The oldest of the four United States Library
of Congress buildings, the Thomas Jefferson
Building was built between 1890 and 1897.
It was originally known as the Library of
Congress Building and is located on First
Street SE, between Independence Avenue and
East Capitol Street in Washington, D.C.
The Beaux-Arts style building is known for
its classicizing facade and elaborately decorated
interior.
Its design and construction has a tortuous
history; the building's main architect was
Paul J. Pelz, initially in partnership with
John L. Smithmeyer, and succeeded by Edward
Pearce Casey during the last few years of
construction.
The building was designated a National Historic
Landmark in 1965.
== Design ==
John L. Smithmeyer and Paul J. Pelz won the
competition for the architectural plans of
the library in 1873.
The start of the project was delayed by congressional
debates until a vote in 1886.
In 1888, Smithmeyer was dismissed and Pelz
became the lead architect.
Pelz was himself dismissed in 1892 and replaced
by Edward Pearce Casey, the son of Brig.
Gen. Thomas Lincoln Casey, Chief of the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers, who at the time was
in charge of the building's construction.
While Smithmeyer was instrumental in securing
the commission, Pelz appears to have been
the main designer of the building and oversaw
most of the exterior work.
Casey is credited for the completion of the
interiors and the artistic supervision of
the building's unique decorative program.
The Library opened to the public in 1897 and
the finishing work was completed in 1898.
The Thomas Jefferson Building, containing
some of the richest public interiors in the
United States, is a compendium of the work
of classically trained American sculptors
and painters of the "American Renaissance",
in programs of symbolic content that exhibited
the progress of civilization, personified
in Great Men and culminating in the American
official culture of the Gilded Age; the programs
were in many cases set out by the Librarian
of Congress, Ainsworth Rand Spofford.
The central block is broadly comparable to
the Palais Garnier in Paris, a similarly ambitious
expression of triumphant cultural nationalism
in the Beaux-Arts style that had triumphed
at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago,
1893.
On the exterior, sculptured portrait heads
that were considered typical of the world's
races were installed as keystones on the main
storey's window arches.
The second-floor portico of the front entrance
facing the U.S. Capitol features nine prominent
busts of Great Men as selected by Ainsworth
Rand Spofford in accordance with Gilded Age
ideals.
From left to right when one faces the building,
they are Demosthenes (portico north side),
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Washington Irving, Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas
Babbington Macaulay, Nathaniel Hawthorne,
Sir Walter Scott and Dante Alighieri (portico
south side).
The sculptors were Herbert Adams, Jonathan
Scott Hartley and Frederick W. Ruckstull.
The Court of Neptune Fountain centered on
the entrance front invites comparison with
the Trevi Fountain; its sculptor was Roland
Hinton Perry.
The copper dome, originally gilded, was criticized
at the structure's completion, as too competitive
with the national Capitol Building.
== History ==
Needing more room for its increasing collection,
the Library of Congress under Librarian Ainsworth
Rand Spofford suggested to the Congress that
a new building be built specifically to serve
as the American national library.
Prior to this the Library existed in a wing
of the Capitol Building.
The new building was needed partly because
of the growing Congress, but also partly because
of the Copyright Law of 1870, which required
all copyright applicants to send to the Library
two copies of their work.
This resulted in a flood of books, pamphlets,
maps, music, prints and photographs.
Spofford had been instrumental in the enactment
of this law.
After Congress approved construction of the
building in 1886, it took eleven years to
complete.
The building opened to the public on November
1, 1897, met with wide approval and was immediately
seen as a national monument.
The building name was changed on June 13,
1980 to honor former U.S. President Thomas
Jefferson, who had been a key figure in the
establishment of the Library in 1800.
Jefferson offered to sell his personal book
collection to Congress in September 1814,
one month after the British had burned the
Capitol in the War of 1812.
== Book Conveying Apparatus ==
Prior to the 2000s, the Jefferson Building
was linked to the Capitol Building by a purpose
built book tunnel.
This housed an electric "book conveying apparatus"
that could transport volumes between the two
buildings at 600 feet per minute.
A portion of the book tunnel was destroyed
to make room for the underground Capitol Visitor
Center, which opened in 2008.
== Capitol Page School ==
Senate, House and Supreme Court pages formerly
attended school together in the Capitol Page
School located on the attic level above the
Great Hall.
Upon the separation of the programs (and the
closure of the Supreme Court Page Program),
the schools split.
Senate Pages now attend school in the basement
of their dormitory.
The House Page Program was closed in August
2011.
A small suite in the northwest corner of the
attic level remains home to the official office
of the Poet Laureate of the United States.
== Coolidge Auditorium ==
The Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Auditorium,
which opened in October, 1925, has been home
to more than 2,000 concerts, primarily of
classical chamber music, but occasionally
also of jazz, folk music, and special presentations.
Some performances make use of the Library's
extensive collection of musical instruments
and manuscripts.
Most of the performances are free and open
to the public.
Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge was a wealthy patron
of the arts and was no relation to Calvin
Coolidge, who, coincidentally, was President
of the United States at the time the Coolidge
auditorium was established.
== Art ==
More than fifty American painters and sculptors
produced commissioned works of art.
Art at the Thomas Jefferson Building
== 
See also ==
Paul J. Pelz
John Adams Building
James Madison Memorial Building
List of National Historic Landmarks in Washington,
D.C
