On a motion by James Madison, and after extensive debate, the act setting up the Department of Foreign Affairs was passed and became law when it was signed by President George Washington on July 27, 1789.

As the British entered the Chesapeake, Secretary Monroe ordered Chief Clerk John Graham and Stephen Pleasonton to "take the best care of the books and papers of the office which might be in [their] power."

In addition to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, official records of the Continental Congress and original laws and statutes were hid in hastily made linen bags, loaded onto carts and taken across the Chain Bridge into Virginia.

Fearing the documents were still unsafe, Pleasonton hired horses and wagons from local farmhouses and transported them to Leesburg, Virginia, where they were stored in an empty house, locked and in the safekeeping of Rev.

[4] Reporting to the Congress on November 14, 1814, Secretary Monroe said that "Every exertion was made, and every means employed, for the removal of the books and papers of this office, to a place of safety; and notwithstanding the extreme difficulty of obtaining the means of conveyance, it is believed that every paper and manuscript book of the office, of any importance ... were placed in a state of security.

Many of the books belonging to the Library of the Department, as well as some letters on file of minor importance ... were unavoidably left, and shared the fate, it is presumed, of the building in which they were deposited.

Over the years, rolling and folding of the document creased and broke the parchment, and constant exposure to strong sunlight led to fading of the signatures to the extent that some could not be read.

In 1825 Secretary John Quincy Adams appointed Thomas L. Thurston to care for the library, which was in disarray from having been moved so frequently after the fires of 1814.

Adams said that he charged Thurston with the "custody of the Library, and directed him to let no book go out without a minute of it being made, and notice given to the person taking it that he must be responsible for its return.

These catalogs contain the kinds of titles that might be expected in a foreign affairs library: The Ambassador and His Functions, Lewis and Clark-Travels to the Source of the Missouri River and across the American Continent to the Pacific Ocean, London, 1814.

But they also contain such titles as Hall's Distiller, Philadelphia, 1818; Denman-Practice of Midwifery, New York, 1821; and Waterhouse-On Whooping Cough, Boston, 1822, which were probably received unsolicited on deposit.

Two of the earlier entries in the ledger show that President Martin Van Buren had returned Kent's Commentaries, Wheaton's Law of Nations, Jones' Sketches of Naval Life, and Bigelow's Elements of Technology.

In August 1829, Secretary of State Edward Livingston returned a number of books including Bailey's Latin Lexicon, Webster's Dictionary, and a 12-volume set of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Among the very special documents transferred that year from State to the Library of Congress were the papers of Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Monroe, Madison, and Franklin.

Distinguished in this period by intensified historical research and the inauguration of a valuable series of publications, the Library saw its collection grow from 120,000 to 300,000 volumes during her tenure.

By the time Ms. Gericke retired, the library had become a fully professional organization, with trained staff reorganized along functional lines and the entire collection cataloged and classified.

[2]: 30 Following World War II, the research and intelligence functions and staff of the wartime Office of Strategic Services were transferred to the Department of State, along with its Reference Division's library collection and extensive files of classified documents and reports.

In 1951, Ottemiller noted that "foreign affairs today encompasses consideration, planning and action reaching into all phases of human endeavor and into the remotest areas of the world.

Today the Library with its collection of 600,000 volumes covers more than 45,000 square feet (4,200 m2), including four levels of stacks located between the second, third and fourth floors of the Truman Building.

In 1833, for example, a Bureau of Pardons and Remissions and of Copyrights was created and charged with various duties including the "arrangement and preservation of books, maps, and other documents and of keeping an accurate catalog.

Two books are especially valuable because they are known to have Thomas Jefferson's signature—the Corps Universel Diplomatique and Histoire Des Traites De Paix, published in Holland in the 1720s, both of which managed to avoid destruction in the fire of 1814.

The oldest book in the library is the Chronicarum cum figuris et ymaginigus ab incipio mundi, commonly called the Nuremberg Chronicle.

For brokering an armistice between Israel and its Arab neighbors, Bunche was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950; he was the first person of color to receive this highest of honors.

What vast, undreamed of achievement might await man would he but devote his entire interest to promoting the commonweal of a universal human brotherhood.