TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the footnotes have been placed at the end of the book.

Some minor changes to the text are noted at the [end of the book.]

THE NEW LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.

HANDBOOK
OF THE NEW
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

COMPILED BY HERBERT SMALL

WITH ESSAYS ON THE

ARCHITECTURE, SCULPTURE and PAINTING

By CHARLES CAFFIN

AND ON

THE FUNCTION OF A NATIONAL LIBRARY

By AINSWORTH R. SPOFFORD

BOSTON

CURTIS & CAMERON

1897

COPYRIGHT 1897 BY CURTIS & CAMERON

The Heintzemann Press

BOSTON

[PREFACE.]

The intention of this Handbook is to furnish such an account of the new building of the Library of Congress as may prove of interest to the general reader, and at the same time serve as a convenient guide to actual visitors. To this latter end, a system of headings and sub-headings has been introduced, and the building has been described throughout in the order in which a visitor might naturally walk through it. Criticism has been avoided in the general description, but a brief survey of the artistic qualities of the Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting is given in Mr. Caffin’s supplementary essay.

The writer had intended at first to give rather a full account of the collections of the Library, of the Smithsonian system of exchange, of the operation of the copyright law, and of the general system under which the Library was carried on. So much of what he might have thus described, however, would have been entirely changed, and so much more considerably modified, by the new methods of administration made possible and necessary by the new building, that it was decided to pass lightly over all matters connected with the administration of the Library. Should another edition of the Handbook be called for, it is hoped that there will be an opportunity to supply this omission. In the meantime it will be found that Mr. Spofford’s paper on the Function of a National Library will serve to indicate the general scope of the institution.

The writer desires to express his great obligation, for much information and courtesy, to Mr. Bernard R. Green, in charge of the Library during the time that this book was preparing, to Mr. Edward Pearce Casey, and to Mr. Spofford. Without their assistance the book could hardly have been written. Thanks are due, also, to many of the individual artists for their courtesy in explaining the meaning and application of their work—and in particular to Mr. Elmer E. Garnsey, for a great deal of painstaking assistance.

H. S.

Copyright Notice:—In addition to the general copyright of this Handbook, which covers the text and illustrations, the engravings of the paintings in the following pages are from Copley Prints, copyright 1896 and 1897, by Curtis & Cameron, the Prints being made directly from the original paintings, copyright 1896 and 1897 by the several artists.

[TABLE OF HEADINGS.]

