America's Library: The Story of the Library of Congress

On Wednesday, I took my first trip to the Library of Congress.  Evidently the Jefferson Building is an architectural marvel.

(image via F. Barry Wheeler)

Unfortunately for me, I did not go to the Jefferson Building.  I went to the Madison building, which has enough identical-looking fluorescently lit gray hallways for even someone with an unnaturally keen sense of direction to begin to feel lost.  (I almost always know which direction to walk to get where I want to go.  I maintain that I can feel which direction I want to go unless my surroundings are sufficiently disorienting.)

Anyhow, nobody is interested in my pity party about the beautiful structure I missed, especially since I could be back there in an hour if I really wanted.  So on to the real story.  I went to the Madison building because a) that's where you get your "reader's card" and b) that's where the "Newspaper and Current Periodicals Room" is located.  My current research project involves Margaret Garner, the slave woman who fled across the Ohio river into Cincinnati in 1856, and when faced with being recaptured, tried to kill all four of her children (and succeeded in killing one by slitting her throat).  You might know her as the woman whose story inspired Toni Morrison's Nobel Prize winning novel, Beloved.  For me, though, Margaret Garner is the woman whose story gives a historical context to Cora Gordon, a character nobody writes about from Harriet Beecher Stowe's second antislavery novel, Dred: A Tale of the Dismal Swamp, which hardly anybody writes about.

After Margaret Garner was captured, the Cincinnati papers ran daily feature articles in the "city news" sections that recounted the day's events in court.  I made my way to the Library of Congress to read through these articles in order to understand the historical context of Cora's character and to see if there was anything in the articles that might help me understand Stowe's representation of Cora's experience.

I admit to having been really geeked up about my visit to the LoC.  When I go to the Maryland Room on campus, where I do my research on Katherine Anne Porter and where I was able to read Mencken's review of One of Ours, they do everything they can to enhance the aura of the experience.  They make you leave all of your belongings in a locker outside the room.  All you can take inside are your laptop, papers and books, and a pencil (no pens allowed!).  You have to request your items ahead of time, and you're watched closely while you peruse the materials.  Sometimes they even make you put on white gloves before you can touch the materials!  (I know this is nerdy.  By now, I think you all know the particular variety of nerd that I am.)  The Library of Congress was, by comparison, a total letdown.  I was allowed to take essentially whatever I wanted into the room with the exception of my giant purse.  The newspapers from 1856 were bound together in a giant book, which they propped up on a angled platform for me, and nobody really cared what I was doing.  I was there for six hours, and at one point, I even found myself resting my head on the newspaper.  I was way more upset that I'd allowed myself to do this than anyone else there was.  In the Maryland Room, you have to secure special permission to photograph the materials; in the LoC, I snapped away at everything and nobody cared.

I will say, though, that the experience was pretty intriguing.  As I flipped through the issues of the newspaper in my bound edition, I began to understand what it would have been like to experience news in that way.  There was a period in our younger, much less busy days when Krista and I were daily viewers of the Court TV channel;  we tuned in every morning to watch the latest developments in several different cases.  Reading the daily feature articles in this bound volume was like watching Court TV, 1856 style.  Part of the reason Garner's case was so interesting was because her lawyers were trying to prove that she was "freed" simply by traveling into Ohio with her owner as a young child, which would allow them to keep her in Ohio as a freed slave even though that would mean she'd have to stand trial for the murder of her child.  Conversely, her owner's attorneys were trying to argue that she was a recaptured fugitive slave, and according to the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, she must be returned to Kentucky and handed over to her owner.  (Ultimately, the Judge ruled that though she could have "freed" herself when she traveled to Ohio as a child, she "waived her right to freedom" by returning to Kentucky thereafter.  As if she had a choice- she was 8!).  Thus, Garner's case became a conflict between the state laws of Ohio, which gave slaves their freedom, and the federal Fugitive Slave Law, which took it away, and everyone (even then) knew that the case would have large implications in the slave debate.  The fact that she admitted to killing her child, and that she evidently preferred to stand trial for murder instead of returning to slavery, also made it a huge national news story.

