![]() Among these are Jefferson's rough draft of the Declaration of Independence, James Madison's notes on the Constitutional Convention, the paper tape of the first telegraphic message, Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, Alexander Graham Bell's first drawing of the telephone, and similar items recording dramatic events in the nation's history. These collections document all aspects of American history and culture and include some of the nation's greatest manuscript treasures. As of 2019, the division holds twelve thousand collections containing more than seventy million items. The first chief of the Manuscript Division estimated that the size of his collections was twenty-five thousand items. Some of these are housed in the Library's music, rare book, and area studies divisions, but most are in the custody of the Manuscript Division, one of the original departments established in 1897, when the Library moved across the street from its cramped quarters in the United States Capitol to its own magnificent new structure, later appropriately named the Thomas Jefferson Building. In the 164 years since the second Jefferson acquisition, the Library has amassed an unparalleled collection of manuscripts. These earliest manuscripts acquired by the Library of Congress concerned the Virginia Company of London, the commercial body that founded-and for a short time governed-the oldest English-speaking colony in North America, Jefferson's beloved commonwealth of Virginia.Īfter Jefferson's death, the Library purchased at auction in 1829 the president's remaining collection of Virginia Company records. In fact, when Congress purchased Jefferson's library in 1815 to replace the earlier library burned by British troops during the War of 1812, important manuscript records were included among the books and maps. Many of the country's earliest leaders recognized the historical significance of their papers, none more so than Thomas Jefferson, who in 1823 wrote that it was "the duty of every good citizen to use all the opportunities, which occur to him, for preserving documents relating to the history of our country." 1 Jefferson meticulously cared for his own papers and actively collected documents relating to the early history of Virginia and the United States. Jefferson's draft was submitted to the committee members, and it bears the emendations made first by Adams and Franklin and later by the whole Congress before its final adoption on 4 July 1776. Livingston were appointed to a committee of the Continental Congress "to prepare the declaration." The four-page manuscript in Jefferson's handwriting may have been a clean copy of earlier creative drafts prepared by him, which no longer exist. On 11 June 1776, Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert L. One of the Library's rarest treasures is the "original Rough draft" of the Declaration of Independence in Thomas Jefferson's own hand. Original Rough Draught of the Declaration of Independence.
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