Between 1804 and 1814, Congress had no fixed policy in relation to printing. A contract system by the lowest bidder was adopted. The plan prevailed for 5 years but was very unsatisfactory, and Congress was compelled to look for a better method. In December, 1818, both houses passed a resolution appointing a joint committee to “consider and report whether any further provisions of law are necessary to insure dispatch, accuracy, and neatness in printing the documents of the two Houses of Congress.” The inquiries by this committee led them to New York and Philadelphia, where they studied printing costs and methods, and upon returning to Washington they made a report declaring most emphatically for the establishment of a national printing office as the only means by which Congress could secure necessary printing at reasonable costs. No definite action was taken on the report, with the result that for the next forty-odd years the method of handling public printing was constantly changing. Some years there was a “Printer to the Senate” and a “Printer to the House,” both elected by a ballot of Congress, and in other years there was a “Superintendent of Public Printing.” Altogether it was expensive and impractical, and by act of Congress on June 23, 1860, a national printing office was authorized. On February 19, 1861, $135,000 was appropriated, and with this money the printing establishment of Joseph T. Crowell, located at H and North Capitol Streets, Washington, D. C., was purchased, upon approval of the Joint Committee on Printing. This building had been constructed in 1856 by Cornelius Wendell, as a private office. The building at that time was 243 by 61¹⁄₂ feet, 4 stories high, but by subsequent appropriations up to 1876 several additions were made to the original structure. [Illustration: THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE] The plant, as taken over in 1861, employed between 300 and 400 persons and evidently was, for that period, very complete. It consisted of a drying room, pressroom, wetting room, job room, folding room, reading room, office, bindery, machine shop, boiler house, and stable. Among some of the items of equipment were 1 timepiece, 5 wrenches, one 40-horse engine, 104 pressboards, 2 wetting tubs, and a large assortment of book and job type. The reading room had eight armchairs, two pine desks, and one mahogany desk. The bindery had but few machines, with only 2 ruling and 2 cutting machines, but the list carried 10 pairs of shears, 4 bodkins, and other minor equipment. The pressroom had 23 Adams presses and 3 cylinder presses. With the stable came two horses, one wagon, and one carryall, and the boiler house had one 60-horse boiler, 525 feet of fire hose, five buckets, etc. On March 23, 1861, President Lincoln appointed Hon. John Defrees, of Indiana, as the Superintendent of Public Printing. He reported that at once the cost of work decreased at least 15 percent from the old contract prices.