five thousand
Speaker 1: congressional requests, published over one thousand new products, and updated
Speaker 1: over seventeen hundred existing projects. The Law Library fielded almost
Speaker 1: one thousand reference requests that year, and quote the library
Speaker 1: welcomed more than eight hundred eighty million, one hundred thousand
Speaker 1: visitors to its historic Thomas Jefferson Building, a twenty two
Speaker 1: percent increase from fiscal twenty twenty three. Ninety eight million
Speaker 1: unique visitors made use of the library's websites, totaling half
Speaker 1: a billion page views. Additionally, doctor Hayden added quote, the
Speaker 1: National Library Service for the Blind and print Disabled circulated
Speaker 1: more than twenty two million copies of braille, audio and
Speaker 1: large print material. Those are all things that were cited
Speaker 1: in this, but those were really just a handful of
Speaker 1: the institution's accomplishments under her leadership. I have very strong
Speaker 1: feelings about the library. I have very strong feelings about Kidties.
Speaker 1: Do you want to hear the funniest email of all time?
Speaker 2: I sure do.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna read the subject line because it gives
Speaker 1: it away, and I was gonna say, is it a spoiler?
Speaker 2: It is?
Speaker 1: This is from our listener Carrie Okay, who I adore
Speaker 1: for this email, especially because I'm like so choked up
Speaker 1: over this episode that now I need this. Carrie writes,
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, you guys, I am laughing so hard
Speaker 1: right now. I just finished listening to the Altina Shanazi
Speaker 1: episode followed by its behind the scenes episode. When I
Speaker 1: read the description before listening, I saw that it mentioned
Speaker 1: cat eye glasses. I know the hyphen is in the
Speaker 1: correct spot, so the following misunderstanding is completely my fault.
Speaker 1: For some reason in my head, when I read the description,
Speaker 1: I read cat eyeglasses as in eyeglasses for cats. Now,
Speaker 1: an unfamiliar listener of the podcast may stop and think,
Speaker 1: why in the world would they do an episode about
Speaker 1: the inventor of eyeglasses for cats.
Speaker 2: It clearly didn't work since I had.
Speaker 1: Never seen a cat wearing glasses before, but I a
Speaker 1: seasoned listener of many years who knows your love of
Speaker 1: cats and also knows that there have been several cat
Speaker 1: art themed episodes in the past, just rolled with it.
Speaker 1: I kept waiting for it to come up. When you
Speaker 1: were talking about her art, I thought, Oh, she probably
Speaker 1: painted or sculpted cats wearing glasses, but that didn't happen.
Speaker 2: Then, when you were actually.
Speaker 1: Talking about the cat eyeglasses, I thought, oh, the person
Speaker 1: probably turned her away with her glasses designed because they
Speaker 1: saw that it was a ridiculous idea. And then when
Speaker 1: the designer saw the glasses and said he wanted to
Speaker 1: put them into production, I thought, ha, I wonder if
Speaker 1: he thought the glasses design was for people instead of cats,
Speaker 1: and Altina just went with it.
Speaker 2: I wish I was kidding.
Speaker 1: I really do. By the end of the show, I
Speaker 1: had kind of forgotten about it because I got so
Speaker 1: caught up in Altina's life. It wasn't until the behind
Speaker 1: this SCE's episode when Holly said cat eye glasses with
Speaker 1: the stress slightly different on the words, that it clicked
Speaker 1: into place in the world made sense again. I had
Speaker 1: a good laugh about it after all was said and done,
Speaker 1: and it taught me something about myself. If mobsters came
Speaker 1: into my place of business trying to intimidate me, I
Speaker 1: would also completely misread the situation and probably offer them
Speaker 1: a snack for pet tax. I am attaching a photo
Speaker 1: of my Australian Labradoudal Cocoa. She is a pretty princess
Speaker 1: who loves to steal our food, cuddle, and PLoP herself
Speaker 1: wherever she pleases. She has a crush on my fiance
Speaker 1: and always squeezes herself right between us when he is
Speaker 1: over and demands pets from him, and of course he
Speaker 1: obliges because she'll look at him with her golden eyes
Speaker 1: and some kind of enchantment takes over. She is irresistible.
Speaker 1: Thanks to the podcast, it really is one of a
Speaker 1: kind and I enjoy listening to it so much, even
Speaker 1: if sometimes I have a misunderstanding. This is the best
Speaker 1: email of read in one hundred years. I love the
Speaker 1: trust Carrie that you were like, I'm just get a
Speaker 1: roll with this. They're going to explain this eventually, and
Speaker 1: we never did. Also, Coco, I get it. I too
Speaker 1: would fall under her spell in a minute, but that
Speaker 1: did crack me up. And then I thought about what
Speaker 1: it would take to try to put glasses on cats,
Speaker 1: and how much I enjoy, you know, retaining my limbs
Speaker 1: as unmarred by cat scratches as I possibly can, and
Speaker 1: how that would not play out at our house. I
Speaker 1: have had two cats that would have worn glasses. I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure that were just chill about having things put
Speaker 1: on them, but most of them would not be. But also,
Speaker 1: how would you test does this look better? Does this
Speaker 1: look better? I don't know.
Speaker 2: I love everything about this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I never know which email you have selected, except
Speaker 1: on a rare occasion when it comes up before we
Speaker 1: actually start reading. But you were a little ways into
Speaker 1: that when I remembered the email clearly and had to
Speaker 1: go move away from my mic so I didn't start
Speaker 1: laughing all the way through it. It's so good, It's so good,
Speaker 1: so good us just the best. And also I just
Speaker 1: appreciate your candor in explaining how you got confused, because
Speaker 1: we have all been there, and not everybody will talk
Speaker 1: about these moments, but it's important because we all have them.
Speaker 1: If you would like to write to us and explain
Speaker 1: something that was very confusing and became comedic, or something
Speaker 1: else completely.
Speaker 2: You can do that at History.
Speaker 1: Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. We are also very easy
Speaker 1: to subscribe to you. You can do that on the iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: app or anywhere you listen to your favorite shows. We
Speaker 1: will be right back here again with more stories soon.
Speaker 1: Stuff you missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.