As the nation geared up for World War I, inventor Thomas Edison urged the government to fund and create a laboratory to further research toward national defense. It took a few years, but he finally got his wish. (Photo source: Wikipedia) The year was 1915. World War I was raging in Europe and Americans were uneasy at the prospect that their country would soon be brought into the conflict. As a man with a history of creative ideas, it’s no surprise Thomas Edison had some thoughts on the situation and he was not shy about sharing them.

On May 30, 1915 the New York Times ran a two-page spread entitled, “Edison’s Plan for Preparedness,” in which the inventor spoke at length about how the United States could learn from the mistakes made by the combatants in Europe and build a highly-efficient war machine.

Citing his faith in American ingenuity and industrial prowess, Edison’s ideas ran from manufacturing improvements to developments in transportation and weapons production. But perhaps his most far-reaching (and locally significant!) proposal was this:

“The Government should maintain a great research laboratory, jointly under military and naval and civilian control. In this could be developed the continually increasing possibilities of great guns, the minutiae of new explosives, all the technique of military and naval progression, without any vast expense. When the time came, if it ever did, we could take advantage of the knowledge gained through this research work and quickly manufacture in large quantities the very latest and most efficient instruments of warfare.”[1]

Picking up the newspaper in Washington, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels was intrigued. The Navy was already receiving many of proposals from civilians and companies suggesting new inventions that would aid in national defense. But, with no single department tapped to consider them, these ideas largely fell by the wayside.

Seizing on Edison’s suggestion of a civilian-military research lab, Daniels reached out to the inventor to gauge his interest in chairing an advisory board for the Navy – which would later be called the Naval Consulting Board on Inventions – “to which all ideas and suggestions, either from the service or from civilian inventors, can be referred for determination as to whether they contain practical suggestions for us to take up and perfect.”[2]

The board would consist of two dozen scientific leaders from around the country. But, in the eyes of the Secretary, Edison’s participation was particularly crucial: “I feel that our chances of getting the public interested and back of this project will be enormously increased if we can have, at the start, some man whose inventive genius is recognized by the whole world to assist us in consultation from time to time on matters of sufficient importance to bring his attention. You are recognized by all of us as the one man above all others who can turn dreams into realities.”[3]

Edison was interested (and perhaps also flattered by the Secretary’s praise) and he accepted the appointment on July 13. However, in doing so, he once again urged the government to think bigger: “In addition to the Advisory Board of Engineers I would also suggest a department of experimentation, where ideas might be tried out. The cost would be nominal. Only a few acres of land would be required with proper buildings and a corps of efficient men.”[4]

With the war raging on, the idea for a lab gathered steam. In October, the board unanimously approved Edison’s proposal, which called for a lab complex with “complete equipment, to enable working models to be made and tested to destruction.” Facilities would include a woodworking shop, a brass foundry, a cast iron and steel foundry, a chemical lab, a motion picture developing and printing department and an explosives lab amongst other specialties. It was pretty much an inventor’s heaven.

A naval officer would be put in charge and lead a team of lower ranking Navy experts and civilian scientists. The lab was to be located “on tidewater of sufficient depth to permit a dreadnought [battleship] to come to dock and that it be near but not in a large city.” Edison personally drew the plans for the campus, which the press touted as “the greatest research laboratory in the world, where work that now takes months to accomplish can be finished in as many days.”[5] Congress approved an initial allocation of $1.5 million for the project in 1916.

But exactly where would this world-class lab be built?

As one might imagine, it was an attractive project and cities lined up to make their pitches. The mayor of Baltimore put together a delegation to meet with Navy officials and make the case for that city; Philadelphia expressed an interest, as did New York and other jurisdictions.

Most on the board leaned toward a site on the Severn River near the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, while Edison favored New York. Meanwhile, many senior government officers preferred putting the lab in Washington so that it would be close to the Navy Department. Skeptics of the D.C. location claimed that the Potomac River was not wide or deep enough to accommodate the ships the lab would require for its tests.

The lack of consensus delayed the project. So, too, ironically, did America’s entry into the war. As the Washington Post reported in June 1917, “The explanation to postpone construction of this plant is that practically without exception the inventors and scientists that are working on naval problems have excellently equipped laboratories in which to carry on their work. Therefore, it is felt that equipping one at great cost to the government at this time would be unwise, not only on account of the money involved, but also on account of the sidetracking of valuable skilled labor and much needed officers.”[6]

So, Edison’s dream of creating an invention laboratory to help the war cause would have to wait until after the war was over? Yes, pretty much.

Fortunately, however, the project did not die altogether as, even in peace time, officials still recognized its potential. In 1920, the government finally decided to build the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington “on the site of the old powder magazine at Bellevue, on the District side of the Potomac River.”[7]

The United States Naval Research Laboratory began operations on July 2, 1923 and remains one of the nation’s premier research and development installations today. Since 1953, visitors to the lab have been greeted by a large bust of Edison at the NRL’s front gate, which was sculpted by Evelyn Beatrice Longman (who also did work on the Lincoln Memorial) and presented to the Navy by the Thomas Alva Edison Foundation, Inc.[8]

Lew Alcindor throws down a slam dunk in the 1965 game between Power Memorial Academy and DeMatha Catholic at Cole Field House. Dematha won the game and ended Power Memorial's 71 game winning streak. (Photo source: The Washington Star) Some have called it the greatest high school basketball game ever played.

On January 30, 1965, before a packed house at the University of Maryland’s Cole Field House,  Dematha Catholic clashed with the aptly-named Power Memorial Academy out of New York City. Led by 7’1” center Lew Alcindor (who later became the all-time leading scorer in the history of the NBA as Kareem Abdul Jabbar), Power Memorial was riding a 71-game winning streak and had been tabbed as the mythical #1 high school team in the nation. (Official national rankings for high school basketball weren’t kept back then.)

Dematha, which had made a name for itself in the Washington area prep circuit under then 33-year-old coach Morgan Wooten, was no slouch either. The Stags were riding a 23-game winning streak of their own. Still, it was clear Wooten’s squad would have its hands full with the New Yorkers and, in particular, Alcindor, “a 17-year-old who is not only big but quick, smooth and agile” who was drawing comparisons to Wilt Chamberlain.[1] Dematha had witnessed Alcindor’s skills up close the previous season, when he had scored 35 points – over half his team’s total – against them in a 65-62 Power Memorial win.

To prepare for the rematch – and simulate the long arms of Alicindor – Wooten got creative with help from assistant coach (and future Dematha principal) John Moylan. “John was a tennis player and he suggested we use rackets during practice to simulate Abdul-Jabbar’s reach. So we ran our offense with everyone taking turns shooting with a higher trajectory. Abdul-Jabbar blocked a lot of shots and forced us to change our shots in the first game [in 1964]. This time, we weren’t intimidated by him.”[2]

Well, maybe they were still a little intimidated. As the Stags’ center Bob Whitmore – who was one of those tasked with guarding Alcindor – recalled: “[The two teams] had a pregame meal at DeMatha, and the priest asked everyone to stand for the prayer. He just kept going up and up and up. And my heart kept going down, down, down.”[3]

Fans rushed to buy tickets for the 1965 rematch and a capacity crowd of 12,500 filled Cole Field House on a snowy Saturday night.