I was kind of amused that when I signed into the room, I had to choose between circling "House," "Senate," or "Guest."  Everyone that day had circled Guest.  I also thought I'd be surrounded by researchers like me, but that was not the case.  Mostly, the people that visited while I was there seemed a little crazy.  One guy was expecting the workers to help him research some old member of the Army, whom he claims founded the National Weather Service, but is never given adequate credit for it.  Normally I would have tuned these conversations out, but since it was weather related, I couldn't help but eavesdrop.  This guy claimed to have spent $2,500 of his own money on this research project, because NWS and NOAA and the "National Weather Bureau" (whatever that is) are unwilling to help him because they want to cover up this army guy's participation.  Worst of all (from my perspective), he hadn't done any research about whether the LoC might have any materials that would help his project, he just seemed to have shown up in DC expecting someone to figure it out for him.  After he left the room I wanted to ask the people at the desk what percentage of the people they interact with on a daily basis are trying to get to the bottom of "conspiracy theories."  Note to self: if you find yourself investing $2,500 of your own money in a project, it's because nobody else is interested in that project.  So don't continue to be shocked when people aren't jumping for joy at the prospect of helping you with it.

At one point, some man came up to me and asked if I realized I'd been staring at the bound volume for four hours.  I said I guessed not.  He asked me "how" I could do it, so I explained that it was either finish my research today or have to come back into the city again.  Then he asked me what I was researching, and he asked me why, and when I said I was in graduate school, he said "Oh, so you've already trained yourself in how to make yourself miserable.  That could have been your answer to my first question."  I thought this exchange was funny.  When I told Anne-Marie about it, she thought it was creepy.  Point taken.

Everyone working there was really nice to me and very helpful.  Before I went, I couldn't figure out why the people I spoke to on the phone were bending over backwards to help me locate my materials.  After I'd arrived, I realized it was because they must be used to other people expecting the employees to do all the researching for them.  Sometimes I believe my impatience can actually be a virtue.  It has made me into a "get shit done now" type of person.  I can't even begin to imagine showing up at the LoC, asking someone to find something for me, and sitting around waiting while they see if they can go dig it up.  I believe that my get-shit-done-now-ness was enhanced by my experience as a high school classroom teacher.  I could write a whole nother blog post on this topic, so I'll leave it at that for now.

My final amusing exchange of the day was at the coat check, where I had to stop in to pick up my purse.  I noticed that there was a lot of stuff that looked really old and beaten up sitting on the floor instead of placed inside the numbered compartments.  I asked the coat check guy if that was where they put the stuff that nobody claimed at the end of the day.  His response?  "No.  That's where we put the stuff that smells."  This brought to mind that while I was traversing the confusing hallways, I had passed a few gentlemen that looked like they hadn't showered in quite some time.  I was intrigued by the idea that if you were a homeless person in DC you might devote your time to researching in the archives.  It was a beautiful day, so they must have been there for some purpose besides escaping the outside air.  I couldn't help but wonder what they might have in common with the escaped slaves in Dred who flee the restraints of the mainstream society that enslaves them and choose instead to live "off the grid" in the Dismal Swamp.  And then I thought: Okay, Liz, that's enough thinking for one day.

I am happy to report that I finally sat down to write this blog entry this morning because after devoting the past several days to thinking about Dred and Margaret Garner, I finally have an idea of what I will write for my paper.  But that paper's not written yet, so I need to get back to work.  And, coincidentally, I'm also reading Beloved today for my other class.  It's not an accident that I find a way to bring all of these things together.

So when you visit DC, remember: head to the Jefferson Building for the aura and beauty of the Library of Congress, or the Madison Building for your reader's card and a handful of weirdos.

(America's Library: The Story of the Library of Congress is a nonfiction book that apparently explores the reasons the LoC was founded and the ways it has been used over the past two decades.  I haven't read it, but I imagine its "story" of the LoC is quite different from the "story" I just told.)