>> next, the c-span documentary, "the library of congress." and at 11:00 p.m., q&a with erik larsen, author of "in the garden of the beast." and now, c-span's 5 -- documentary, "the library of congress." behind-the-scenes of the world's largest library. >> the pursuit of knowledge is something that all parties want to agree on. essentially, they are all in favor of accurate information that lawmakers can use. connections this t

between knowledge and reading. the library of congress turned out to be a menace to take -- manifestation of that. the cracks it -- >> it was entirely created in the library -- in the age of print. democracy is something to be celebrated. i.t. that comes through very dramatically -- i think that comes through very directly in the building. >> it started in the congress could get information. it has grown to a -- eight separate facilities. but it's true home is this, the jefferson building. and where there were once only

books, the library of congress today features on the one-of-a- kind presidential papers, photos, music, video, and more. >> this is the largest matt election in the world. >> there are 62 million items. they occupy spatially about 13 mi.. it cracks it is one of the greatest visual resources in the world. 14 million pictures. if greg's we have over 18,500 cases -- >> we have over 18,500 cases. " the george washington papers have about 65,000 papers. we have the george washington papers with 27,000 items. >> without this we would not be able to tell the story of our past or explore the important personalities or major events in the history of this country. >> and that is what this place

does. whether through books, manuscripts, but music, maps, photos, movies, they all mark the pivotal events of the evolution of the united states and the world. >> in 1948 alone, just to give you a small snapshot, we really cried the -- reacquired the george bain collection. >> 40,000 last plate negatives, the first fighter news agency in america. gregg's it could take you 24 years -- >> it could take 24 years to see them all. if you spend 10 minutes with each map in the library of congress, it would take you over 100 years to see them all. and what about books? with each book would

spend the 2000 years. and the jefferson tells a story, too, and of the need for knowledge and love of books with its ornate italian renaissance style. it harkens back to european ancestors while also moving forward and featuring elements exclusively american. built at the end of night -- the 19th century, it reflects a time when americans were saying goodbye to the past and coming into their own in the country. this program features not only the buildings, but also the treasures inside. some of the most exclusive documents, photos, maps and objects that represent our nation's past and present. ♪

>> as we go through this great art, we going to one of the most medicines bases of the library, the great hall. the great hall and beyond it, the great room, part two of the great spaces in american architecture. and if architecture is about space, then this is the architect playing at the top of his game. one of the debt -- one of the things i definitely feel people get in a large room is joy. the colors are joyful. there is the quality of the light on that brilliant white marble and columns. i think it is that up for pullback has something to do with it. -- out ford pulled that has something to with it, and almost an ascendancy. i think that is part of? bearings. it -- part of that experience.

there's a very elaborate system in the vaults of the ceiling. ♪ >> you got the seasons. ♪ you've got muses. ♪ you have senses. if you have a series on knowledge and understanding and wisdom. you have figures representing performing arts. >> and here, an indication that

this building is also about america and it's coming of age. >> the main theme all the way through, there are symbols of great countries of the world. they're both sectors and symbols of their imprints. -- cyphers and symbols of their imprints. one side is just american. we have -- and harper's to show once again -- we have doubleday and harper's to show once again, america is taking its place. >> it is a lot to take in, color and images and write-ins from all sides. but there is one figure in the great hall that stands out. >> minerva presides over the whole jefferson building. she is also the guardian of civilization. she is the goddess of learning and wisdom. she is the patroness of the

applied arts, work and labour, also of the fine arts, the performing arts. you know, there's not much left. i think that is why the founding offers -- founding fathers liked her a lot. as you see her in this mosaic that is at the top of the stairs leading to the public big visitors' gallery, from there she overlooks the great hall and stands guard in front of the reading room. and behind her, the sunlight is breaking through the crowd -- the clouds. in his the sunlight of prosperity. because that is one of the other things that she is doing her job well and the nation is prosperous, then the arts and sciences and these other things can flourish, these resources that would have gone to war now go to peaceful activities. >> and just reform reaching the

main reading room, a reminder that knowledge is not always used for good. through a series -- a series of murals reflecting the time that they were painted in, both good and bad government depicted. >> you have government represented as everything in balance. and in the middle is to always allegorical figure, lines from the gettysburg address, but it is always in balance. government is working as it should, but on the left side you have the two murals showing what happens -- or can happen when government does not do it stopped. -- it's a job. -- when government does not do its job. one is a figure of anarchy. she is holding the burning