The game lived up to expectations. After one quarter, Power Memorial held an 11-8 lead. At halftime DeMatha led 23-22. The second half was neck-and-neck. With 1:40 left in the game DeMatha led by two points when Sid Catlett hit a long jump shot and a free throw to extend the lead to five. The Stags held off Power Memorial for a 46-43 win.

The longest winning streak in the history of high school basketball was over, thanks largely to DeMatha’s collapsing defense on Lew Alcindor. With help from his teammates, Bob Whitmore had held the 7-footer to 16 points, far below his 30 points per game average. Years later, Jabbar reflected on the experience in his autobiography, “It had been a hard night…. I was unwilling to take my uniform off and admit the game was over. I was a little dazed.”[4]

The game firmly established DeMatha as one of the top prep basketball programs in the country, and garnered the Washington, D.C. region more attention from college coaches who had previously concentrated their recruiting efforts on Philadelphia and New York City. Wooten put it like this: “Our win over Abdul-Jabbar and Power then gave us a reputation as a basketball area. The influx of college coaches coming here really began after that.”[5] The increased interest opened up more opportunities for area players to earn basketball scholarships to play in college. In addition, the game ushered in a new era for high school basketball nationally, where teams from different regions began to play one another more often and there were national rankings.

The impacts also extended beyond the hardwood. As Catlett pointed out in a recent interview with The Washington Post, the game had greater significance in light of what was going on in the country at the time: “What was taking place politically — Selma, voting rights — when you place that event and the gathering and the diverse family of people who were in attendance at that game, that was certainly an indication of social advancement, I believe, to its highest.” [6] Diversity was not restricted to the fans. Both teams were also integrated, which was not always the case at the time.

For more on the game and its legacy, check out the Post's retrospective article and video with Morgan Wooten. Also, enjoy this collection of vintage highlights from the game (and its awesome soundtrack).

As you might remember from Nathanial Hawthorne’s impressions of Washington, the D.C. area was full of soldiers during the Civil War. Luckily for us, we can actually read an account from one of the soldiers thanks to the diary of Maximilian Hartman. A German tailor, Hartman immigrated to the U.S. to live with his brother in Pennsylvania. In 1861, both brothers joined up with the Union Army and headed south. The following is the account of Hartman’s regiment’s visit to Washington in his own words.

November 20, 1861

There is nothing but soldiers from [Baltimore] to Washington along the railroad.

At 6 o’clock in the morning we walked over to the Washington Depot, which is about 3 miles. On our way we passed the Washington Monument, which is built of solid marble and is 250 feet high and is built in the center of the street. But most of the houses that we saw on our way through the whole city are only three stories high but they are most all of them higher than the Mishlers Hotel in Pennsylvania Street in Reading, which is five stories high, and they are all built of fine pressed bricks. But they are nicer than the Reading Bricks are.

We got to Washington about 4 o’clock in the evening where we took out supper… And then slept in a place called Soldier’s Rest, which is the house the President held his Inaugural Ball in. It is about one square from the Capital…

At half past eleven o’clock we started for our camp which is about two miles from the Capital of the United States and we can see all over the town, and we can see the United States Patent Office and the White House, the Washington Monument, but it is not by far finished yet, and it is all built of white marble as is the Patent Office, White House, and the Capitol, but the Dome of the Capitol is all built of iron and made to imitate marble, but it is not done by far yet. There is hardly anything else to be seen around us as far as the eye can see but the white houses of Uncle Sam’s men, and all day you can hear the cannons roar for practicing.

November 30, 1861

This was the greatest day that I ever had and I would not take twenty dollars if I had not seen it before we leave Washington. Our mess of five men and one corporal went to the city and first we went to the United States Capitol which fills three acres of land, but I think it will take about thirty years yet until it will be quite finished. The first is that you see the outside of the fine building which is beyond description in regard to fine sculpture work and the fine statues where about 15 to 20 feet high…

When we come inside of the room under the dome, the whole walls are covered with large pictures which are aobut 15 feet long and 12 feet high…

We then went up on the dome as far as we could get. Up thre we had a fine view of the whole city and the whole Potomac, the long bridge and Alexandria, the large medical college in Fairfax County, the Maryland Lunatic Asylum, St. Matthew’s Catholic Church, the Navy Yard, the Arsenal, the President’s House, the White House, the United States Treasury, Post Office, Smithsonian Institute, the Washington Monument. After we got down we went into the Senate Room which was just newly painted, but here you can see the luxury of people. After that we went through all the other rooms and into the House of Representatives where they were just fixing up in the basement of the Capitol. They bake all the bread for the Army around Washington.

After that we went to the Smithsonian Institute, but this place beats all I ever saw. In the First place it is a most splendid building, built of brick. When we got into the inside we went into the Museum there. You can see every sort of creature that lives on the earth, in the water, or in the air… There you can sit down in the Library Room and read any book you wish to read. In one room there is all kinds of machinery, a lecture room, and a great many others. If I were to say all that I have seen there it would take me a whole year.

…We went to the Capitol part of the United States and this is the U.S. Patent Office, but her I cannot being to put down as the things there are by the thousands of every kind… We got tired of looking as our eyes got sore with looking at the things there.

We then went to the hospital where they have about 150 men in, but everything looks as white as snow in there. One man had just died when we came there. We then saw the Treasury and Post Office Department, the White House, Washington Monument, the President’s House and a great many other places. And on my way home I bought 1½ pounds of bologna sausage and good loaf of rye bread. The bread was excellent but the sausage was very poor.

Shortly after this entry, Hartman’s regiment left Washington for the Hampton Roads area of Virginia where Hartman was was wounded in the Battle of Fair Oaks in 1862. He never regained the use of one hand.

Source:

Maximilian Hartman Diaries (1861-1862), Special Collections Research Center, SWEM Library, College of William and Mary

Now abandoned, Glenn Dale Hospital and Sanatorium was Washington's response to its Tuberculosis problem in the 1930s. (Photo source: Wikipedia) Tuberculosis was a problem everywhere in the 1930s, but the disease hit few places as hard as it hit Washington, D.C. In fact, according to a 1934 report by the District Medical Society, only Memphis, San Antonio and New Orleans had higher death rates among large cities in the United States.[1]

The stats were alarming, no doubt. They were also somewhat surprising, at least according to some. As the DMS report noted, since D.C. “is less congested and the economic situation is better than in any other city in this country, we should have one of the lowest death rates.” However, the rate in the nation’s capital was “higher even than that of Baltimore, where congestion and the economic situation are notoriously unfavorable.” [2] (Sorry, Baltimore, apparently you were the measuring stick for terrible public health in the 1930s.)

