April 5, 1939: The Library of Congress Opens the John Adams Building

April 5, 1939: The Library of Congress opens an annex. It is across 2nd Street SE from the main Library, the Thomas Jefferson Building, and is also bounded by East Capitol Street, 3rd Street SE and Independence Avenue. On June 13, 1980, it was renamed the John Adams Building.

NOTE: My cutoff date for this project is 1869, the year of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, the 1st openly professional baseball team, and the 1st American football game. I had managed to work in references to most pre-1869 Presidents. This was the only way I could think of to do it for both Adamses.

The building is 5 stories in height above ground. It contains 180 miles of shelving, compared to 104 miles in the Jefferson Building, and can hold 10 million volumes. There are 12 tiers of stacks, extending from the cellar to the 4th floor. Each tier provides about 13 acres of shelf space.

John Adams was a Signer of the Declaration of Independence, and the member of the Continental Congress who recommended to that body that George Washington be named commander of the Continental Army. He served as U.S. Minister of France, and to Britain. He was elected the 1st Vice President of the United States, under Washington, in 1789 and 1792, and the 2nd President in 1796, defeating Jefferson.

He lost to Jefferson in 1800, the men's friendship having been torn apart by the politics of the time. With the prodding of his wife Abigail, Adams began writing to Jefferson, and, although they never met in person again, their correspondence restored their friendship. Adams died at 6:20 PM on July 4, 1826, the 50th Anniversary of the approval of the Declaration of Independence, at Peacefield, his home in Quincy, Massachusetts, outside Boston. His last words were, "Thomas Jefferson still lives. Independence forever."

What he didn't know, due to the means of transmitting information available at the time -- it was 28 years before the invention of the telegraph, 50 years before that of the telephone, and 94 years before the start of radio broadcasting -- was that Jefferson had died earlier in the day. The night before, drifting in and out of consciousness, and determined to make it to the great anniversary, he kept asking, "Is this the fourth?" Late at night on the 3rd, not sure that he would make it to midnight, those around him told him, "Yes." He did not regain consciousness, but lived until 12:50 PM on the 4th.

At the time, the President of the United States was Adams' son, John Quincy Adams, who called the coincidence of their deaths on the nation's anniversary "visible and palpable remarks of Divine Favor."

John Quincy had been America's finest diplomat, having been appointed as U.S. Minister to the Netherlands (at age 27!), Prussia (most of modern Germany), Russia and Britain. He also served Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate, before being appointed Secretary of State by President James Monroe. It was Adams who actually wrote the policy that became known as the Monroe Doctrine.

He was also the earliest President to be photographed,

although it was many years after he left office.

A controversial election in 1824 led to Adams becoming President, but his time in office was one of the most frustrating that any President ever had, and he was overwhelmingly defeated by Andrew Jackson in 1828. In 1830, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, and remains the only former President so honored. He became one of the nation's foremost anti-slavery activists, until his death in 1848. He and his wife Louisa, an English native and the only foreign-born First Lady until Melania Trump, are entombed at the same church in Quincy as his parents, John and Abigail.

John Quincy's son, Charles Francis Adams, served a term in Congress, and was U.S. Envoy to Britain during the American Civil War, keeping the British from allying with the Confederate States of America. There was an effort by Republicans unhappy with the corruption in the Administration of Ulysses S. Grant to nominate Charles Francis for President in 1872, but it didn't happen.

His sons included John Quincy Adams II, who served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives; Charles Francis Adams Jr., who never served in public office but whose legal work reformed America's railroad industry, and served as President of the Union Pacific Railroad; and historians Henry Adams and Brooks Adams.

Although the founding owner of the National Hockey League's Boston Bruins was named Charles Francis Adams, he was not a member of this Adams family.

John Marshall served as John Adams' Secretary of State from June 13, 1800 to March 4, 1801. One of Adams' last decisions was to appoint him Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, in which he served until his death in 1835, leaving him the last surviving member of the Adams Cabinet.

John McLean was the last surviving member of John Quincy Adams's cabinet. He served as Postmaster General throughout Adams' Presidency, and later as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. He died in 1861.

In 1870, the Stone Library was built on the grounds of Peacefield. It is considered the Presidential Library for both Adamses.

In 2001, Congress authorized the Adams Memorial Foundation, to provide for the construction in the District of Columbia of a memorial for the Adams family and its accomplishments. As of April 5, 2022, the money necessary for such a memorial had not yet been raised, nor had a site been selected.

There are 6 Counties named for John Adams, and there is Adams County in Iowa, which is officially unsure if it was named for the father or the son. There are John Adams High Schools in Queens, New York City (my grandmother went there, but did not graduate); Cleveland; the Detroit suburb of Rochester Hills, Michigan; South Bend, Indiana; Hasting, Nebraska; and Portland, Oregon.

John Adams statue, Quincy, Massachusetts

On the TV show Boy Meets World, the character of Cory Matthews, played by Ben Savage, attends a school named for John Adams, in the suburbs of Philadelphia. For the sequel series Girl Meets World, a now-grown Cory teaches at a New York City school named for John Quincy Adams, attended by his daughter, Riley, played by Rowan Blanchard.

John Quincy Adams statue, Quincy

On Boy Meets World, Cory's teacher, George Feeney, was played by William Daniels. Daniels had played John Adams in the 1969 Broadway musical 1776, and reprised the role in the 1972 film. Adams was also played by Robert Ayres in the 1959 film John Paul Jones, Hal Holbrook in the 1984 CBS TV-movie George Washington, Ivan Crosland in A More Perfect Union in 1989, and Paul Giamatti in the 2008 HBO miniseries John Adams.

Grant Mitchell played John Quincy Adams in the film The Monroe Doctrine in 1939, Anthony Hopkins played him in Amistad in 1997, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach played him in the 2008 John Adams miniseries.

The USS Adams was a frigate launched in 1799, served in the Quasi-War with France, the First Barbary War, and the War of 1812, before it ran ground in Maine and was scuttled in 1814. A separate frigate, the USS John Adams, was also launched in 1799, and remained in service until 1865. Another USS John Adams, officially named for both men, was a submarine in service from 1963 to 1989.

John Adams was the 1st President born in Massachusetts, although whether he remains the greatest one depends on how you feel about John F. Kennedy.

*

April 5, 1939 was a Wednesday. This was also the day that Kate Smith's recording of "God Bless America" was released. I have a separate entry for that event.

Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And the Stanley Cup Finals were between Games 1 and 2. The Boston Bruins would beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 4 games to 1. So there were no scores on this historic day.