They had a big idea that the original sources would be of value to everyone in perpetuity, so they collected those materials and brought them here as a gift to the nation. Why washington dc . It is an international city, our capitol. So in addition to putting this marvelous collection here they created this remarkable building which has the 1st north american to the theater with a beautiful great hall that we are in and another beautiful who are the folgers . President of standard oil and he made his fortune as an oilman and then while he was running standard oil very quietly acquired the greatest shakespeare collection in the world bar none including 82 copies of the 16,231st vote in. We would here that term throughout the store. The 1st folio is a collection of 36 plays published by two of his friends who knew him. Without that book published in 1623 we probably would not have 18 of his plays including mcbeth and 12th night and winters tale, the most studied single edition of the boo