While it might have been true that many parts of Washington were not as congested as other cities, a large proportion of the population – primarily poor blacks – lived in overflowing alley settlements. Largely out of view and/or ignored by whites in power, these neighborhoods were the perfect petri dish for “the white plague,” as a Washington Post expose explained: “Tuberculosis is the curse of the alleys. There is not enough light and there is not enough air…. Disease starts in the alleys and it spreads. The Washington citizen who has never taken the trouble to inspect an alley, still may fall victim to the disease arising in the alleys.”[3]

At the time of the DMS report, the District had one dedicated TB hospital for adult patients at 13^th and Upshur Streets, NW, and a recently-constructed city-owned facility for children at Glenn Dale in Prince Georges County, Maryland. With the Upshur St. hospital at capacity, District Commissioners began to push for an adult sanatorium to be built on the Glenn Dale campus next to the children’s facility.

It seemed like a reasonable plan. After all, the site had been studied and vetted by experts a few years earlier when the children’s hospital was built. However, the project depended on federal Public Works Administration money and the man holding the purse strings, Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, was not convinced. Ickes favored building the sanatorium at a higher elevation believing that mountain air would be beneficial to patients. So, much to the chagrin of D.C. health officials, the federal government appointed a special board of medical advisers to review other sites.

The Post lit into Ickes: “Some one might well remind Secretary Ickes that most of the world’s famous tuberculosis sanitariums are at sea level. This is true of the noted health resorts on the Riviera, in Florida and California. Physicians say that sunshine and a moderate climate are the important factors in treatment of this malady, with altitude a secondary consideration. High mountain atmosphere is doubtless stimulating in some cases but no such sites are available in the vicinity of Washington.”[4]

After several months, the advisory board agreed and construction on the Glenn Dale Hospital and Sanatorium began in 1935. But even as the bricks and mortar went up, the District’s TB problem was growing worse. The Upshur St. hospital was overcrowded and many infected persons (80% by some estimates!) did not even seek treatment due to the stigma the disease carried. These people continued to walk the streets and infect others.

 A frustrated D.C. Health Department official called for legal help in 1936. “If you steal a loaf of bread, you are hustled off to jail. But there are no regulations to curb the tuberculous person who refuses treatment and goes around spreading his disease.”[5]

To make matters worse, there weren’t enough doctors to care for the patients who did come to the hospital. As a Board of Public Welfare review committee put it, “The most serious problem of the hospital in connection with its tuberculosis work is an inadequacy of personnel, principally trained resident physicians and laboratory help.”[6]

While not a cure-all to the District’s tuberculosis problem, the new facility at Glenn Dale provided some light at the end of the tunnel. When it (finally!) opened for business on September 16, 1937, 225 patients – both white and black – were transferred from the old hospital in D.C.. The airy environment provided patients with much more comfortable surroundings and advances in tuberculosis research allowed for better care. Treatments improved, especially after Albert Schatz's discovery of the highly effective streptomycin antibiotic in 1943. Old treatments of "rest and isolation" gave way to more active methods.

By the late 1950s, the District’s TB rates had dropped to their lowest levels in years and officials reached the conclusion that keeping Glenn Dale as a dedicated TB hospital was a waste of resources. As a result the facility began to admit patients with other chronic illnesses or conditions. The hospital continued as such until 1982 when it was shut down for good.

Glenn Dale still stands today, but has fallen into disrepair. It's current dilapidated state has given rise to all sorts of urban legends about what supposedly happened on the grounds. For more on these legends and a great slideshow of images, check out the Abandoned D.C. article on DCist.

Holy Rosary Church, which was built by Italian immigrants in the early 20th Century. Credit: Farragutful, via Wikimedia Common The great surge of Italian immigration to the U.S., which began in the 1880s and lasted until 1920, brought about four million Italians to this country. Many flocked to places such as Little Italy in lower Manhattan and comparable ethnic neighborhoods in Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore, where new arrivals could speak their native language, find familiar food and churches in which to worship, and plug into a network that helped them to find employment. But Washington, D.C. didn't attract similarly large numbers of Italians. It was a government town without mills, factories or a commercial port, and there were fewer opportunities for unskilled former rural dwellers without language skills to support themselves. Instead, the area drew smaller numbers of skilled immigrants, such as the construction workers, artists and tradesmen who labored on the government buildings erected in the 19th and early 20th centuries. 

Those early Italian immigrants to DC never really established a true Little Italy of their own. Instead, they mostly settled in two residential neighborhoods that vanished long ago — Swampoodle, near the U.S. Capitol and Union Station, and the Judiciary Square area.

Swampoodle got its name from Tiber Creek, a stream that once flowed through downtown Washington and often overflowed its banks during rainstorms, turning its banks into a sea of mud. In the 1840s and 1850s, Swampoodle was settled by Irish immigrants who came to work on buildings such as the U.S. Capitol, the Post Office, and some of the structures on the Mall. It was filled with ramshackle houses in which the Irish lived a rough-hewn existence, hanging their laundry and raising farm animals in the alleyways. The neighborhood's lone elegant feature was St. Aloysius Roman Catholic church, designed by architect and Jesuit priest Father Benedict Sestini, a native of Florence, Italy. Sestini happened to be friends with Italian-American artist Constantino Brumidi, who took time out from his work on the U.S. Capitol to paint murals for the church. When it opened in 1859, President James Buchanan attended the service. 

A few decades later in the 1890s, Swampoodle also became home to Italian workers who came to the District to work on the Capitol, the Library of Congress and other public buidings, and on the railroads. In a 2014 blog post, Leo Cecchini recalls that one of the new arrivals was his grandfather, who worked as a gandy dancer — a worker who laid and maintained railroad tracks — and eventually bought a house in the area. In 1903, more Italian construction workers arrived to participate in the construction of Union Station. According to historians Paul Kelsey Williams' and Gregory J. Alexander's book Capitol Hill, the Italians were housed in temporary camps in Swampoodle, which apparently didn't sit well with the Irish, and the two groups sometimes came into conflict. That construction project would lead to the demise of Swampoodle, as homes were demolished to clear land for the train station.

Meanwhile, other Italians who came to the District in the early 20th Century settled a short distance to the west, in slightly more upscale row houses around the old DC City Hall/ Courthouse. As a 1990 Washington Post article detailed, the neighborhood attracted railroad men, carpenters, grocers and barbers. "They arrived with little money, abandant hope and an unwavering Catholicism they could fully express only in their native tongue,"Post writer Tony Glaros explained.

