Ainsworth Rand Spofford
Ainsworth Rand Spofford ( born September 12, 1825 Gilmanton, Belknap County, New Hampshire; † August 11, 1908 in Washington, DC) was the sixth head of the Library of Congress. He was in office from 1864 to 1897.
Life
Because of his poor health, he had to abandon their studies at Amherst College. So he went with 19 years of Cincinnati, Ohio, where he worked as a bookseller, publisher, and journalist. In 1859, he became chief editor of the Cincinnati Commercial. He was politically active in the Republican Party. In 1856 he was a delegate to the first Republican National Convention, was nominated on the John C. Frémont as a presidential candidate.
In 1861 he took in Washington in the place of the deputy head of the Library of Congress, John Gould Stephenson. After his resignation in 1864, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln called Spofford to Stephenson's successor. He was subsequently significantly to the expansion of the library of a tool of the Congress of a national institution. During his tenure, the library of approximately 60,000 has been extended to over one million exhibits. He was also significantly involved in the relocation of the Library of Congress Reading Room in the Capitol in its own building, now the Thomas Jefferson Building, which took place in 1897.
Spofford entered in favor of a younger, John Russell Young aside, and returned to his old post as deputy director of the library, where he remained until his death.
Works
- A Book for All Readers ( 3rd edition 1909)
- Library of selected literature (10 volumes, 1888)
- American Almanac ( 1878-89 )