abstract:The oldest of the three United States Library of Congress buildings, the Thomas Jefferson Building was built between 1890 and 1897. It was originally known as the Library of Congress Building and is located on First Street SE, between Independence Avenue and East Capitol Street in Washington, D.
Hector Davis owned a two-story slave auction house and jail on 14th and Franklin Streets, just two blocks down the hill from Thomas Jefferson's glorious capitol building of the State of Virginia.
It was Thomas Jefferson's favorite classical building--in fact, Jefferson based his whole conception of Neo-Classical architecture on it--and one obviously had to approach such a historical object with caution.