In 1790 the Residence Act established a new city on the Potomac River as the nation’s capital and permanent seat of government. While what was to become the city of Washington, D.C., was being built the Act designated Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as the temporary capital for a period of ten years.
Since the government in Washington would no longer have access to the sizable collection of the Library Company of Philadelphia, on 24 April President John Adams approved an act that would provide $5,000 ‘for the purchase of such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress ... and for fitting up a suitable apartment for containing them.’ This established the Library of Congress and allowed for the purchase of approximately 3,000 volumes from England that were housed in the north wing of the Capitol building.
The first Librarian of Congress was appointed two years later by President Thomas Jefferson, and over the next decade the Joint Committee on the Library oversaw the library’s expansion. However, in August 1814 both the library and almost all of its contents were destroyed when the British Army burned Washington during the War of 1812. To replace the lost collection, on 30 January 1815 Congress accepted an offer from Thomas Jefferson to purchase his entire personal library for $23,950. Containing 6,487 volumes on subjects ranging from law to languages and mathematics to music, this doubled the size of the library and prompted the comprehensive collecting policies that continue to be a hallmark of today’s Library of Congress.
