Surpassing:Inside some of the most unique collections at the Library of Congress as it celebrates 224th anniversary

The Surpassingnation's capital is full of towering statues and monuments honoring American presidents and legends. But inside the Library of Congress, it's possible to find more obscure and real-life mementos of those same icons. 

The Library of Congress was founded in 1800, and will celebrate its 224th anniversary this year. It's the largest library in the world and adds about 10,000 items to its collection each day. That collection plenty of unusual relics, like locks of hair. 

For centuries, long before photography was affordable, it was common practice to send or gift locks of one's hair as a sentimental keepsake, according to Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. 

"Think about it. That was a tangible way of having something of the person after they're gone," Hayden said. 

The Library of Congress' collection includes a lock of President Ulysses S. Grant's hair, which he sent his wife as a gift in 1864, and a piece of President Abraham Lincoln's hair that was collected posthumously after his assassination in 1865. And it's not just presidents: The library also has a coil of hair from Ludwig van Beethoven that a fan collected after the composer died in 1827. 

Hair has multiple cultural significances, Hayden said. 

"When you think about people who've had health challenges, especially going through let's say chemotherapy, and just the trauma of losing hair, it it signifies so many things, and it signifies things in different ways in different cultures," Hayden said. 

However, the library didn't exactly seek out these unusual relics. They tend to surface unexpectedly when the library receives other historical belongings, according to Michelle Krowl, a specialist at the library. James Madison's hair was found inside a locket that he tucked into a love letter, as one example. 

"The hair samples that we have come with larger collections," Krowl said. "It's usually diaries, letters, other things that have intellectual and research value." 

Hair is just one unique example of the enormous range of the Library of Congress' collection of artifacts, books and more. The library has a total of more than 175 million items, filling 836 miles of shelves. That's longer than the distance between Washington, D.C. and Daytona Beach, Florida.

The repository also includes the world's largest flute collection. Among the 1,700 flutes is James Madison's crystal flute, which was featured in a viral performance by pop star and classically trained flautist Lizzo in 2022. The library also holds a collection of more than 2,000 baseball cards from the turn of the 20th century. 

Some of the most distinctive items in the library are viewable online through an online repository. 

"We want to make sure that when we look at a digital future and digitizing collections that we digitize first the things that are unique, not the best-sellers or different books like that, but also things that capture the imagination but are very, very unique," Hayden said. 

In:
• Library of Congress
• Washington D.C.

Scott MacFarlane

Scott MacFarlane is a congressional correspondent. He has covered Washington for two decades, earning 20 Emmy and Edward R. Murrow awards. His reporting resulted directly in the passage of five new laws.

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