The History of the Department of State

The library of the Department was founded by Thomas Jefferson. In his estimates of expenses of June 17, 1790, he included subscriptions to fifteen American newspapers at an average of four dollars per year for each; $200 to begin a collection of the laws of the States, and twenty-five dollars for the purchase of foreign gazettes, this amount including also payment for American papers to be sent to our agents abroad. To this basis for a library should be added the laws and public documents deposited with the Department under various statutes, and books under the copyright law. It was inevitable that some works on government and international law should find their way into an office occupied by such men of books as Jefferson and Madison. When the British invaded the city in 1814, no attempt was made to save the library and it was burned with the Department building. The work of collecting was taken up again as soon as the office was reestablished. The Department was dependent upon its own library resources and did not have the privilege of drawing books from the Library of Congress, until it was granted by law January 30, 1830; but probably it had the larger collection of the two. By 1831 the documents and laws had become so numerous that Congress appropriated $340 to pay for their storage

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