By 1913, the District's Italian immigrant population had grown to about 3,000, according to Glaros. The Italians didn't have a church or an Italian-speaking priest of their own, so Father James Macklin, a local pastor, recruited a young Italian-born graduate of Catholic University's seminary, Father Nicola DeCarlo, to minister to them. Father DeCarlo rented a small house on H Street NW, where he built a small altar in the parlor and built benches to serve as pews. Another immigrant donated an organ, and just before Christmas of that year, Father DeCarlo held services for the first time there. A few months later, the priest moved to a slightly bigger house on Third Street NW, which according to Glaros became a gathering place for the District's Italians. Within a few years, the working-class parishoners had raised enough money to buy land and build a church, Holy Rosary, at Third and F streets, which opened in 1919.

Holy Rosary is still in existence, but the residential neighborhood around it has been gone for decades, a victim of DC's rising downtown real estate values. According to a 2013 Catholic Standard article, many of the the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the original Italian immigrant community there now live in Washington's far-flung suburbs, but still return to worship and utilize the parish's Casa Italiana Cultural Center. The latter offers Italian language instruction and courses in Italian cooking, wine tasting, and majolica, the ancient Italian art of ceramic pottery, and helps to keep the Italian-American tradition alive in the District.

In the U.S. Senate's sculpture collection, there are plenty of busts of instantly recognizable historical figures such as Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. But enshrined alongside them, there's also the lushly-bearded, bowtie-wearing likeness of an obscure 19th Century Italian-American artist. While Brumidi, who signed his work "C. Brumidi Artist Citizen of the U.S.," isn't a famous name, he left a lasting mark on the U.S. Capitol, by creating striking frescoes and murals that add charm and grace to the building's interior. 

Brumidi's work, which can be found throughout the Capitol, includes the fresco The Apotheosis of Washington in the Rotunda canopy. ButConstantino Brumidi, taken by Matthew Brady in 1866. Credit: Architect of the Capitol. his masterwork is the hallways on the first floor of the Senate wing, an assortment of frescoes and murals known as the Brumidi Corridors. Inspired by Raphael's Loggia in the Vatican, Brumidi's art is distinguished by his blending of classical imagery with patriotic American themes.  The Washington Post once described Brumidi as "the genius of the Capitol," and noted that "so many of its stateliest rooms bear the touch of this tireless brush that he shall always be associated with it." Art historian Francis V. O'Connor has called him "the first really accomplished American muralist." A journalist of his time went even further, labeling him "the Michelangelo of the U.S. Capitol."

It's odd to think that the man who earned such accolades came to the U.S. under a cloud, fleeing to avoid a prison sentence for revolutionary activities, and that his foreign birth and skill as as a muralist earned him some enmity from American artists who, as O'Connor puts it, "could not paint a wall to save their lives."

Brumidi was born in Rome in 1805, before Italy became a unified modern nation. His father owned a coffee shop. He began studying art at age 13 at the Academy of St. Luke. There, he spent the next 14 years learning how to paint in various media — including the difficult art of fresco painting, in which pigments are applied to freshly-laid, wet plaster, which allows little margin for error, and forces an artist to work against the clock to finish a section before the plaster dries. Painting on walls had a venerable history in Italy, and Brumidi eventually found work decorating the villa of a wealthy family with some of the same classical motifs that he later used in the Capitol. As his talent won recognition, he also was hired by the Vatican, for whom he restored frescoes and painted church murals. He was so highly thought of that he was even commissioned to paint the official portrait of Pope Pius X.

The Brumidi Corridors. Credit: Architect of the Capitol Even so, Brumidi was not paid enough to make a living solely as an artist, and he helped support his family by continuing his father's coffee shop. He continued along that path uneventfully until 1849, when Italy — like other parts of Europe — fell into revolutionary turmoil. After revolutionaries seized Rome and the Vatican, Pius IX was forced to flee the city in a disguise. Brumidi, who reluctantly served as a captain in the Papal civic guard, by one account removed valuable objects from church buildings to hide them from looters; when order was restored, what sounds like diligence on Brumidi's part was interpreted as thievery, and he was arrested, jailed for 13 months, and eventually sentenced by a court to 18 years in prison. The U.S. Capitol might have bare walls today, except that the pope whose portrait he'd painted took pity upon Brumidi and pardoned him, with the understanding that he would leave Italy and go to the U.S., where he had been offered work decorating churches. (Brumidi would later romanticize his revolutionary experience, claiming that he'd been arrested because he refused to fire on civilians.)

When Brumidi arrived in New York in 1852, he was nearly 50 years old. He cut an odd figure — just five feet five inches tall, with wild, unruly hair and a bushy beard, and gray-blue eyes that contrasted with his dark complexion. With his bohemian appearance, it would have been easy to mistake him for an anarchist revolutionary. But Brumidi was grateful to still have his freedom, and he had no interest in stirring up any more trouble. Instead, he immediately applied for U.S. citizenship and then began working energetically, taking on commissions to do private portraits and painting alterpieces and murals in churches, including a 22-by-44-foot mural of the Crucifixion in St. Stephen's in Manhattan that the New York Times once noted"rivals Baroque masterpieces in Italy."

Brumidi's Apotheosis of Washington. Credit: Architect of the CapitolBut in December 1854, the opportunity of a lifetime came Brumidi's way. He traveled to Washington and managed to land an interview with with Capt. Montgomery C. Meigs, the engineer who supervised the expansion of the U.S. Capitol that had been designed by architect Thomas U. Walter. Meigs had a vision for decorating the Capitol's expanded interior with artwork inspired by the Vatican and the villas of Pompeii, and Brumidi — an Italian with a demonstrated mastery of fresco technique — seemed like a perfect fit for the job.  Brumidi painted a test mural depicting the Roman general and dictator Cincinnatus, and it was so successful that he got the job of decorating the rest of the Capitol. He began in 1855, and continued for the next 25 years, until his death.

It was a monumental task, especially for a man who didn't even speak or write in English when he started it. (A quick study, he somehow taught himself the language as he worked, and within a few months was writing letters in English, albeit ones filled with grammatical errors.) Meigs and other American officials suggested general subjects for his work, but it was up to Brumidi to fill in the details. He went to the Library of Congress and studied books on American history, and familiarized himself with James Herring's 1854 book National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans, to get an idea of how to depict famous figures. All that merged in his mind with the classical Roman artwork and architecture that he'd studied in his youth. "He tried to make his work American," the Washington Post noted in his obituary.

Washingtonians with outdoor jobs, like this snow-removal crew, suffered mightily during Washington's record-setting cold snap of 1899. (Photo source: Library of Congress) It’s cold outside – by D.C. standards, REALLY cold. And, if you believe the area weather-folk, it’s going to be even colder overnight. Temperatures may reach zero and possibly a little bit below. (Thanks, polar vortex.)

But, even if your nose and extremities might suggest otherwise, we are still a fair ways off from the all-time record low temperature in Washington. That distinction goes to February 11, 1899. Around 7am that morning, the Weather Bureau at 24^th and M St., NW recorded its lowest reading ever, a frigid 15 degrees below zero.

