The Navy Department Library is the official library of the United States Department of the Navy. Located at the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., it is a part of the Naval History and Heritage Command.
The Navy Department Library is the official library of the United States Department of the Navy. Located at the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., it is a part of the Naval History and Heritage Command.
Secretary of the Navy Benjamin Stoddert received a letter from President John Adams dated On March 31, 1800 directing him to establish a library for the United States Department of the Navy. It was asked that the literature acquired and stored included works detailing the theory and practice of naval architecture, navigation, and naval combat. Additionally, the parameters for the written works origin was not to be limited to English but inclusive of any nation's success. [2]
Despite the letter dating back to 1800, the library's origin can be dated back to the War Department in Philadelphia in 1794. Subsequently, the Navy received departmental status in 1798 and the collection of materials relating to naval affairs were transferred out of the Philadelphia library and into that of a tavern in Trenton, New Jersey. It was once the national capital moved to Washington that the Department of the Navy officially found refuge in Georgetown. [2]
The Navy's library survived the 1814 burning of Washington during the War of 1812 and, after the end of the war, located to the Old Navy Department Building. [1] The library had some 1300 volumes in its collection by 1824, although many items were subsequently transferred to the Library of Congress. [1]
The Library is part of the Federal Depository Library Program. [3]
As of 2019, the Library contains an estimated 114,000 book titles; 374,000 manuscripts; and 189,000 periodical issues. [3] Some 5,644 items in the collection are considered rare. [3] The collection emphasizes "naval, nautical, and military history" including the history of the United States Navy and foreign navies. [3] The public may borrow from most of the library's collection via interlibrary loan. [4]
The library uses the Library of Congress Classification system and employs Online Computer Library Center services (with an interface via WorldCat) for cataloging and interlibrary loans. [3]
The library's rare book room, a climate-controlled vault being renovated in 2013–2014, contains books written before 1600, and many more recent items such as John Paul Jones' calling card collection from when he was with the Russian navy, and documents captured on German submarine U-505 when Daniel V. Gallery boarded it in 1944. [5] Another item is Captain John Smith’s treatise on the duties of sailing men, called An Accidence or Path-way to Experience (1626), a precursor to The Bluejacket's Manual . [6] Additional highlights of the collection include Thomas Truxtun's Instructions, Signals and Explanations... (1797), the U.S. Navy's first signal book; rare Civil War materials from the Union Navy and Confederate Navy; and Germany Navy war diaries. [3]
The library's logo, derived from a 1906 bookplate designed in the U.S. Naval Hydrographic Office, features a bald eagle, an anchor, Neptune and Nereid, a seashell, and the USS Constitution, all nautical and national symbols. [1]
USS Congress was a nominally rated 38-gun wooden-hulled, three-masted heavy frigate of the United States Navy. James Hackett built her at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and she was launched on 15 August 1799. She was one of the original six frigates whose construction the Naval Act of 1794 had authorized. The name "Congress" was among ten names submitted to President George Washington by Secretary of War Timothy Pickering in March 1795 for the frigates that were to be constructed.Joshua Humphreys designed these frigates to be the young Navy's capital ships, and so Congress and her sisters were larger and more heavily armed and built than the standard frigates of the period.
Benjamin Stoddert was the first United States Secretary of the Navy from 1 May 1798 to 31 March 1801.
The fourth USS Philadelphia (C-4) was the sixth protected cruiser of the United States Navy. Although designed by the Navy Department, her hull was similar to the preceding British-designed Baltimore, but Philadelphia had a uniform main armament of twelve 6-inch guns.
The Washington Navy Yard (WNY) is a ceremonial and administrative center for the United States Navy, located in Washington, D.C. It is the oldest shore establishment of the U.S. Navy, situated along the Anacostia River in the Navy Yard neighborhood of Southeast D.C.
USS Jacob Jones was a Tucker-class destroyer built for the United States Navy prior to the American entry into World War I. The ship was the first U.S. Navy vessel named in honor of Jacob Jones.
USS Cassin (DD-372) was a Mahan-class destroyer in the United States Navy before and during World War II. She was the second ship named for Stephen Cassin, an officer in the United States Navy.
