96-715: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men is a book with text by American writer James Agee and photographs by American photographer Walker Evans , first published in 1941 in the United States. The work documents the lives of impoverished tenant farmers during the Great Depression . Although it is in keeping with Evans's work with the Farm Security Administration , the project was initiated not by the FSA, but by Fortune magazine. The title derives from
192-718: A concert hall to be constructed within the Library of Congress building and an honorarium established for the Music Division to pay live performers for concerts. A number of chairs and consultantships were established from the donations, the most well-known of which is the Poet Laureate Consultant . The library's expansion eventually filled the library's Main Building, although it used shelving expansions in 1910 and 1927. The library needed to expand into
288-1140: A "democracy alcove" in the Main Reading Room of the Jefferson Building for essential documents such as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and The Federalist Papers . The Library of Congress assisted during the war effort, ranging from storage of the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution in Fort Knox for safekeeping to researching weather data on the Himalayas for Air Force pilots. MacLeish resigned in 1944 when appointed as Assistant Secretary of State. President Harry Truman appointed Luther H. Evans as Librarian of Congress. Evans, who served until 1953, expanded
384-403: A $ 5,000 appropriation for the Library of Congress, noting the need to improve its collections in "Law, Politics, Commerce, History, and Geography," which were crucial for Congress. On December 24, 1851, the largest fire in the library's history destroyed 35,000 books, two-thirds of the library's collection, and two-thirds of Jefferson's original transfer. Congress appropriated $ 168,700 to replace
480-587: A considerable part of it. Soon after graduation from Harvard University , he married Olivia Saunders (aka "Via") on January 28, 1933; they divorced in 1938. Later that same year, he married Alma Mailman. They divorced in 1941, and Alma moved to Mexico with their year-old son Joel to live with Communist politician and writer Bodo Uhse . Agee began living in Greenwich Village with Mia Fritsch, whom he married in 1946. They had two daughters, Julia (1946–2016, known throughout life as Deedee) and Andrea, and
576-583: A correspondence with Dwight Macdonald . At Phillips Exeter, Agee was president of The Lantern Club and editor of the Monthly , where his first short stories, plays, poetry and articles were published. Despite barely passing many of his high school courses, Agee was admitted to Harvard College 's class of 1932, where he lived in Thayer Hall and Eliot House . At Harvard, Agee took classes taught by Robert Hillyer and I. A. Richards ; his classmate in those
672-464: A film critic for The Nation . Agee was an ardent champion of Charlie Chaplin 's then unpopular film Monsieur Verdoux (1947), since recognized as a classic. He was a great admirer of Laurence Olivier 's Henry V and Hamlet , especially Henry V . He also was an ardent champion of D. W. Griffith 's The Birth of a Nation , which he lavishly praised for its stylistic innovations and virtuosity without critically commenting on its celebration of
768-504: A foreword by Archibald MacLeish . In the summer of 1936, Agee spent eight weeks on assignment for Fortune with photographer Walker Evans , living among sharecroppers in Alabama . Fortune did not publish his article, but Agee turned the material into his 1941 book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men . It sold only 600 copies before being remaindered . Another manuscript from the same assignment discovered in 2003, titled Cotton Tenants,
864-484: A freelancer in the 1950s, Agee continued to write magazine articles while working on movie scripts; he developed a friendship with photographer Helen Levitt . In 1947 and 1948, Agee wrote an untitled screenplay for Charlie Chaplin, in which the Tramp survives a nuclear holocaust ; posthumously titled The Tramp's New World , the text was published in 2005. The commentary Agee wrote for the 1948 documentary The Quiet One
960-477: A history teacher at St. Andrew's, and his wife, Grace Eleanor Houghton, began in 1919. As Agee's close friend and mentor, Flye corresponded with him on literary and other topics through life and became a confidant of Agee's soul-wrestling. He published the letters after Agee's death. The New York Times Book Review called The Letters of James Agee to Father Flye (1962) "comparable in importance to F. Scott Fitzgerald' s ' The Crackup ' and Thomas Wolfe's letters as
1056-453: A legislative and national library. Asked by Joint Library Committee chairman Senator Claiborne Pell (D-RI) to assess operations and make recommendations, Douglas Bryant of Harvard University Library proposed several institutional reforms. These included expanding national activities and services and various organizational changes, all of which would emphasize the library's federal role rather than its legislative role. Bryant suggested changing
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#17327838381871152-546: A more general one. He organized his books based on Francis Bacon 's organization of knowledge , grouping them into Memory, Reason, and Imagination with 44 subdivisions. The library used this scheme until the late 19th century when librarian Herbert Putnam introduced the Library of Congress Classification , now applying to over 138 million items. A February 24, 1824, report from the Committee of Ways and Means recommended
1248-430: A national library and a legislative resource. He was aided by expansion of the federal government after the war and a favorable political climate. He began comprehensively collecting Americana and American literature , led the construction of a new building to house the library, and transformed the librarian of Congress position into one of strength and independence. Between 1865 and 1870, Congress appropriated funds for
1344-595: A new structure. Congress acquired nearby land in 1928 and approved construction of the Annex Building (later known as the John Adams Building ) in 1930. Although delayed during the Depression years, it was completed in 1938 and opened to the public in 1939. After Putnam retired in 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed poet and writer Archibald MacLeish as his successor. Occupying
1440-596: A one-act play by Knoxville-based songwriter and playwright RB Morris, takes place in a New York apartment during one night in Agee's life. The play has been performed at venues around Knoxville, and at the Cornelia Street Cafe in Greenwich Village . Library of Congress The Library of Congress ( LOC ) is a research library in Washington, D.C. , serving as the library and research service for
1536-683: A passage in the Wisdom of Sirach (44:1) that begins, " Let us now praise famous men , and our fathers that begat us." Let Us Now Praise Famous Men grew out of an assignment that Agee and Evans accepted in 1936 to produce a Fortune article on the conditions among sharecropper families in the American South during the Great Depression. It was the time of U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt 's " New Deal " programs designed to help
1632-497: A permanent display), on the global celebration commemorating the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta , and on early American printing, featuring the Rubenstein Bay Psalm Book . Onsite access to the Library of Congress has been increased. Billington gained an underground connection between the new U.S. Capitol Visitors Center and the library in 2008 in order to increase both congressional usage and public tours of
1728-422: A place in the Library of Congress, stating: I do not know that it contains any branch of science which Congress would wish to exclude from their collection; there is, in fact, no subject to which a Member of Congress may not have occasion to refer. Jefferson's library was a working collection for a scholar, not for display. It doubled the size of the original library, transforming it from a specialist's library to
1824-446: A restricted scope for the Library of Congress reflected those shared by members of Congress. While Meehan was a librarian, he supported and perpetuated the notion that "the congressional library should play a limited role on the national scene and that its collections, by and large, should emphasize American materials of obvious use to the U.S. Congress." In 1859, Congress transferred the library's public document distribution activities to
1920-525: A self-portrait of the artist in the modern American scene." Agee's mother married St. Andrew's bursar Father Erskine Wright in 1924, and the two moved to Rockland, Maine . Agee went to Knoxville High School for the 1924–25 school year, then traveled with Flye to Europe in the summer, when Agee was 16. On their return, Agee transferred to a boarding school in New Hampshire , entering the class of 1928 at Phillips Exeter Academy . Soon after, he began
2016-749: A small congressional library was housed in the Capitol. Much of the original collection was lost in the August 1814 Burning of Washington by the British during the War of 1812 . Congress accepted former president Thomas Jefferson 's offer to sell his entire personal collection of 6,487 books to restore the library. The collection grew slowly and suffered another major fire in 1851, which destroyed two-thirds of Jefferson's original books. The Library of Congress faced space shortages, understaffing, and lack of funding, until
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#17327838381872112-603: A son, John. In 1951 in Santa Barbara , Agee, a hard drinker and chain-smoker, suffered a heart attack; on May 16, 1955, he was in Manhattan when he suffered a fatal heart attack in a taxi cab en route to a doctor's appointment. He was buried on a farm he owned at Hillsdale, New York , property still held by Agee descendants. During his lifetime, Agee enjoyed only modest public recognition. Since his death, his literary reputation has grown. In 1957, his novel A Death in
2208-581: Is also known as a co-writer of the book Let Us Now Praise Famous Men and as the screenwriter of the film classics The African Queen and The Night of the Hunter . Agee was born in Knoxville, Tennessee , to Hugh James Agee and Laura Whitman Tyler, at Highland Avenue and 15th Street, which was renamed James Agee Street, in what is now the Fort Sanders neighborhood . When Agee was six, his father
