John Silva Meehan

Imagine a grown-up who loved books so much, he became the boss of a super-duper library! That was John Silva Meehan. He was born a long, long time ago, way back in 1790.

He started his career by printing books and newspapers, which is like being a super-fast writer and artist for words. He even worked for the Navy for a little bit, but mostly, he was all about the printed page and helping people find stories.

John started out printing religious books and newspapers. Then, he got involved with politics! He helped a newspaper that supported a president named Andrew Jackson.

Later, after President Jackson was elected, John got a really important job. He became the Librarian of Congress! This means he was in charge of a huge collection of books, like the biggest library in the whole country.

He helped it grow bigger and bigger!

One day, a terrible fire happened at the library. WHOOSH! Flames ate up thousands of books. That's like losing all the books in your school library and then some! But John and his friends didn't give up. They worked super hard to rebuild the library and fill it with new books. It was like putting together a giant puzzle after a big mess, making the library even better than before.

John Silva Meehan was the Librarian of Congress for a super long time, from 1829 all the way to 1861. That's longer than you've been alive, and longer than your parents have been alive! He saw the library get much bigger during his time. Even though some people thought he could have done more, he was a steady hand helping the library grow and recover from that big fire.