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Mount Vernon library opens after $100 M fundraising campaign

Mount Vernon library: The Library will be home to visiting scholars who will live at Mount Vernon and research specific aspects of the Founding era.

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Jacquelyn Martin/AP
Curt Viebranz, president and CEO of George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate, Museum is seen in the new Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington in Mount Vernon, Va. After years of planning and a $100 million fundraising campaign, George Washington's Mount Vernon estate is formally opening a new library dedicated to the study of America's first president and the Founding Fathers. (
  • By Associated Press

| MOUNT VERNON, Va.

After years of planning and a $100 million fundraising campaign, George Washington's Mount Vernon estate is formally opening a new library dedicated to the study of America's first president and the Founding Fathers.

A Friday dedication ceremony is scheduled at the 45,000 square-foot library.

It will be home to visiting scholars who will live at Mount Vernon and research specific aspects of the Founding era. A rare-book vault houses dozens of books that Washington personally owned.

The library will function in some ways like a modern presidential library. But the Mount Vernon library receives no government funding and is intended primarily to foster formal scholarship; it is not designed to accommodate casual tourists. The estate in 2006 opened new education and orientation centers to serve the public.

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