2304-467: Is believed to be the essay submitted to Fortune editors. The 30,000-word text, accompanied by photographs by Walker Evans, was published as a book in June 2013. John Jeremiah Sullivan wrote, "This is not merely an early, partial draft of Famous Men, in other words, not just a different book; it's a different Agee, an unknown Agee. Its excellence should enhance his reputation." A significant difference between
2400-548: Is some dispute over the extent of his participation in the writing of The Night of the Hunter . Let Us Now Praise Famous Men has grown to be considered Agee's masterpiece. Ignored on its original publication in 1941, the book has been placed among the greatest literary works of the 20th century by the New York School of Journalism and the New York Public Library . It was the inspiration for
2496-487: The Aaron Copland opera The Tender Land . David Simon , journalist and creator of acclaimed television series The Wire , credited the book with impacting him early in his career and influencing his practice of journalism. The composer Samuel Barber set sections of "Descriptions of Elysium" from Permit Me Voyage to music, composing a song based on "Sure On This Shining Night". In addition, he set prose from
2592-593: The American Library Association testified that the library should continue its expansion to become a true national library. Based on the hearings, Congress authorized a budget that allowed the library to more than double its staff, from 42 to 108 persons. Senators Justin Morrill of Vermont and Daniel W. Voorhees of Indiana were particularly helpful in gaining this support. The library also established new administrative units for all aspects of
2688-705: The Congressional Research Service . After Mumford retired in 1974, President Gerald Ford appointed historian Daniel J. Boorstin as a librarian. Boorstin's first challenge was to manage the relocation of some sections to the new Madison Building, which took place between 1980 and 1982. With this accomplished, Boorstin focused on other areas of library administration, such as acquisitions and collections. Taking advantage of steady budgetary growth, from $ 116 million in 1975 to over $ 250 million by 1987, Boorstin enhanced institutional and staff ties with scholars, authors, publishers, cultural leaders, and
2784-661: The Department of the Interior and its international book exchange program to the Department of State . During the 1850s, Smithsonian Institution librarian Charles Coffin Jewett aggressively tried to develop the Smithsonian as the United States national library. His efforts were rejected by Smithsonian secretary Joseph Henry , who advocated a focus on scientific research and publication. To reinforce his intentions for
2880-693: The Gutenberg Bible . Putnam established the Legislative Reference Service (LRS) in 1914 as a separative administrative unit of the library. Based on the Progressive era 's philosophy of science to be used to solve problems, and modeled after successful research branches of state legislatures, the LRS would provide informed answers to Congressional research inquiries on almost any topic. Congress passed in 1925 an act allowing
2976-537: The John Adams Building (opened in 1939) and the James Madison Memorial Building (opened in 1980), were later added. The LOC's primary mission is to inform legislation, which it carries out through the Congressional Research Service . The library is open to the public for research, although only members of Congress, their staff, and library employees may borrow materials for use outside the library. James Madison of Virginia proposed
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3072-640: The Ku Klux Klan . Agee on Film (1958) collected his writings of this period. Three writers listed it as one of the best film-related books ever written in a 2010 poll by the British Film Institute . In 1948, Agee quit his job to become a freelance writer. One of his assignments was a well-received article for Life Magazine about the silent movie comedians Charles Chaplin , Buster Keaton , Harold Lloyd and Harry Langdon . The article has been credited for reviving Keaton's career. As
3168-537: The Literary Encyclopedia points out, "Agee ultimately conceived of the project as a work of several volumes to be entitled Three Tenant Families , though only the first volume, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men , was ever written". Agee considered that the larger work, though based in journalism, would be "an independent inquiry into certain normal predicaments of human divinity". Agee, who writes modestly and self-consciously about his privileged position in
3264-651: The National Film Registry , a collection of American films, for which the Library of Congress accepts nominations each year. There also exists a National Recording Registry administered by the National Recording Preservation Board that serves a similar purpose for music and sound recordings. The library has made some of these available on the Internet for free streaming and additionally has provided brief essays on
3360-494: The New York Times put it), the direct appeals by Agee for the reader to see the humanity and grandeur of these horrible lives, and his suffering at the thought that he cannot accomplish his appointed task, or should not, for the additional suffering it inflicts on his subjects, are all part of the book's character. Scholars have noted that the book's ambitious scale and rejection of traditional reporting runs parallel with
