Fires at the Library of Congress, Malicious and Accidental

The discussions we have had this week about the disasters that can occur with archives has encouraged me to consider how we think about them. Often when we think of disasters that might befall archive or library collections, we think of natural disasters such as floods, tornados, and hurricanes; otherwise we think of destruction caused by accident or human error. We don’t think as often of intentional destruction caused by humans in the same way, which is in some ways surprising given how often human conflict begets destruction or pillaging of cultural resources.

Drawing of the Capital Building after burning by British soldiers, 1814 | Library of Congress

The United States Library of Congress has endured two massive fires within the first fifty years of its existence. The first of these was during the War of 1812 when British troops set fire to the then unfinished Capitol building which was housing the collection at the time. This occurred on August 24, 1814, in conjunction with the burning of the White House by the invading British troops. While the exterior of the building survived as seen in the drawing above, the interior was heavily damaged and the entire collection of around 3000 volumes was destroyed. Interestingly, in order to replace the collection, Congress bought former president Thomas Jefferson’s entire collection of 6,487 books in 1815, and hired a professional librarian for the first time.

The second large fire in the Library of Congress was in December of 1851, and destroyed about two thirds of the 55,000 volume collection, including over half of the volumes that had come from Thomas Jefferson. The library has been working to find replacements for those lost volumes ever since, starting with money allocated by Congress in 1852. At this time the Library of Congress was still housed in the Senate wing of the Capitol building, and would continue to do so until the opening of the Thomas Jefferson Building in 1897.

Construction of the Thomas Jefferson Building, 1893 | Library of Congress

The major fires that the Library of Congress endured in its early years have served to inform efforts to reduce risk and to plan for emergencies. At different times in history this has meant different things. After the first fire and a minor one in 1825, the Architect of the Capitol was requested to look into fire retardant materials. In recent years, the library has invested significant time and money in fire prevention efforts including laboratory research on fire suppression techniques, as well as salvage in case of fire. They also advocate what their website calls a “Continuity of Operations” plan that takes into account emergency planning as well as mitigation, recovery and salvage of the collections.

I also found reference to a project carried out in 2019 by the office of the Architect of the Capitol to replace 77 stair doors with fire-rated replicas and changing the directions some of the other doors open in order to improve egress in case of fire. The process of removing one of those doors is pictured here.

All in all, it seems that the librarians in charge of the Library of Congress have learned from the disasters of the past, and hopefully in the unlikely case that another such disaster occurs they will be better prepared to protect the enormous collections from destruction.

Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson building | Pixabay

Further Resources

“An 1825 Library of Congress Fire.” [n.d.]. House.Gov <https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1800-1850/An-1825-Library-of-Congress-fire/> [accessed 2 October 2020]

“Fire Egress at the Library of Congress.” [n.d.]. Aoc.Gov <https://www.aoc.gov/explore-capitol-campus/blog/fire-egress-library-congress> [accessed 2 October 2020]

“History of the Library of Congress.” [n.d.]. <https://www.loc.gov/about/history-of-the-library/> [accessed 2 October 2020]History.com Editors. 2010.

“Fire Ravages Library of Congress,” History.Com<https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fire-ravages-library-of-congress> [accessed 2 October 2020]

“Library of Congress Wise Guide: In Case of Fire.” [n.d.]. Loc.Gov<https://www.loc.gov/wiseguide/dec07/fire.html> [accessed 2 October 2020]

“Out of the Ashes: A New Library for Congress and the Nation.” [n.d.]. Loc.Gov<https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/out-of-the-ashes/online-exhibition.html> [accessed 2 October 2020]

A hazard in the archive

This week we have studied Risk Management and Disaster Planning, but what if the hazard was in the very being of an archive itself. When concidering an example of a disaster in an archive I was brought back to my time working at the London Borough of Sutton Archive. I was working at the end of a 4 year project to digitise and catalogue the collection of local Edwardian Photographer, David Knights-Whittome, mostly compromising glass plate negatives and a small selection of prints. Prior to joining, a Conservation team at Leicester University were contracted to clean and restore the most damaged negatives, and we received these back during my Internship. However, the conservator couldn’t return everything. Within the collection were a small series of Nitrate negatives.

Cellulose Nitrate film was mostly used between 1890 and 1950 and it can be found in many collections from this time. It is well known for its highly flammable nature, becoming toxic with degradation, while keeping it can effect insurance policies. The Science and Media Museum advices that there are 5 stages of deterioration of the film; 

‘At stage 1 or 2, film can be copied. At stage 3, it may be possible to copy parts of films. At stage 4 and 5, the film is useless and should be immediately destroyed by your local fire brigade because of the dangers of spontaneous combustion and chemical attack on other films.’

A scan of a Knights-Whittome nitrate negative showing deterioration (DKW/5/5) Credit Sutton Archives

In order to control the deterioration of Nitrate film and to prevent spontaneous fires, it is widely understood that it should be kept at controlled cool temperatures and at best within a freezer. It is safe to say there were no freezers at Sutton Archive. Luckily, our conservators were able to digitise some of the negatives, before swiftly destroying the film in a controlled area. Although it seems against digitisation rules to dispose of the original material, in this case it was a necessity to avoid a possible disaster. 

However, there have been many unfortunate occasions where collections have been lost to fire because of nitrate film.

On 7th Dec 1978, a fire ripped through building A at the US’ National Archives and Record Service in Suitland. The building held a vast collection of nitrate film, with the fire destroying 12.6 million feet of Universal Newsreel footage. Being so easily sensitive to heat, nitrate film was the cause of several cinema fires during its heyday.

In this case there were other factors involved in sparking the collection’s destruction. A fire had occured in a similar way a year earlier, which lead to work to overhaul the sprinkler system inside the building. On the day of the fire, construction workers had to remove a third of the sprinklers, and although instructed not to do so, had used electrical equipment inside the room. A few days earlier the archive team had also brought attention to the air conditioner system which had been leaking Freon. The final decision was that the fire was caused when the faulty air conditioning system began heating the room instead of cooling.

Onlookers watch the 1978 film vault fire
Credit National Archives

Today, these fires are rare, as archives such as The Bodleian undertake reports with specialists to identify nitrates within their collections, and the necessary precautions to take in caring for them. Many archives choose to completely eliminate their nitrate holdings after copying them. Or alternatively in 2011 the BFI built a cold storage vault specifically for holding early nitrate films in order to preserve Britain’s film history faster than the time, cost and effort of digitising all nitrate films.

A few weeks before leaving my position at Sutton Archive I undertook a last tidy of the archive office and volunteer workroom. Inside a box full of blank negative enclosures, I discovered more nitrates disguised as empty envelopes (having become sticky and gluing themselves to the inside). Lingering unbeknown in the warm office for atleast 4 years, I was thankful that a disaster hadn’t occured.

Further Resources:

Disaster Strikes the National Archives: The 1978 Nitrate Vault Fire

Burn After Viewing, or, Fire in the Vaults: Nitrate Decomposition and Combustibility

Heated to Ignition: The 1978 Suitland Film Vault Fire

Introduction To Nitrate Film