It was the low point in a brutal three-day stretch, during which D.C. was the coldest place on the east coast – 11 degrees colder than Baltimore and “6 to 10 degrees colder than the New England states even.”[1]

During the cold snap, which followed a significant snow storm, “untold suffering has resulted from the cold spell among the destitute, and that class of laborers whose duty compelled them to remain out-of-doors any length of time…. Many persons have been frostbitten of had portions of their anatomy frozen so badly as to necessitate amputation.” [2] To keep the force safe, the Metropolitan Police Department shortened some beat cops’ shifts to three hours. They could rest easy knowing that the frigid weather was just as much of a deterrent to ne’erdowells as D.C.’s bobbies could hope to be.

No doubt the Evening Star echoed the sentiments of many readers when it begged mother nature to show some mercy: “Since the accomplishment of its purpose, the breaking of all known records for this section of the country, it is to be hoped the mercury will take some pity on suffering humanity and come from its hiding place in the bottom of the bulb. The novelty of the coldness has passed, now that new figures have been made for the old inhabitants to recall, and there is no more interest attached to the antics of thermometers.”[3]

But was it really an all-time record? Well, that’s debatable.

15-below was definitely the lowest temperature ever recorded by the Weather Bureau. But, as of 1899, the Bureau had only been around for about twenty years – a pretty limited sample of time.

For most of the city’s history, the highs and lows were recorded in a much more rudimentary fashion. According to the Washington Post, “it was customary to chalk the hot and cold records on a board fence. The oldest inhabitants all remember how they used to take turns inspecting the thermometer that hung in Hancock’s and then go home to tell how cold or how hot it was. But when the Weather Bureau was opened it was thought there would be no further need for the board-fence records, and accordingly the palings were one by one knocked out and taken home for firewood.”[4] (Check out a photo of Hancock's on Shorpy.)

So, while some old-timers claimed that there had been days that were just as cold or colder than minus 15, the documentation had probably gone up in smoke by 1899. Still, the Post made one last appeal on behalf of the Bureau on February 12: “If any of the oldest inhabitants can find one of the boards of that fence in his wood shed, the Weather Bureau would like to buy it. The record made by the thermometer yesterday beats anything known, hence the desire to find the boards of that fence.”[5]

No one came forward with convincing evidence -- a fence post or otherwise -- of a D.C. temperature reading below minus 15. So, the 1899 record stands. And, since the official weather monitoring station for Washington was moved to local warm spot Reagan Washington National Airport in 1942, the mark isn't likely to fall anytime soon.

Note: The picture at the top of this post was taken between 1909-1920 and does not depict an actual snow removal crew in 1899, though the wagon-and-shovel tactics shown were very similar to those used in 1899. For more information on the photo, visit the Library of Congress website.

Though based in New York, Malcolm X traveled widely in the early 1960s, and Washington was the site of two seemingly unlikely connections for him. (Photo source: Library of Congress.) In the early 1960s, Malcolm X traveled widely preaching black separatism on behalf of the Nation of Islam and – after splitting from the group in 1964 – promoting a more moderate vision for American race relations. So, it's no surprise that he came to the nation's capital on a number of occasions.

In fact, D.C. was the site of the only known in-person meeting between Malcolm and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., which was significant considering the two leaders' very public differences on approaches to the civil rights movement. Malcolm once called King "Rev. Dr. Chicken-wing" in a not-so-subtle critique of non-violent civil disobedience.

But when both were in town on March 26, 1964 during the Congressional debate over the proposed Civil Rights Act they staged a made-for-the-cameras meeting in the U.S. Capitol. As Garrett Febler, who worked with Manning Marable on his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Malcolm, told The Washington Post: “Malcolm was pushed out awkwardly by an associate from behind a pillar. Standing in front of King, whom he had described as an ‘Uncle Tom,’ Malcolm shook hands with King before the press.”

But, as strange as the photo-op with King seemed at the time, Malcolm made headlines with an even more unlikely connection in Washington a few years earlier.

On June 25, 1961, the Nation of Islam held a rally for Black Muslims at Washington's Uline Arena. The headline speaker was supposed to be Elijah Muhummad but a bout with bronchitis kept him away. So, the NOI went to plan B. “Taking as his theme Muhammad's pre-announced speech, 'Separation or Death,' Malcolm X, a tall, lean, dynamic speaker, hit hard at the 'so-called Negro' in America who has been 'brainwashed' into a desire for integration.”[1]

From the podium, Malcolm preached, “We are not for integration. We are not for segregation. But what?” The crowd shouted, “Separation!”[2]

Malcolm continued, “America is the last bulwark of white supremacy. Forced integration will not work. We are fed up with segregation. What we want now is immediate separation... The white man is captain of his own ship. All we want to do is get out of your ship and into our own. If we stay here any longer we're liable to capsize your boat.”[3]

The message resonated with the spectators, most of whom had traveled to Washington from other parts of the country. Despite the near capacity crowd, the appeal of the event was somewhat muted in the local community, as the Washington Afro-American observed: “The rally apparently made no impact on Washington's colored population since at least half of the audience ere [sic] followers of the Muslim movement.”[4]

George Lincoln Rockwell, shown here in 1951, founded the American Nazi Party in Arlington, Virginia and forged an odd alliance with Black Muslims in the early 1960s. (Photo source: Wikipedia) There was, however, one prominent – if also surprising – attendee from the local community. George Lincoln Rockwell, whose American Nazi Party operated out of a home in Arlington, made the short trip to the rally with about 20 of his storm troopers.

Most might assume that Nazis showing up at a rally for 8,000 blacks would do so with the intent to protest or demonstrate... or worse. But when the group arrived at Uline, they were escorted to prime seats close to the stage. (See photo on RareHistoricalPhotos.com)

As Malcolm X addressed the crowd, Rockwell applauded enthusiastically. When the black leader called for the crowd to fill collection buckets “for separation,” Rockwell pulled out his wallet.

From the stage, Malcolm announced gifts as they came in, “$20 from who? George Lincoln Rockwell! Good to have it!”

The crowd erupted in applause. Malcolm joked, “We got $20 from George Lincoln Rockwell and you got the biggest hand you ever got didn't you, Mr. Rockwell?” More applause. Check out the video of the exchange below.

