A man of diverse cultural interests, he gradually built up a collection of Shakespeareana. He and his wife, Emily Jordan Folger (1858–1936), spent nine years planning for a library of Shakespearean materials to be built on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. In 1928 the U.S. Congress approved their project, thereby permitting the Folgers to purchase land that had been intended for the expansion of the Library of Congress. Although Henry Folger died just as construction had begun in 1930, Emily Folger oversaw the completion of the Folger Shakespeare Library and assisted with funding in the midst of the Great Depression.