Page
History of the Library[2]
The Burning by the British Troops[2]
The Acquisition of Jefferson’s Library[3]
Mr. Spofford’s Administration[3]
The Old Quarters in the Capitol[4]
The Agitation for a New Building[4]
The New Building[6]
The General Decoration; Mr. Garnsey and Mr. Weinert[7]
The General Character of the Building[8]
The Exterior of the Building[9]
The Façade[10]
The Entrance Pavilion[11]
Mr. Hinton Perry’s Fountain[12]
The Ethnological Heads[13]
The Portico Busts[16]
Mr. Pratt’s Spandrel Figures[17]
The Main Entrance[18]
Mr. Warner’s Bronze Doors[18]
Mr. Macmonnies’s Bronze Door[20]
Main Entrance Hall[21]
The Vestibule[21]
The Stucco Decoration of the Vestibule[22]
The Marble Flooring[22]
The Staircase Hall[23]
The Commemorative Arch[23]
Mr. Warner’s Spandrel Figures[24]
Mr. Martiny’s Staircase Figures[24]
The Ceiling of the Staircase Hall[27]
The Mosaic Vaults of the First Floor Corridors[28]
Mr. Pearce’s Paintings[28]
Mr. Walker’s Paintings[30]
Mr. Alexander’s Paintings[33]
Mosaic Decorations of the East Corridor[33]
The Librarian’s Room[34]
The Lobbies of the Rotunda[35]
Mr. Vedder’s Paintings[36]
The Second Floor Corridors[39]
The Decoration of the Vaults[39]
The Printers’ Marks[42]
Mr. Hinton Perry’s Bas-reliefs[43]
Mr. Shirlaw’s Paintings[44]
Mr. Reid’s Paintings[46]
Mr. Barse’s Paintings[48]
Mr. Benson’s Paintings[50]
The Decoration of the Walls[51]
Mr. Maynard’s Pompeiian Panels[52]
The Inscriptions along the Walls[53]
The Entrance to the Rotunda[55]
Mr. Van Ingen’s Paintings[55]
Mr. Vedder’s Mosaic Decoration[56]
The Rotunda[57]
The Importance of the Rotunda[58]
The General Arrangement[60]
The Alcoves[61]
The Symbolical Statues[62]
The Portrait Statues[64]
Mr. Flanagan’s Clock[66]
The Lighting of the Rotunda[67]
The Semicircular Windows[68]
The Dome[70]
The Stucco Ornamentation[70]
Mr. Blashfield’s Paintings[71]
The Rotunda Color Scheme[76]
Provision for Readers[77]
The Book-Carrying Apparatus[78]
Connection with the Capitol[79]
The Book-stacks[80]
Arrangement and Construction[80]
Ventilation and Heating[82]
The Shelving[82]
Lighting[82]
The Lantern[84]
The Rectangle[84]
Southeast Gallery[86]
Mr. Cox’s Paintings[86]
The Pavilion of the Discoverers[88]
Mr. Pratt’s Bas-reliefs[89]
Mr. Maynard’s Paintings[89]
The Pavilion of the Elements[93]
Mr. R. L. Dodge’s Paintings[93]
The Pavilion of the Seals[94]
Mr. Van Ingen’s Paintings[96]
Mr. Garnsey’s Ceiling Panel[98]
The Pavilion of Art and Science[99]
Mr. W. de L. Dodge’s Paintings[99]
The Northwest Gallery[101]
Mr. Melchers’s Paintings[101]
The Rectangle: First Floor Corridors[101]
Mr. McEwen’s Paintings[102]
The House Reading Room[106]
Mr. Dielman’s Mosaics[107]
Mr. Gutherz’s Paintings[109]
The Senate Reading Room[110]
The North Corridor[111]
Mr. Simmons’s Paintings[111]
Special Rooms[112]
The Basement[112]
The Architecture, Sculpture and Painting[113]
The Function of a National Library[123]

MINERVA
1896 DESIGN FOR A MOSAIC BY ELIHU VEDDER
CONGRESSIONAL LIBRARY WASHINGTON

THE NEW

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

IN WASHINGTON

BY HERBERT SMALL

THE NEW LIBRARY OF CONGRESS IN WASHINGTON
BY HERBERT SMALL

The Library of Congress in Washington is not the mere reference library for the legislative branch of the Government that its name would imply. It is, in effect, the library of the whole American people, directly serving the interests of the entire country. It was, it is true, founded for the use of the members of the Senate and House of Representatives; but, although the original rule still holds good that only they and certain specified Government officials may take books away from the building,[1] the institution has developed, especially during the last quarter of a century, into a library as comprehensively national as the British Museum in London, the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, or the Imperial Library in Vienna. It is more freely open to the public than any of these, everyone of suitable age being permitted to use its collections without the necessity of a ticket or formal permission, while in scope it is their equal, however much it may for the time being be inferior to them in certain branches of learning. Its aim in the accumulation of books is inclusive and not exclusive, as Mr. Spofford explains elsewhere in this Handbook, in his article on [The Function of a National Library].

This development amounts almost to a change of front, in spite of the fact that the original purpose of the Library as an aid to the legislation and debates of Congress has been fully preserved. The change has been brought about in many ways, but principally by the exchange system of the great governmental scientific bureau, the Smithsonian Institution, and by the operation of the national copyright law.

The Smithsonian Institution issues each year a large number of scientific publications of the highest interest and importance. It distributes these throughout the world, receiving in exchange a body of scientific literature which comprehends practically everything of value issued by every scientific society of standing both in this country and abroad. With the exception of a small working library retained by the Smithsonian Institution for the immediate use of its officers, the splendid collection of material which has been gathered during the forty years in which this exchange system has been in operation is deposited in the Library of Congress, forming a scientific library unrivalled in this country.

By the operation of the copyright law, any publisher, author, or artist desiring to obtain an exclusive privilege of issuing any publication whatever, must send two copies of the publication on which a copyright is asked to the Librarian of Congress to be deposited in the Library. By this means, during the twenty-five years that the law has been in force, the Library has been enabled to accumulate approximately the entire current product of the American press, as well as an enormous number of photographs, engravings, and other works coming under the head of fine arts. The possession of this material would alone give the Library a special national character possible to no other library in the country.