Not surprisingly, the assembled press wondered about Rockwell's motivations. The Nazi leader told them that he considered Muslims to be “black Nazis” and that he thought that with a separate society for Black Muslims “Muhammad has the answer for my people”.[5] (It probably goes without saying that by “his people,” he meant whites.) Rockwell's only qualm was the location for the proposed black separatist society: ‘‘They want a chunk of America and I prefer that they go to Africa.”[6]

Rockwell's involvement with the Nation of Islam and Malcolm X was not limited to the Uline rally. He and the ANP attended a number of other NOI events in 1961 and 1962 and even addressed the crowd on occasion. As he recounted in his Rockwell Report newsletter, “On February 25, 1962, I stood up in full Nazi uniform before 12,500 Black Muslims and gave an all-out speech calling for the geographical separation o f the races, with America's 'foreign aid' going to our own Negro people rather than to Red and 'neutralist' nations which hate us, shoot up and imprison our citizens and spit in our faces. Again and again my speech was interrupted by applause and cheers from these thousands of Black men and women.”[7]

For his part, Malcolm X grew increasingly uncomfortable with the NOI's relationship with the Nazis. After breaking with Elijah Muhummad and making a pilgrimage to Mecca, Malcolm began to consider new avenues toward black advancement in America. On February 16, 1965, he announced he had “shifted my attack to Rockwell and the Klan,” because he had seen the NOI make agreements with white supremacists, which were not in the best interests of blacks in America.[8] Five days later, he was assassinated by Nation of Islam gunmen at Harlem's Audubon Ballroom.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt, shown here in throwing out the ceremonial first pitch at Griffith Stadium in 1934, recommended that baseball continue during World War II. However, teams were expected curtail travel and conduct spring training close to home. (Photo source: National Archives) Ah, Major League Baseball Spring Training, the annual spring rite when ball clubs escape the cold of the north and go to Florida or Arizona to shake off the winter rust. Teams have been doing it for over one hundred years.

In fact, our hometown Washington Nationals began the trend – sort of –  in 1888 when they became the first club to hold camp in Florida, setting up shop in Jacksonville. The experiment was a little before its time. When the Nats finished the 1888 season with a 46-86 record (a mere 37 and a half games out of first place), they and other teams decided traveling South to train was not a recipe for success.

It took a few years, but teams eventually reconsidered and – thanks largely to a sunshine state building boom – Florida’s Grapefruit League was well established by the 1930s. The Washington Senators camped in Orlando in 1936 and stayed there until 1960, except for a memorable three-year stretch during World War II.

With the war effort in full swing, baseball Commissioner Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis wrote to President Roosevelt in 1942: “The time is approaching when, in ordinary conditions, our teams would be heading for Spring training camps. However, inasmuch as these are not ordinary times, I venture to ask what you have in mind as to whether professional baseball should continue to operate.”

The President responded quickly, “I honestly feel that it would be best for the country to keep baseball going. There will be fewer people unemployed and everybody will work longer hours and harder than ever before.

“And that means that they ought to have a chance for recreation and for taking their minds off their work even more than before.

“Baseball provides a recreation which does not last over two hours or two hours and a half, and which can be got for very little cost. And, incidentally, I hope that night games can be extended because it gives an opportunity to the day shift to see a game occasionally.”

Despite FDR’s green light, it wouldn’t be business as usual for club owners and players. The war impacted just about every facet of American life and the National Pastime was no exception.

During the war, the government created the Office of Defense Transportation to exercise control over the railroads and make sure that national transportation priorities were met. While baseball might boost morale, Spring Training for ballplayers in Florida was by no means a national transportation priority.

And so, in coordination with the ODT, Judge Landis issued a January 1943 mandate that teams must train close to home beginning immediately. His edict further stipulated that all spring training sites must be north of the Potomac and Ohio Rivers and east of the Mississippi River. (The St. Louis Cardinals were given special permission to train west of the Mississippi in their home state of Missouri.)[1]

ODT director Joseph Eastman applauded the move, releasing a statement that he was “greatly pleased by the action which the major leagues have taken today to reduce their travel requirements for the coming season.” [2]

The ruling sent the Senators scrambling to find new digs. They inspected facilities at Georgetown University and Catholic University in the District but eventually decided upon the University of Maryland after club officials were able to negotiate a deal with university president H.C. Byrd. During camp, players would be housed in fraternity houses and dorms. The team would have use of the school’s baseball field and indoor field house, Richie Coliseum.

Compared to Florida, the setting was a bit anti-climactic as the esteemed Washington Post sportswriter Shirley Povich observed: “The Nats eight-mile trek to spring training camp was very un-thrilling. The athletes assembled at Griffith Stadium in the morning, piled into cars, hit the back road to College Park, and 15 minutes later were being shown to their rooms on the University of Maryland campus.”[3]

Senators owner Clark Griffith couldn’t resist the opportunity to needle the press corps, “This ought to be down your alley. You lazy guys can come out to Griffith Stadium, climb a light tower and cover our training camp by telescope.”[4]

Not surprisingly, camp was a little different than what the players had grown accustomed to in Florida. Because of the weather many practices were held inside the Richie Coliseum and involved more basketball-playing than baseball drills.

The Nats also faced a rather unique wartime issue. The team’s expensive pitching machine was on the fritz and needed new rubber bands in order to function. Rubber, of course, was crucial to the war effort and severely rationed.

As Griffith explained, “The machine operates with a heavy band of natural rubber that when snapped gives the force to the ball and we’re having a time buying new rubber. It’s high on the priorities list. There’s no such item as a synthetic rubber substitute for what we need. It must be the best native rubber. I’m hoping the government will release 5 pounds of it for us.”[5]

Despite the challenges, the team was able to prepare for the season. The Senators finished the 1943 season with a record of 84-69, good for second place in the American League. Not too shabby, especially compared to the (many) dismal seasons that earned the team the mantra, “Washington: First in war, first in peace and last in the American League.”

The Senators returned to College Park in 1944 and 1945. But, with the war over, the team headed back south in 1946. No doubt the players relished their return to the warm Florida sun. (No offense, College Park.)

Elizabeth Keckley rose from slave to the Lincoln White House thanks to her supreme skill as a dressmaker. Her autobiography provides one of the most powerful accounts of the First Family's personal lives. (Photo from Documenting the American South collection at UNC-Chapel Hill via Wikipedia) In 1867, Mary Todd Lincoln became embroiled in the “old clothes” scandal. But this story isn’t about Mrs. Lincoln; it’s about one of her associates, dressmaker to the stars, Elizabeth Keckley.

Keckley was born a slave in Virginia around 1820. Her earliest duty was to watch after the baby of the white family; she was beaten severely for making mistakes. Following the sexual abuse of her mother, which led to Keckley’s birth, Keckley herself was sexually assaulted.

In addition, she was loaned out to a family in St. Louis who used the income she brought in from dressmaking to support themselves.  From her autobiography:

With my needle, I kept bread in the mouths of seventeen persons for two years and five months.

In 1860, Keckley was able to buy her freedom with the sum of $12,000. Her clients, the well-to-do women of St. Louis had heard of her struggles to raise the money and passed the hat between themselves to provide the amount.

Keckley moved to D.C. to set up shop and teach young colored women in her trade. Here she confronted the laws obstructing the movement of freed people in the capital. Unless she could obtain a license to stay in the capital (which required money) and have someone vouch that she was free, Keckley would have to leave. Here again the lady clients of Keckley came to her aid.