3456-1151: The United States Congress and the de facto national library of the United States . It also administers copyright law through the United States Copyright Office . Founded in 1800, the Library of Congress is the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States . It is housed in three buildings on Capitol Hill , adjacent to the United States Capitol , along with the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, Virginia , and additional storage facilities at Fort George G. Meade and Cabin Branch in Maryland. The library's functions are overseen by
3552-471: The interlibrary loan service, transforming the Library of Congress into what he referred to as a "library of last resort". Putnam also expanded library access to "scientific investigators and duly qualified individuals", and began publishing primary sources for the benefit of scholars. During Putnam's tenure, the library broadened the diversity of its acquisitions. In 1903, Putnam persuaded President Theodore Roosevelt to use an executive order to transfer
3648-473: The librarian of Congress and establishing a Joint Committee on the Library to oversee it. The law also extended borrowing privileges to the president and vice president. In August 1814, British forces occupied Washington and, in retaliation for American acts in Canada, burned several government buildings, including the Library of Congress. Most of its 3,000 volumes were destroyed. These volumes were held in
3744-520: The librarian of Congress , and its buildings are maintained by the architect of the Capitol . The LOC is one of the largest libraries in the world , containing approximately 173 million items and employing over 3,000 staff. Its collections are "universal, not limited by subject, format, or national boundary, and include research materials from all parts of the world and in more than 470 languages". When Congress moved to Washington in November 1800,
3840-574: The "Knoxville" section of A Death in the Family in his work for soprano and orchestra titled Knoxville: Summer of 1915 . "Sure On This Shining Night" has also been set to music by composers René Clausen , Z. Randall Stroope , and Morten Lauridsen . In late 1979, the filmmaker Ross Spears premiered his film AGEE: A Sovereign Prince of the English Language , which was later nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and
3936-399: The 1897 reorganization upon moving into its new home, the Library of Congress began to grow and develop more rapidly. Librarian Spofford's successor John Russell Young overhauled the library's bureaucracy, used his connections as a former diplomat to acquire more materials from around the world, and established the library's first assistance programs for the blind and physically disabled, with
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4032-586: The American Civil War increased the importance of legislative research to meet the demands of a growing federal government. In 1870, the library gained the right to receive two copies of every copyrightable work printed in the United States; it also built its collections through acquisitions and donations. Between 1890 and 1897, a new library building, now the Thomas Jefferson Building , was constructed. Two additional buildings,
4128-617: The Capitol building . Hayden clarified two days later that rioters did not breach any of the Library's buildings or collections and all staff members were safely evacuated. On February 14, 2023, the Library announced that the Lilly Endowment gifted $ 2.5 million, five-year grant to "launch programs that foster greater understanding of religious cultures in Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East". The Library plans to leverage
4224-493: The Castle due to its Norman architectural style, was severely damaged by fire. This incident presented Henry with an opportunity related to the Smithsonian's non-scientific library. Around this time, the Library of Congress was planning to build and relocate to the new Thomas Jefferson Building , designed to be fireproof. Authorized by an act of Congress, Henry transferred the Smithsonian's non-scientific library of 40,000 volumes to
4320-495: The Family (based on the events surrounding his father's death) was published posthumously and in 1958 won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. In 2007, Michael Lofaro published a restored edition of the novel using Agee's original manuscripts. Agee's work had been heavily edited before its original publication by publisher David McDowell. Agee's reviews and screenplays have been collected in two volumes of Agee on Film . There
4416-809: The Jefferson Building were enlarged and technologically enhanced to serve as a national exhibition venue. It has hosted more than 100 exhibitions. These included exhibits on the Vatican Library and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France , several on the Civil War and Lincoln, on African-American culture, on Religion and the founding of the American Republic, the Early Americas (the Kislak Collection became
4512-540: The Library Collections Security Oversight Committee in 1992 to improve protection of the collections, and also the Library of Congress Congressional Caucus in 2008 to draw attention to the library's curators and collections. He created the library's first Young Readers Center in the Jefferson Building in 2009, and the first large-scale summer intern (Junior Fellows) program for university students in 1991. Under Billington,
