Folger Shakespeare Library - Washington DC

The Folger Shakespeare Library opened in 1932 as a gift to the United States from Henry Clay Folger and his wife Emily Jordan Folger. Henry Folger's interest in Shakespeare was sparked by a lecture given by Ralph Waldo Emerson that he attended as a senior at Amherst College in 1879. Throughout a long career, he built up the world's largest collection of Shakespeare materials. Together, Henry and Emily Folger then planned the library that would house their collection.

Following its opening, the Folger Shakespeare Library steadily expanded its collection to become a world-class research center on the early modern age in the West, while remaining the premier center for Shakespeare studies and resources outside of England.