Header Image Source and Fun Fact

The source of the image behind my header was provided by my co-worker who used to work at the Lily in Bloomington, Indiana as a digital archivist. One of his goals while working there was to hold a book that each of the United States Presidents owned. He almost reached his goal before relocating to Fort Collins and shared with me his favorite one which is the star of this post.

This image (seen below) is one of the photos he took of a book that President George Washington gave to the Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, titled, in abbreviation, Laws, etc. (Acts passed at the First Congress of the United States of America).

The actual title is:

“Acts passed at a Congress of the United States of America: begun and held at the city of New-York, on Wednesday the fourth of March in the year M, DCC, LXXXIX, and of the independence of the United States the thirteenth: being the acts passed at the first session of the first Congress of the United States: to whit, New-Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New-York, New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, South-Carolina, and Georgia, which eleven states respectively ratified the Constitution of government for the United States, proposed by the Federal Convention, held in Philadelphia on the seventeenth of September, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven.”

What is particularly exciting about this was Jefferson’s contribution to editing the 8^th Amendment to what we know it as today – “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted.” Jefferson wrote in the margin “punishment” after striking through the word “imprisonments.”

Pretty neat, huh?