4608-561: The Library of Congress as "one of the last refuges in Washington of serious bipartisanship and calm, considered conversation", and "one of the world's greatest cultural centers". Carla Hayden was sworn in as the 14th librarian of Congress on September 14, 2016, the first woman and the first African American to hold the position. In 2017, the library announced the Librarian-in-Residence program, which aims to support
4704-502: The Library of Congress in 1866. President Abraham Lincoln appointed John G. Stephenson as librarian of Congress in 1861; the appointment is regarded as the most political to date. Stephenson was a physician and spent equal time serving as librarian and as a physician in the Union Army . He could manage this division of interest because he hired Ainsworth Rand Spofford as his assistant. Despite his new job, Stephenson focused on
4800-426: The Library of Congress to establish a trust fund board to accept donations and endowments, giving the library a role as a patron of the arts . The library received donations and endowments by such prominent wealthy individuals as John D. Rockefeller , James B. Wilbur, and Archer M. Huntington . Gertrude Clarke Whittall donated five Stradivarius violins to the library. Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge 's donations paid for
4896-458: The Senate wing of the Capitol; one surviving volume was a government account book from 1810. This volume was taken by British commander George Cockburn as a souvenir and returned to the U.S. by his family in 1940. Within a month, Jefferson offered to sell his large personal library as a replacement. He had reconstituted his own collection after losing part of it to a fire. Congress accepted
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#17327838381874992-557: The Smithsonian, Henry established laboratories, developed a robust physical sciences library, and started the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge , the first of many publications intended to disseminate research results. For Henry, the Library of Congress was the obvious choice as the national library. Unable to resolve the conflict, Henry dismissed Jewett in July 1854. In 1865, the Smithsonian building, also called
5088-508: The Twitter archive remains unfinished. Before retiring in 2015, after 28 years of service, Billington had come "under pressure" as librarian of Congress. This followed a GAO report that described a "work environment lacking central oversight" and faulted Billington for "ignoring repeated calls to hire a chief information officer, as required by law." When Billington announced his plans to retire in 2015, commentator George Weigel described
5184-446: The book's creation, appears as a character himself at times in the narrative, as when he agonizes over his role as "spy" and intruder into these humble lives. At other times, as when he simply lists the contents of a sharecropper's shack or the meager articles of clothing they have to wear on Sunday, he is altogether absent. The strange ordering of books and chapters, the titles that range from mundane ("Clothes") to "radically artistic" (as
5280-434: The business community. His activities changed the post of librarian of Congress so that by the time he retired in 1987, The New York Times called this office "perhaps the leading intellectual public position in the nation." President Ronald Reagan nominated historian James H. Billington as the 13th librarian of Congress in 1987, and the U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed the appointment. Under Billington's leadership,
5376-406: The collection. In its bill, Congress strengthened the role of librarian of Congress: it became responsible for governing the library and making staff appointments. As with presidential Cabinet appointments, the Senate was required to approve presidential appointees to the position. In 1893, Elizabeth Dwyer became the first woman to be appointed to the staff of the library. With this support and
5472-411: The construction of the Thomas Jefferson Building , placed all copyright registration and deposit activities under the library's control, and restored the international book exchange. The library also acquired the vast libraries of the Smithsonian and of historian Peter Force , strengthening its scientific and Americana collections significantly. By 1876, the Library of Congress had 300,000 volumes; it
5568-401: The creative, non-traditional programs of the U.S. government under Roosevelt. Agee argues with literary, political, and moral traditions that might mean nothing to his subjects but which are important for the larger audience and the larger context of examining others' lives. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men sold only half its press run following publication, but since then has won high praise over
5664-547: The donation in these areas: The collections of the Library of Congress include more than 32 million catalogued books and other print materials in 470 languages; more than 61 million manuscripts ; the largest rare book collection in North America, including the rough draft of the Declaration of Independence , a Gutenberg Bible (originating from the Saint Blaise Abbey, Black Forest —one of only three perfect vellum copies known to exist); over 1 million U.S. government publications; 1 million issues of world newspapers spanning