Shortly after her arrival in Washington, Keckley entered the employ of Mrs. Jefferson Davis, though she still made dresses for other women of the city, like Mrs. Robert E. Lee. Of her time with the Davis family, Keckley wrote:

Almost every night, as I learned from the servants and other members of the family, secret meetings were held at the house; and some of these meetings were protracted to a very late hour. The prospects of war were freely discussed in my presence by Mr. and Mrs. Davis and their friends.

Keckley also wrote of a late night she spent sewing a dressing gown for Mr. Davis, which she had “not a shadow of a doubt” he wore while President of the Confederacy. Mrs. Davis approached her and asked the freedwoman to go South with the family when the trouble started, assuring Keckley it would be over soon and Keckley would have a position in the White House with the Davis family. Although she refused Mrs. Davis, Keckley would soon find herself in a treasured position in the White House.

Her change in position came in 1861. In exchange for rushing an order, an introduction was arranged for Elizabeth Keckley with Mrs. Lincoln at the famous Willard Hotel on the day of President Lincoln’s inauguration. The introduction led to an interview, and Keckley was hired on as Mrs. Lincoln’s “modiste”- which means “dressmaker,” but it’s in French so its fancier. Keckley made as many as 16 dresses for Mrs. Lincoln during the season, and also worked for Mrs. Stephen A. Douglas amongst others.

Keckley’s time with Mrs. Lincoln, however, is particularly noted by historians, who use her book to draw conclusions about the Presidential family’s private life. Keckley was by Mary Todd Lincoln’s side as her confidant and sometimes only friend for much of the time between 1861 and 1867. Keckley bears witness in her book to the death of Willie Lincoln and Abraham Lincoln and to Mrs. Lincoln’s grief after both events.  She presents an extremely intimate view of the Presidential family, something quite shocking for the Victorian era. Keckley regrets the intrusion into her friend’s life but explains her actions as a character defense in the scandals plaguing Mary Todd Lincoln:

I must defend the lady that I have served. The world have judged Mrs. Lincoln by the facts which float upon the surface, and through her have partially judged me, and the only way to convince them that wrong was not meditated is to explain the motives that actuated us.

But Elizabeth Keckley deserves to be remembered for being more than Mrs. Lincoln’s friend. Remember the trouble she faced in the capital as a free black woman? Keckley didn’t forget. She spent her life seeking the advancement of her people. In 1862, escaped slaves fled into the Capital, “looking for liberty.” Keckley writes of what they found:

Many good friends reached forth kind hands, but the North is not warm and impulsive. For one kind word spoken, two harsh ones were uttered.

Keckley and friends from her church formed the Contraband Relief Association – “contraband” being the contemporary name for escaped slaves. An organization of forty members, they sponsored concerts and a festival to raise money and collect clothing, food, and blankets. Mrs. Lincoln herself donated $200 and 50 comforters.

Keckley wrote of the improvements in the black community made possible through the CRA and others:

Whoever visits the Freedmen’s Village now in the vicinity of Washington will discover all of these evidences of prosperity and happiness, the schools are objects of much interest. Good teachers, white and colored, are employed, and whole brigades of bright-eyed dusky children are there taught the common branches of education [and] their advancement is rapid. I number among my personal friends twelve colored girls employed as teachers in teh schools at Washington. The colored mission Sabbath school, established through the influence of Gen. Brown at the 15^th St. Presbyterian Church, is always an object of great interest to the residents of the capital, as well as to the hundreds of strangers visiting the city.

Her autobiography, found at the bottom of the page, is a fascinating read. And yeah, if you’re a fan of Lincoln and want the dirt, it’s good for that too.

Sources

Keckley, Elizabeth. Behind the Scenes, or, Thirty years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House. New York: G.W. Carleton & Co., 1868.

“Keckley, Elizabeth Hobbs.” American National Biography Online.

Thousands of people drive on it everyday, but sometimes we forget that the George Washington Memorial Parkway is not just a commuter highway. It's a national park. And like our other national parks, the Parkway tells a story about our nation's past.

Tomorrow night, Park Ranger David Lassman will be discussing the history of the Parkway at the Arlington Historical Society's monthly public program -- 7pm at Marymount University. In advance of his talk, David was kind enough to give us a preview. Take a look at the video above!

Coming out of the dark days of World War I, Americans took on a very commemorative attitude to their nation's history. A great many historic sites and museums were established during the 1920s and 1930s as Americans sought to celebrate their past. And, with the 200th birthday of George Washington approaching, lawmakers put special plans in motion.

In 1927, President Calvin Coolidge addressed a joint session of congress and made celebrating Washington's bicentennial a national priority. Amongst the many proposals that emerged was the construction of a memorial highway to honor our nation's first president. Some suggested this roadway should connect George Washington's Birthplace in Westmoreland County, Virginia with Mount Vernon and then continue all the way to the Great Lakes, following the route that Washington took during the French and Indian War.

For a variety of reasons -- including the onset of the Great Depression -- the project was scaled back to the 25 mile stretch we know today. Construction started in 1931, and the first phase of the Parkway was built between Mount Vernon and Arlington Memorial Bridge, following the route of a failed trolley line. The rest of the present-day Parkway would be added in the 1950s as part of President Eisenhower's highways program.

According to Lassman, the physical appearance of the landscape was quite different in those early days: "The area was, in truth, not the most beautiful by our standards today. Much of the area had been farmland and much of the area had been clear cut. We think that with today’s highways, shopping centers and housing developments we have no trees today. But, in truth, by the mid 1800s Virginia had been clear cut for farming and for other purposes. So, we actually have more trees today. Those trees were planted in part by the CCC in the 1930s so the park really is only a hundred years old, both in terms of the roadway and the landscape."

But what it may have lacked in physical beauty, the Parkway made up for in innovation: "It’s important to understand that road building was actually a new concept. Cars were just becoming more massively available and most people when they drove were just driving on dirt roads. So, the George Washington Memorial Parkway was actually conceived as one of the first modern highways.... It was planned with several unique features. You had planned vistas so you’d come around a bend and you might see the Washington Monument across the river. You had pull-offs. You had small little picnic areas....You would have the first modern cloverleaf built on a modern road and cloverleafs were so unusual that the local newspapers had several articles on how a cloverleaf worked, fearing that the average driver would not know how to traverse such a complicated feature."

Today, the Parkway has evolved into something far different than the leisurely road the designers had in mind. However, the Park Service still tries to maintain part of the original vision. As Ranger Lassman put it, "While we do have people going high speeds, we are doing our best to maintain a certain level of park attitude even with the modern transportation needs.... This is literally a presidential memorial just like the Lincoln memorial is, just like the Jefferson memorial. Instead of being a structure, this is a historic landscape."

Come out to Marymount tomorrow to learn more!

