Few people know that the Manuscript Division of the Library of
Congress is the nation's oldest and most comprehensive
presidential library. While the recently built presidential
libraries each hold the papers of a single chief executive, the
Manuscript Division has in its custody the papers of twenty-
three presidents, including the men who founded the nation,
wrote its fundamental documents, and led it through the greatest
crisis of its existence. The Manuscript Division began acquiring
presidential papers soon after the Library occupied the Thomas
Jefferson Building in 1897. So imposing was the new structure
that it seemed to be designed especially for the papers of a
president. The new building was "the natural and fitting
depository" for presidential papers, declared the descendants of
Francis P. Blair, who in 1903 gave the division its first
presidential collection, the papers of Andrew Jackson. Shortly
after the Jackson Papers arrived, President Theodore Roosevelt
signed an executive order transferring t