5760-445: The establishment of the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled . Librarian Young's successor Herbert Putnam held the office for forty years of the 20th century from 1899 to 1939. Two years after he took office, the library became the first in the United States to hold one million volumes. Putnam focused his efforts to make the library more accessible and useful for the public and for other libraries. He instituted
5856-478: The films that have been added to the registry. By 2015, the librarian had named 650 films to the registry. The films in the collection date from the earliest period to ones produced more than ten years ago; they are selected from nominations submitted to the board. Further programs included: During Billington's tenure, the library acquired General Lafayette 's papers in 1996 from a castle at La Grange, France; they had previously been inaccessible. It also acquired
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#17327838381875952-409: The first draft has been read by scholars, most notably Jeffrey Couchman of Columbia University . He credited Agee in the essay, "Credit Where Credit Is Due". Also false were reports that Agee was fired from the film. Laughton renewed Agee's contract and directed him to cut the script in half, which Agee did. Later, apparently at Robert Mitchum 's request, Agee visited the set to settle a dispute between
6048-479: The first library-wide audit. He created the first Office of the Inspector General at the library to provide regular, independent reviews of library operations. This precedent has resulted in regular annual financial audits at the library; it has received unmodified ("clean") opinions from 1995 onward. In April 2010, the library announced plans to archive all public communication on Twitter , including all communication since Twitter's launch in March 2006. As of 2015 ,
6144-472: The future generation of librarians by giving them the opportunity to gain work experience in five different areas of librarianship, including: Acquisitions/Collection Development, Cataloging/Metadata, and Collection Preservation. On January 6, 2021, at 1:11 pm EST, the Library's Madison Building and the Cannon House Office Building were the first buildings in the Capitol Complex to be ordered to evacuate as rioters breached security perimeters before storming
6240-454: The idea of creating a congressional library in 1783. Though initially rejected, this was the first introduction of the concept. After the Revolutionary War, the Philadelphia Library Company and New York Society Library served as surrogate congressional libraries when Congress was in those cities. The Library of Congress was established on April 24, 1800, when President John Adams signed an act of Congress that included appropriating $ 5,000 "for
6336-407: The identity of the three tenant farmer families. This convention is retained in the 1989 follow-up book by Dale Maharidge and Michael Williamson And Their Children After Them : The Legacy of "Let us now praise famous men" : James Agee, Walker Evans, and the Rise and Fall of Cotton in the South. However Evans's photos that are archived in the Library of Congress American Memory Project have
6432-462: The library doubled the size of its analog collections from 85.5 million items in 1987 to more than 160 million items in 2014. At the same time, it established new programs and employed new technologies to "get the champagne out of the bottle". These included: Since 1988, the library has administered the National Film Preservation Board . Established by congressional mandate, it selects twenty-five American films annually for preservation and inclusion in
6528-419: The library of the Romanov family on a variety of topics. Collections of Hebraica , Chinese, and Japanese works were also acquired. On one occasion, Congress initiated an acquisition: in 1929 Congressman Ross Collins (D-Mississippi) gained approval for the library to purchase Otto Vollbehr 's collection of incunabula for $ 1.5 million. This collection included one of three remaining perfect vellum copies of
6624-551: The library sponsored the Gateway to Knowledge in 2010 to 2011, a mobile exhibition to ninety sites, covering all states east of the Mississippi, in a specially designed eighteen-wheel truck. This increased public access to library collections off-site, particularly for rural populations, and helped raise awareness of what was also available online. Billington raised more than half a billion dollars of private support to supplement Congressional appropriations for library collections, programs, and digital outreach. These private funds helped
6720-430: The library to continue its growth and outreach in the face of a 30% decrease in staffing, caused mainly by legislative appropriations cutbacks. He created the library's first development office for private fundraising in 1987. In 1990, he established the James Madison Council, the library's first national private sector donor-support group. In 1987, Billington also asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct
6816-436: The library's Thomas Jefferson Building. In 2001, the library began a mass deacidification program, in order to extend the lifespan of almost 4 million volumes and 12 million manuscript sheets. In 2002, a new storage facility was completed at Fort Meade, Maryland , where a collection of storage modules have preserved and made accessible more than 4 million items from the library's analog collections. Billington established
