John Russell Young (November 20, 1840 – January 17, 1899[1]) was an American journalist, author, diplomat, and the seventh Librarian of the United States Congress from 1897 to 1899.

He was invited by Ulysses S. Grant to accompany him on a world tour for purposes of recording the two-year journey, which he published in a two-volume work.

During his tenure, the library began moving from its original home in the US Capitol Building to its own structure, an accomplishment largely the responsibility of his predecessor, Ainsworth Rand Spofford.

After consulting with Secretary of State William R. Day, he sent a letter to U.S. embassies and consulates around the world in February 1898 requesting documents and manuscripts.

They emigrated from Ireland to the United States with young John in 1841 and settled in Downingtown, Pennsylvania, where his sister Mary Anne was born in 1843.

After his mother Eliza died in 1851, he was sent to live with his father's older brother James R. Young who had emigrated from Ireland to New Orleans in 1837.

[2] Russell Young later attended Yale College and became a journalist like his father, working for the Hartford Daily Courant.

[12] On November 18, 1890, Young married Mrs. May (Dow) Davids, a widow with children from her first marriage, at the Astor House in New York City.

Gen. Gordon Russell Young, a 1913 United States Military Academy graduate who was Engineer Commissioner of the District of Columbia from 1945 to 1951 and a recipient of the Distinguished Service Medal and the Legion of Merit.

[14][15] After her husband's death in 1899, May Young served as editor in the publication of his memoirs Men and Memories: Personal Reminiscences in 1901.

[20][21] Howard Gilman Young joined Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders in May 1898, serving as a private in Company I.

[23][24] Berkeley Reynolds Young worked at the Library of Congress and pursued a law degree at George Washington University.

[30] On October 18, 1865, Young's sister Mary Anne married John Blakely, a fellow Philadelphia journalist.