Folger Shakespeare Library
Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C., a privately endowed research library. The trustees of Amherst College administer the library with funds left them by Henry Clay Folger (1857–1930), a United States oil executive. The library is notable not only for its collection of Shakespearean and Elizabethan materials but also for rare English books dating from the introduction of printing (1476) to the death of Queen Anne (1714). Its building, dedicated in 1932, is near the Library of Congress.