6912-598: The library's acquisitions, cataloging, and bibliographic services. But he is best known for creating Library of Congress Missions worldwide. Missions played a variety of roles in the postwar world: the mission in San Francisco assisted participants in the meeting that established the United Nations , the mission in Europe acquired European publications for the Library of Congress and other American libraries, and
7008-509: The lost books in 1852 but not to acquire new materials. (By 2008, the librarians of Congress had found replacements for all but 300 of the works that had been documented as being in Jefferson's original collection. ) This marked the start of a conservative period in the library's administration by librarian John Silva Meehan and joint committee chairman James A. Pearce , who restricted the library's activities. Meehan and Pearce's views about
7104-540: The mission in Japan aided in the creation of the National Diet Library . Evans' successor Lawrence Quincy Mumford took over in 1953. During his tenure, lasting until 1974, Mumford directed the initiation of construction of the James Madison Memorial Building , the third Library of Congress building on Capitol Hill. Mumford led the library during the government's increased educational spending. The library
7200-496: The name of the Library of Congress, a recommendation rebuked by Mumford as "unspeakable violence to tradition." The debate continued within the library community for some time. The Legislative Reorganization Act of 1970 renewed emphasis for the library on its legislative roles, requiring a greater focus on research for Congress and congressional committees, and renaming the Legislative Reference Service as
7296-492: The offer in January 1815, appropriating $ 23,950 to purchase his 6,487 books. Some House members, like New Hampshire representative Daniel Webster , opposed the purchase, wanting to exclude "books of an atheistical, irreligious, and immoral tendency". Jefferson's collection, gathered over 50 years, covered various subjects and languages, including topics not typically found in a legislative library. He believed all subjects had
7392-399: The only copy of the 1507 Waldseemüller world map ("America's birth certificate") in 2003; it is on permanent display in the library's Thomas Jefferson Building. Using privately raised funds, the Library of Congress has created a reconstruction of Thomas Jefferson's original library. This has been on permanent display in the Jefferson building since 2008. Under Billington, public spaces of
7488-506: The original names of the photographic subjects. * There is disagreement over whether the family name is properly spelled Tengle or Tingle. The Library of Congress's spelling is used here. In 1966 the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation aired the 135-minute dramatic feature, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men , George Whalley 's adaptation of the book. The broadcast was produced by John Reeves, who has written about
7584-636: The papers of the Founding Fathers from the State Department to the Library of Congress. Putnam expanded foreign acquisitions as well, including the 1904 purchase of a 4,000-volume library of Indica, the 1906 purchase of G. V. Yudin's 80,000-volume Russian library, the 1908 Schatz collection of early opera librettos , and the early 1930s purchase of the Russian Imperial Collection, consisting of 2,600 volumes from
7680-420: The past three centuries; 33,000 bound newspaper volumes; 500,000 microfilm reels; U.S. and foreign comic books—over 12,000 titles in all, totaling more than 140,000 issues; 1.9 million moving images (as of 2020); 5.3 million maps ; 6 million works of sheet music ; 3 million sound recordings ; more than 14.7 million prints and photographic images including fine and popular art pieces and architectural drawings;
7776-503: The poorest segments of the society. Agee and Evans spent eight weeks that summer researching their assignment, mainly among three white sharecropping families mired in desperate poverty. They returned with Evans's portfolio of stark images—of families with gaunt faces, adults and children huddled in bare shacks before dusty yards in the Depression-era nowhere of the deep south—and Agee's detailed notes. His piece, however,
7872-536: The post from 1939 to 1944 during the height of World War II , MacLeish became the most widely known librarian of Congress in the library's history. MacLeish encouraged librarians to oppose totalitarianism on behalf of democracy; dedicated the South Reading Room of the Adams Building to Thomas Jefferson, and commissioned artist Ezra Winter to paint four themed murals for the room. He established
7968-408: The published script was written by the film's director, Charles Laughton . Reports that Agee's screenplay for Hunter was not used have been proved false by the 2004 discovery of his first draft, which although 293 pages in length, contains many scenes included in the film that Laughton directed. Laughton seemed to have edited great parts of the script because it was too long. While not yet published,
8064-423: The purchase of such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress ... and for fitting up a suitable apartment for containing them." Books were ordered from London, forming a collection of 740 books and three maps housed in the new United States Capitol . President Thomas Jefferson played a crucial role in shaping the Library of Congress. On January 26, 1802, he signed a bill allowing the president to appoint
