Ainsworth Rand Spofford (September 12, 1825 – August 11, 1908) was an American journalist, prolific writer and the sixth Librarian of Congress. He served as librarian from 1864 to 1897 under the administration of ten presidents. A great admirer of Benjamin Franklin, he wrote a twenty-one page introduction in Franklin's autobiography, which he edited and published. Early life Spofford was born in Gilmanton, New Hampshire. Ill health prevented him from attending Amherst College. He instead, at age 19, moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he became a bookseller, publisher, and newspaper man at The Cincinnati Commercial Tribune. In 1849, Spofford founded the Literary Club of Cincinnati with John Celivergos Zachos, Stanley Matthews and nine others. Prominent members included Rutherford B. Hayes and Alphonso Taft; notable club guests Ralph Waldo Emerson, Booker T. Washington, Mark Twain, and Robert Frost. In 1850 prominent abolitionist and woman's rights activist John Celivergos Zachos named his son Ainsworth to honor Spofford. In 1851, in response to the Fugitive Slave Law, he published the pamphlet The Higher Law, Tried by Reason and Authority, which argued that "Injustice is the only treason; no law can legalize it, no constitution can sanction it." Readers included Emerson, who shared Spofford's antislavery principles. In 1859 Spofford became associate editor of the Cincinnati Commercial. He was also active in Republican politics and was a delegate to the 1856 Republican National Convention, where John C. Frémont was nominated. While in Washington, D.C., in 1861, shortly after reporting on the First Battle of Bull Run for The Cincinnati Commercial, Spofford accepted the position of Chief Assistant Librarian of Congress under the Librarian of Congress John G. Stephenson. Once Spofford learned of the impending retirement of Stephenson, Spofford gathered enough political endorsements for the position, which later led President Abraham Lincoln to promote Spofford to the post of Librarian of Congress in 1864. He was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society in 1873. Librarian of Congress Spofford served as the Librarian of Congress from 1864 to 1897, a tenure that saw the expansion of the library's collections and notable changes in its methods of collection development. According to the library's published history, Spofford contributed to the Jeffersonian vision for the library that a “democratic form of government depended on a comprehensive base of knowledge and information.” Spofford is generally credited with overseeing the expansion of the Library from a Congressional resource into