Evening star., 1946-02-24
Fifty Years AGO
The question of who actually designed
the Library of Congress would appear

Inc question OF VINO actually designed
the Library of Congress would appear
to be settled by
Libroy Of Congress a formal state
Architects ment published
in The Star for
February IA, 1896. reading in part: I'VE
are familiar with this building from the
beginning to the present time and feel
that no one can, with propriety or
honesty, be entitled to the credit as
architect of this building except J. L.
Smithmeyer and Paul j. Pez. They
have devoted the best years Of their
lives, from 1873 to 1893, in perfecting
the plan" Robert Stead, president and
Glenn Brown, secretary of the Amer
ican Institute of Architects, affixed
their signatures to the uncompromising
sentiments quoted.
= front-page story in The Star of
February l3. 1896. reported from St.
Petersburg, Russia,
Nonsens that: "A Siberian
FoFthest North trader ma mt d
Konchnareff, who
is the agent of DR.. Fridtjof Nansen, the
Norwegian explorer, who sailed in the
Fran, June %, 1893, has received
information to the effect that DR.. Nam
sen has reached the North Pole and has
found land there and is now returning"
Previous rumors of success had been
printed in newspapers in Paris, London
and ChriStiania, but even Dr. Nansen's
most enthusiastic friends were skeptical
The doubterS, as it happened, were JUS
titled since the explorer at the moment
was aboard his stalwart ship frozen in
the ice and slowly drifting toward S6
degrees north-the highest latitude
reached by any man in the 18th GEN.
tury. DR.. Nansen actually attained his
"farthest'+ on foot on April g. The
Fran achieved IS degrees 81 minutes,
then turned south, arriving in her home
waters on August 20, 1896. DR.. Nansen
himself came back week earlier, hav-
ing been picked up at Jackson Island by
Frederick Jackson
Mrs. Grover Cleveland, chronicled
The Star for February Is, 1896, at
tended a concert at
Fist lody the Metropolitan A. M.
At Concert E. Church, M street,
between Fifteenth and
Sixteenth streets NV, in aid of
the Home for Friendless Colored Girls
The wife of the President, it was ex-
planned, entered - in such a quiet
and unostentatious manner" that her
presence was not known for some
time. - At last, however, boy in the
gallery noticed Mrs. Cleveland and he
passed the word around. The news
spread with surprising rapidity, and
the applause which followed was en-
thusiastic." Among the musicians par
ticipating in the program were: Mrs
Lula Joy Brooks, Edward T. Harris, Miss
Louise Hamer, Miss Marie James, w. C.
Elkins and Joseph H. Douglass
The hobby of collecting book plates
was comparatively new half a century
ago, but it was
Book Plates making rapid prog
On Exhibition ress, according to
The Star of Feb
ruary II, 1896, wherein it was set forth
that nearly 5000 different specimens
were on display at the Cosmos Club.
Included among the more important
designs shown were the personal bibli-
ographic labels of Presidents George
Washington, John Adams and James
Monroe, William Penn of Pennsylvania,
Charles Carroll of CarroHton, Daniel
Webster, George Bancroft. Oliver Wen-
dell Holmes, Henry Wadsworth Long
fellow, Edmund Clarence Stedman and
Eugene Field.
Part of page and most of page 3 Of
The Star for February 18. 1896, were de-
voted to run
Fifth D. A. r. ming account of
Convention Opens the fifth annual
congress of the
Daughters of the American Revolution,
meeting at the Church of Our Father,
Thirteenth and L streets NV. "The
most important business" of the open
ing session was the address of the presi-
dent general, Mrs. John w. Foster, wife