Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

This day, April 24, 1800, President John Adams approved the appropriation of $5,000 for the purchase

of, quote, such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress.

What did they decide to call this building that would house a collection of books that could

be used by Congress?

They called it the Library of Congress.

The naming conventions were pretty straightforward back in the day I guess

among the early rules of the library were pretty strict borrowing guidelines.

No map shall be taken from the library by any person nor book except by the president and vice president of the

United States and members of the Senate and House of Representatives so that is one of the

perks of elected office was full library privileges at least back then here to discuss the founding of the

Library of Congress and of course the way it has evolved over the years from a small

collection of books to an institution of public and civic record are as always

Nicole Hammer of Columbia and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley. Hello there

Jody. Hey there. And our special guest for this episode, Carrie

Greenwich of Tufts University, co-director of the African-American Trail Project at Tufts and among many other things the author of the fantastic book, Black Radical, The Life and Times of William Monroe Trotter.

Carrie, thank you for doing this.

This is fun.

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm very excited. Hello Kelly and then everybody.

And so very quickly this will turn into a story of

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