Founders Library

The centerpiece of Howard University's campus is Founders Library, the  main arts and sciences library and the hub for library services. One of the most historic buildings in the world, Founders Library has been a gathering place for scholars, advocates, researchers, cultural leaders, and policy leaders since 1939. It is one of the most iconic buildings in Washington, D.C. Designed by architect Albert Irvin Cassell, the building features five main reading rooms and a clock tower fashioned after Independence Hall in Philadelphia, where the Declaration of Independence was signed. The bell tower at the top of the building rises 167 feet high.

About the Building's Name

Founders Library is named in tribute to the group of visionaries who conceived of Howard University and brought it into reality, including General Oliver O. Howard and members of the Missionary Society of the First Congregational Church of Washington. D. C.

Howard History

• Founders Library served as home for the Howard University School of Law from 1944 to 1955. The strategies for lawsuits that would eventually eliminate legally mandated segregation in the U.S., including the Brown vs. Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas case, were devised in Founders Library, largely by the law school's dean, Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall, a Howard Law School alumnus who was then director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc.
• Congress appropriated $1 million for the construction of Founders Library, making it the most expensive building on any college campus at the time.
• The Moorland-Spingarn Research Center is housed in Founders Library. Moorland-Spingard is one of the world’s largest repositories of historical records documenting the global black experience. The center is the holder of first editions of books by  preeminent African Americans, including Howard alumna Zora Neale Hurston, and former Howard faculty member Alain Locke, recognized as the "father of the Harlem Renaissance."
• Founders Library was designated as a “national treasure” by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
• Harold Ickes, U.S. Secretary of the Interior in the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, spoke at the dedication of Founders Library.