Isaac Hull was a Commodore in the United States Navy. He commanded several famous U.S. naval warships including USS Constitution and saw service in the undeclared naval Quasi War with the revolutionary French Republic (France) 1796–1800; the Barbary Wars, with the Barbary states in North Africa; and the War of 1812 (1812–1815), for the second time with Great Britain. In the latter part of his career he was Commandant of the Washington Navy Yard in the national capital of Washington, D.C., and later the Commodore of the Mediterranean Squadron. For the infant U.S. Navy, the battle of USS Constitution vs HMS Guerriere on August 19, 1812, at the beginning of the war, was the most important single ship action of the War of 1812 and one that made Isaac Hull a national hero.
The Naval History and Heritage Command, formerly the Naval Historical Center, is an Echelon II command responsible for the preservation, analysis, and dissemination of U.S. naval history and heritage located at the historic Washington Navy Yard. The NHHC is composed of 42 facilities in 13 geographic locations including the Navy Department Library, 10 museums and 1 heritage center, USS Constitution repair facility and detachment, and historic ship ex-USS Nautilus.
Edmund Ross Colhoun was a rear admiral of the United States Navy who served during the Mexican War and the American Civil War, in which he was commended for his participation in the bombardment and capture of Fort Fisher.
The United States Congress authorized the original six frigates of the United States Navy with the Naval Act of 1794 on March 27, 1794, at a total cost of $688,888.82. These ships were built during the formative years of the United States Navy, on the recommendation of designer Joshua Humphreys for a fleet of frigates powerful enough to engage any frigates of the French or British navies, yet fast enough to evade any ship of the line.
Daniel Todd Patterson was a United States Navy officer who served during the Quasi-War, First Barbary War, and War of 1812.
Henry Erben was a rear admiral of the United States Navy, who served in the American Civil War and the Spanish–American War. His father, also named Henry Erben (1800–1884), was a prominent builder of pipe organs.
William Ledyard Rodgers was a vice admiral of the United States Navy. His career included service in the Spanish–American War and World War I, and a tour as President of the Naval War College. Rodgers was also a noted historian on military and naval topics, particularly relating to ancient naval warfare.
The National Museum of the United States Navy, or U.S. Navy Museum for short, is the flagship museum of the United States Navy and is located in the former Breech Mechanism Shop of the old Naval Gun Factory on the grounds of the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., United States.
USS John M. Howard (IX-75), previously the yacht Elsie Fenimore, was an unclassified miscellaneous vessel, was the only ship of the United States Navy to be named for John Martin Howard. Ensign Howard, USNR, had graduated from the third class at the Advanced Mine School, later Mine Disposal School, and been sent to England to observe and gain experience with Royal Navy and Royal Engineers in mine disarming and disposal. He had been the first Navy mine disposal person killed when, on 11 June 1942, he was observing Lcdr. Roy Berryman Edwards, RN, DSO, BEM defusing a German TMA-1 magnetic influence naval mine that detonated on Corton sands near Lowestoft. The detonation left nothing but scattered debris from sea to cliffs and two hundred yards in each direction along the beach.
USS Monadnock (ACM-10) was a coastal minelayer in the U.S. Navy, the third vessel named after Mount Monadnock, a solitary mountain (monadnock) of more than 3,100 feet in southern New Hampshire close to the border of Massachusetts. The ship was built as the cargo vessel Cavalier for the Philadelphia and Norfolk Steamship Company by Pusey and Jones Corporation, Wilmington, Delaware in 1938. The Navy purchased the ship 9 June 1941 for wartime use. After decommissioning the ship was sold in June 1947 for commercial use then sold to a Panamanian company in 1949 to be renamed Karukara. In 1952 the ship became Monte de la Esperanza for a company in Bilbao, Spain transporting bananas to the United Kingdom from the Canary Islands for more than 20 years. She was later sold to the Marine Institute of Spain for operation as a hospital ship for more than 10 years serving the fishing fleet of the Canary Islands as Esperanza del Mar until becoming an artificial reef off Spain in 2000.
USS Ameera (SP-453) was a United States Navy Section patrol vessel in commission from 1917 to 1919.
Rosinco was a diesel-powered luxury yacht that sank in Lake Michigan off the coast of Kenosha, Wisconsin in 1928. The yacht was built in 1916 as Georgiana III and served during World War I as USS Georgiana III, a Section patrol craft, under a free lease to the Navy by her owner and commanding officer. After the war the yacht was sold and renamed Whitemarsh in 1918. In 1925, after sale to Robert Hosmer Morse of Fairbanks-Morse, the yacht became Rosinco. She was sunk following a collision in 1928 and the wreck was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.
Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright II was an officer in the United States Navy during the American Civil War, who was killed in action during the Battle of Galveston.