constitution in one hand. the figure on her right is trying to pry out the cornerstones of our institution works are being destroyed by the stumbling stones. everything is dead. that is the worst-case scenario, anarchy. then beside her is the next mural of corrupt legislation. it is more of an amalgam of the 1890's. this is probably a combination of john d. rockefeller and jay gould and jpmorgan. he is a player, a big player. he has bags of money. he had stuffed the ballot box. its factories are shown bolting away at full tilt because he has some tax -- somehow gotten favors. but not just that, he has an

open back in his lap. he had studied at to find out how to fool people. opposite him are the young labor -- is the young laborer with nothing to do in his factories. the idle on the wall is falling down, so how do you counter balance that? >> on the opposite side, on the right to the meat -- the entrance to the main reading room you have the figure of government. it is knowledge-based democracy. so there, the figure of government has an open book in her lap. she is informed. and everything is in balance. she is a respectable figure. and on the right is the figure of a young voter with books under his arm. he is going to cast his ballot having informed himself and

there is an officer with grain and she is separating the wheat from the chaff of elected officials. and holding a balance scale, when you cannot speak with. the final is government at its best, producing peace and prosperity and arts and literature and science can flourish. all is right with the world. >> pass the murals is the main reading room. one of the many places people can come to read and research. an elaborate system of retrieval allows books to be brought from the basement of to the reader. -- up to the reader.

and from here, the tentacles of hallways that lead to more and more books. and behind all those books, the other treasures, the maps, the presidential papers, the photos, and much more. >> the most famous picture in the library of congress is called "migrant mother." a 32-year-old woman with children had stopped. the picture appeared in magazines and papers for the actor was taken and helped persuade people that not just that there was a desperate poverty, but a resilience and strength in the people facing their situation. >> but the picture of the migrant women today is not exactly what was shot.

she edited out the woman's bomb. >> dorothy lang -- the woman's som. >> dorothy lang caught the picture. it this is a unique copy of the picture as it was originally taken. >> migrant mother is a part of a new deal project to capture poverty in rural america between 1935 and 44 -- and 1944. >> in 1944, we are in the midst of the war, the depression is recently passed, and the attitude is, who will ever want to look at these sad old pictures again? the librarian of congress went over and said, i know it is a

lot of photographs, more than 170,000, but i feel that if we collect today, contemporary, in 50 years, and did 100 years, that will be a visual encyclopedia of life in the united states, the good as well as the bad. >> today, this is the library's most popular photo collection. it is also possible to track the country's history in the map division. >> this is the ground fuel of any collection. it is the first document on which the name america appears. because the person who made them that -- made the map made -- named america in honor of the

merval vespucci. we can tell you how did america come to be? we can tell you. it shows that the world is round. there's a specific devotion. the european complex was the world's dominant land mass. there's a new world out there. at that time, there was only one seat, between europe and asia. this map says, no, there is a continent in between. the width of america on map is within 70 mi. of accuracy at the equator. this was before anyone had gone to the west side of south america. congress took an interest in this piece and they agreed to put $5 million into the purchase of the map. and the other half was provided by private donors. we had it acquired in 2003.

but that matt provides as, 500 years later, more questions than we can answer. >> the library of congress has an activision that makes that more than half of the library. >> dealing with political history is not just the act of a policy maker. we have a whole life approach. birth to death and everything that goes into the whole life. >> and that includes the lives of presidents. it was teddy roosevelt's order that accelerated the collection of presidential papers. >> it transferred from the state department their presidential papers, george washington, thomas jefferson, james madison, and james monroe, as well as

alexander hamilton and benjamin franklin, that had been collected. they were being preserved by the state department. >> there are the core of the modern manuscript division. >> amazing buildings have been billed for most the 20th-century presidents. but prior to that, the pride -- the library of congress is the largest presidential library, having in its custody 23 presidents. >> the papers range from george washington through calvin coolidge. washington papers include his diary, pocket-sized, but there are other diaries as well. christ when he became president he went on a tour of it -- >> when he became president he went on a tour of countries. he noticed that in the places he

traveled the roles were not in good condition and the places to stay were not up to his standards. and he said something like these houses are just, you know, the entertainment is subpar. some 18th-century way of saying that. but the reason he gave is interesting. he said, the people who travel along the roads are moving from one place to another. they have all of their household goods with them, and therefore, they do not need to stay at a tavern. the sense we get is a country of people on the move, which was very much a phenomenon of this time, and decades to come. americans were increasingly moving from older lands into newer places. he witnessed that. >> and being a surveyor, the first president is also highlighted in the library's massive collection. >> between 1748 and 1749, washington did about two hundred

professional surveys. -- two hundred professional surveys. this was at the creation of the talent -- the town of tha alexandria, virginia. i would like to turn it over and show you something unique about this matter. this is completely in washington's hand. during my research into his material, i came across something interesting. it appears that washington first started drawing on this side of the map, but he messed up. he could not fit the entire coastline on this little piece of paper. he had to turn the map over. and start again. in 1748, he would have been 16 years old. >> it was a later president's administration, but one of the most famous trips in america took place.

a trip that forever changed a young country, and the lives of two men, meriwether lewis and clark. >> one of the great land mass purchases occurred in 17 03, and of course the most famous event was the the was and clark expedition. -- lewis and clark expedition. in our collection is one of the only surviving maps that went with them. this map represented the triptych. it actually provided the information needed for the whole first year. p, there are, -- matt indications of blood on it, so

it is an authentic map. we have skated on our website. a patron wants to look at it, it is readily available. whether you live in the u.s., or beijing or moscow or london. >> others just wanted it all to go away. >> the papers of president coolidge, he was often called silent cal. and there are good reasons for that. he was reticent in his public speaking. and he followed that in his papers as well. it is with an era when presidential papers were personal property and he could do whatever it he wanted with them that he pleased. what pleased him when he left the white house was to burn

almost all of them. what we have are from some pride -- filing cabinets that were in the basement of the white house that were overlooked. and when he left, they were discovered in the note early 1930's. he wrote a letter requesting the president's permission to go get them. he thought this would be the opening of a long and lengthy time of negotiations. instead, he got back a letter 10 days later that were termed sentences. essentially it said, when u.s. suggested is acceptable and you might also talk to mind -- what you suggested is acceptable and you might also talk to my predecessor. the president could not take no for an answer, so he wrote a second letter. and he said, make sure you understand this and what about this, and understand the issue in this way.

again, he got back a reply in about 10 days. "what you suggest is entirely acceptable. out find, calvin coolidge. -- acceptable." signed, calvin coolidge. he got about 46 or 47 works. it corrects the star power -- >> this star power belongs to the 26th president. >> it really is the heart of lincoln because the written record. we have both the first and second gettysburg address is. the first copy is here along with the later copy. the second and first inaugural are brought here. an impromptu streespeech that he

tried to write on a train is also here. >> the library of congress houses linking's final draft. but on a more personal basis, but direst like horatio taft left firsthand accounts of linking's--- linkedin's death. it -- lincoln's death. the crux this team is horrific. -- the scene is correct. >> the president has been assassinated. is it possible? >> everybody is in tears. and the writer is almost hysterical. >> when they reach his house, had met them on the portico. where is my poch? he kept repeating it.

>> and this diarest and his children were the close friends of lincoln's and his children. this is showing a personal side of the lincoln family. mary todd traveled to get away from the heat and disease and she often took tad and robert when he was with her. this was writing from the white house on executive stationery, as you can see. and he was talking to marry about the goat, tad's gold had been eating flowers and the gardener shooed him away. he was seen to in his guide --

chewing his cud and he later disappeared. lincoln is forewarning to add that the code is gone. >> it is another example of where the different divisions of where the library of congress in two weeks to tell the story -- interweaves to tell the story of the united states. there's also photography and it said that lincoln was the first president to tap into this technology. >> we have the first portrait of abraham lincoln, all the way up until a few weeks before his death. it is a very powerful experience. your able to watch the face of the young congressman and how serious he age during the series -- the years of the civil war before the assassination. >> besides presidential

photographs, the library's collection dates to the first day of what is now called photojournalism. >> it is a sad story, actually. a man has been stranded just above niagara falls in a fast- moving water. a photographer was able to make a photograph of him and he drowned soon after. but from the first moment of photography, back in the 1840's, it was seen as a tool to capture events as they happen. one of our favorite collections is a former news agency, at george been from new york city. he put cameras in the hands of some of his newsboys and said, bring back what you can. he was able then to resell these pictures are too many newspapers on a subscription basis. from there comes the associated press.

there is the national photo company. . rrison ewing in 1971, when the book picture magazine had to close, they also called up and said, would you be willing to shelter this collection and preserve it for the future? we agreed and that is 5 million photographic negative color slides. they had a lot of not -- hard news to them as well as the hollywood stars. and u.s. news and world report generously donated its photos, and it covered the presidential elections and the vtn