8160-437: The radio production. James Agee James Rufus Agee ( / ˈ eɪ dʒ iː / AY -jee ; November 27, 1909 – May 16, 1955) was an American novelist, journalist, poet, screenwriter and film critic. In the 1940s, writing for Time , he was one of the most influential film critics in the United States. His autobiographical novel , A Death in the Family (1957), won the author a posthumous 1958 Pulitzer Prize . Agee
8256-432: The star and Laughton. Letters and documents in the archive of Agee's agent Paul Kohner bear this out; they were documented by Laughton's biographer Simon Callow , whose BFI book about The Night of the Hunter sets this part of the record straight. Couchman, the author of a 2009 book about The Night of the Hunter , writes that Agee's screenplay would have been a film about six hours long, so Laughton had to cut and edit
8352-547: The war. Three weeks into his term as Librarian of Congress, he left Washington, D.C., to serve as a volunteer aide-de-camp at the battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg during the American Civil War . Stephenson's hiring of Spofford, who directed the library in his absence, may have been his most significant achievement. Librarian Ainsworth Rand Spofford , who directed the Library of Congress from 1865 to 1897, built broad bipartisan support to develop it as
8448-533: The works is the use of original names in Cotton Tenants ; Agee assigned fictional names to the subjects of Famous Men to protect their identity. Agee left Fortune in 1937 while working on a book, then, in 1939, he took a book reviewing job at Time , sometimes reviewing up to six books per week; together, he and his friend Whittaker Chambers ran "the back of the book" for Time . In 1941, he became Time's film critic. From 1942 to 1948, he worked as
8544-427: The years and is routinely studied in the U.S. as a source of both journalistic and literary innovation. Reading the book inspired Aaron Copland to write his opera, The Tender Land . David Simon , journalist and creator of the television series The Wire , credited the book with impacting him early in his career and informing his practice of journalism. Throughout the book, Agee and Evans use pseudonyms to obscure
8640-478: Was able to establish new acquisition centers abroad, including in Cairo and New Delhi . In 1967, the library began experimenting with book preservation techniques through a Preservation Office. This has developed as the most extensive library research and conservation effort in the United States. During Mumford's administration, the last significant public debate occurred about the Library of Congress's role as both
8736-434: Was awarded a Blue Ribbon at the 1980 American Film Festival. AGEE featured four of James Agee's friends—Dwight Macdonald, Robert Fitzgerald, Robert Saudek , and John Huston —as well as the three women to whom James Agee had been married. In addition, Father James Harold Flye was a featured interviewee. President Jimmy Carter speaks about his favorite book, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men . The Man Who Lives Here Is Loony ,
8832-407: Was his first contribution to a film that was completed and released. Agee's career as a movie scriptwriter was curtailed by his alcoholism . Nevertheless, he is one of the credited screenwriters on two of the most respected films of the 1950s: The African Queen (1951) and The Night of the Hunter (1955). His contribution to Hunter is shrouded in controversy. Some critics have claimed that
8928-643: Was killed in an automobile accident. From the age of seven, Agee and his younger sister, Emma, were educated in several boarding schools . The most prominent of these was near his mother's summer cottage two miles from Sewanee, Tennessee . Saint Andrews School for Mountain Boys was run by the monastic Order of the Holy Cross affiliated with the Episcopal Church . It was there that Agee's lifelong friendship with Episcopal priest Father James Harold Flye,
9024-449: Was rejected by the editors at Fortune ; but the following year the magazine gave Agee permission to publish his Alabama research in a book. The manuscript was accepted for publication by Houghton Mifflin in 1939 and appeared two years later. As he writes in the book's preface, the original assignment was to produce a "photographic and verbal record of the daily living and environment of an average white family of tenant farmers". However, as
9120-626: Was the future poet and critic Robert Fitzgerald , with whom he later worked at Time . Agee was editor-in-chief of the Harvard Advocate and delivered the class ode at his commencement . After graduation, Agee was hired by Time Inc. as a reporter, and moved to New York City, where he wrote for Fortune magazine from 1932 to 1937, although he is better known for his later film criticism in Time and The Nation . In 1934, he published his only volume of poetry, Permit Me Voyage , with
9216-603: Was tied with the Boston Public Library as the nation's largest library. It moved from the Capitol building to its new headquarters in 1897 with more than 840,000 volumes, 40 percent of which had been acquired through copyright deposit. A year before the library's relocation, the Joint Library Committee held hearings to assess the condition of the library and plan for its future growth and possible reorganization. Spofford and six experts sent by
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