Home of Liberty
In 1921, the parchment found refuge in the Jefferson Building in response to an executive order by President Warren G. Harding:
“It is hereby ordered that [the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and other papers] be transferred from the Department of State to the possession and custody of the Library of Congress, to be there preserved and rendered accessible for historical and other legitimate uses …”
For the next three decades, successive Librarians honored that charge, first by constructing a shrine for secure display, and later, as the Library’s 1952 annual report noted, by having the “courage” to support the documents’ departure.
Designed by Francis H. Bacon, the marble and bronze shrine stood along the western wall of the Jefferson Building’s Great Hall. President Calvin Coolidge, Secretary of State Charles Hughes and members of Congress joined Librarian Herbert Putnam at its 1924 unveiling.
The double-plated glass cases — the Declaration above, the Constitution below — contained gelatin film to mitigate the sun’s harmful rays. Yet environmental concerns persisted, leading the Library’s Keeper of the Collections to seek a more stable enclosure — especially for the Declaration, noticeably faded and damaged from its pre-Library handling, including, following the War of 1812, the making of “wet press” copies that lifted original ink onto damp paper.
Meanwhile, the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor sparked additional fears, prompting the move of both documents and other treasures to Fort Knox for safekeeping.
In 1944, the United States Marine Band heralded the manuscripts’ return, and in 1951, President Harry S. Truman spoke at a rousing rededication of the shrine, fitted with new helium-filled cases, light filters and humidity gauges. Just a year later, however, a final, bittersweet ceremony marked the end of the Library’s custody and the permanent installation of the founding documents in the National Archives’ fortified Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom.