In 1980, the building was named in honor of Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), a Founding Father, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, and the third U.S. president.

Bernard Green, the superintendent of construction, and Casey are credited for the completion of the interiors and the artistic supervision of the building's unique decorative program.

The central block is broadly comparable to the Palais Garnier in Paris, a similarly ambitious expression of triumphant cultural nationalism in the Beaux-Arts style that had triumphed at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, 1893.

On the exterior, sculptured portrait heads that were considered typical of the world's races were installed as keystones on the main storey's window arches.

The second-floor portico of the front entrance facing the U.S. Capitol features nine prominent busts of Great Men as selected by Ainsworth Rand Spofford in accordance with Gilded Age ideals.

From left to right when one faces the building, they are Demosthenes (portico north side), Ralph Waldo Emerson, Washington Irving, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Babbington Macaulay, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Sir Walter Scott and Dante Alighieri (portico south side).

The building name was changed on June 13, 1980, to honor former U.S. President Thomas Jefferson, who had been a key figure in the establishment of the Library in 1800.

Jefferson offered to sell his personal book collection to Congress in September 1814, one month after the British had burned the Capitol in the War of 1812.

A small suite in the northwest corner of the attic level remains home to the official office of the Poet Laureate of the United States.

Representatives of the National Sculpture Society met with Casey and Green during the building's construction to select the sculptors for the Library's statues and figures.

[10] The Main Reading Room, circular in shape, is surrounded by eight giant marble columns that are each decoratively topped with a large statue of a female figure.

The 8 statues each represent different aspects of knowledge and are symbols of civilization, including: Religion, Commerce, History, Art, Philosophy, Poetry, Law, and Science.