The Library of Congress, 1873-1897: The Building, its Architects, and the Politics of Nineteenth-Century Architectural Practice

This dissertation documents the genesis, design development and construction of the Library of Congress and positions the building in the architectural politics of the late-nineteenth-century Eastern Seaboard. Documented by hundreds of architectural drawings, government documents and private papers, this study endeavors to establish an accurate chronology for the drawings, correct the historical record of the building's design and determine how the Library's public role and the aspirations of the Librarian, the United States Congress and the twenty-seven architects who submitted designs to the 1873 competition were expressed in those original architectural drawings.