Development of Pierre L'Enfant's Plan for the City of Washington was still in its infancy when Frances Few visited Washington in the early 1800s. (Source: Library of Congress) Frances Few, of a prominent New York family, spent the winter of 1808-1809 in Washington, D.C. with her aunt. She had a lot to say! Initially, Miss Few is very pleased with the city and its parties. But as the 19-year-old’s stay wore on, she was decidedly less impressed with the city and its politics. Check out these snippets!

We arrived in this city on Sunday [September 25]. It is beautifully situated at the junction of the Eastern branch of the Potomac. The main river, the distant hills, and the surrounding woods make the view charming and the houses are at such a distance from each other as not all to impede the view.

The wings of the Capitol are nearly finished. The body of the building is not yet begun. The wings are three stories high and built of a stone resembling marble but softer and consequently not as handsome. The architecture I admire much. The President’s house is built of the same materials and surrounded by a wall of dark stone which loks very like the wall belonging to the State Prison but it is not finished and may be improved on.

I have been to Georgetown. It is separated from Washington by a Bridge. It is a neat little place and owes its importance to Washington for the inhabitants of the latter place spend their money in the former where the shops are tolerable good but much dearer than in N York or Philadelphia.

This is the eleventh of October and the weather has been such as to admit of my setting with the windows up. I took a walk as the sun was going down; the scenery around me was beautiful. The hills of Georgetown, the town, the river, and the heavens gloriously tinged by the setting dun conspired with the silence to create the most solemn and agreeable sensations.

[The president’s house] is a large building well-furnished but not as elegantly as the houses of many merchants in N York.

I went to Congress to hear the debates and heard a very tedious speech from Mr. Quinsy - but I was very much pleased with the room. It is of an oval form; the room is supported by twenty-four white stone pillars of the Corinthian order which are very beautiful. The ceiling is painted but in my opinion is rather dashing. The speaker’s chair is very tawdry, decorated with crimson and green velvet, trimmed with yellow fringe and the wood painted lilac and yellow.

I was more shocked than I can express at seeing two droves of negrows [sic] pass. Each drove contained eight or ten persons chained together. They were followed by an overseer. What a sight for a country that boasts of being a land of liberty and asylum for the oppressed.[1]

Last night, the Marines serenaded us. Their band is superior to any I ever heard. They played six tunes. “When wild wars deadly blast was blown”, and “Of all the airts the wind can blaw” exceeded any music you can have an idea of… I shall take all the pains I possibly can to please them that they may come again.

I went this morning to pay the president a visit, which it is the custom to pay on the first day of the New Year but as that came on a Sunday we went this day [January 2, 1809]. And we were regaled with music, cakes, and ice-cream. There were three or four hundred people all very much dressed. They amused themselves with walking in the different rooms and with hearing the music. The President looked very happy and was all the morning engaged in receiving his visitors.

Great men are only great when viewed at a distance. Tis enough to cure one of ambition to spend a little time here. How my opinion of our legislatures is changed. How disappointed I am in them. Oh, they are governed by the petty trifles of the day- by selfish and interested views. “I have had a peep behind the curtain” A peep that has made me sick to loathing- happiness is not here.

Mr. Madison this day took the inauguration oath and read a short speech to the most numerous assembly that I ever saw. Mr. Jefferson appeared one of the most happy among this concourse of people.  The foreign Ministers were at the Capitol. The gallery and every part of the house was crowded and the number of carriages was so great it was difficult to get to the door.

Source:

Cunningham, Noble E. Jr. “The Diary of Frances Few, 1808-1809.”The Journal of Southern History, 29.3 (August 1963): 345-361.

North Carolina tobacco farmer Dwight Watson single-handedly gridlocked downtown Washington in March 2003 when he drove his tractor into the pond at Constitution Gardens and claimed to have a bomb. (Photo source: Associated Press via Wikipedia) When you think of protests in Washington, D.C., what comes to mind? Demonstrators in front of the White House? A rally on Capitol Hill? A march down Constitution Avenue? Well, on March 17, 2003 a North Carolina tobacco farmer took a very different tact.

Around noon that day, 50-year old Dwight Watson drove his Jeep into D.C., towing his John Deere tractor on a flat bed trailer. Heading up Constitution Avenue, he suddenly jumped the curb and drove straight into the pond at Constitution Gardens between the Vietnam Memorial and the Washington Monument. Watson began playing patriotic music and then climbed onto the tractor, which he adorned with an upside-down American flag – a traditional sign of distress – and a yellow flag with a tobacco leaf on it.

In was a odd scene and authorities were perplexed. But, in the post 9/11 world they weren’t about to take any chances. Officers from the Park Police, D.C. Police and the FBI closed off the streets around the pond and made contact with Watson.

The farmer claimed to have bombs made of ammonium nitrate, an ingredient used in fertilizer and explosives like the one that Timothy McVeigh used to attack the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995.

Watson told police had come to D.C. to protest the U.S. government’s policies toward tobacco farmers. Anti-smoking campaigns had painted tobacco growers in a bad light, he said, and the government regulations were squeezing farmers unfairly. Communicating with friends by cell phone from the seat of his tractor, Watson encouraged other farmers to join him in his protest and said he was willing to die for the cause.[1]

Police snipers kept Watson – who was dubbed “Tractor Man” by press outlets all over the country – in their cross hairs lest he attempt to detonate any explosives. Employees in the nearby Federal Reserve were told to move away from exterior windows.[2] During the afternoon rush hour, the standoff caused gridlock, frustrating motorists and putting the city on high alert. As the Los Angeles Times put it, “After 18 months of military overflights, identification checks, sniper attacks and color-coded terror alerts, all it took was a man in a tractor to push this jittery city over the edge.”

Through the night and all through the next day, Watson sat atop his tractor as officers attempted to negotiate with him. Traffic flow was paralyzed. Some called for police to take drastic measures to end the siege but police were patient. U.S. Park Police Sgt. Scott Fear told the press, “We're making progress. Protection of human life is our No. 1 priority,” not smooth traffic flow.[3]

Their patience was rewarded… finally. After 47 hours, Tractor Man surrendered peacefully. The packs he claimed were bombs turned out to be cans of bug spray.

In June 2004, U.S. District Judge Thomas P. Jackson sentenced Dwight Watson to six years in prison despite pleas from his family and friends for leniency. Watson himself was remorseful, telling the court, “My actions were totally uncalled for, totally unacceptable and totally wrong…. It was not my intention to hurt anyone, but it looks like I was trying to hurt people. It was foolish.”[4]

While sympathetic to Watson's plight, the judge wanted to set a strong precedent.

“Mr. Watson, I have concluded you are a nice guy and you had a legitimate grievance... which [you] chose to express in a horrendous fashion.... The sentence I will hand down to you today is intended to deter the next nice guy who thinks he has a legitimate complaint.”

Jackson continued, “You may not have intended to engage in terrorism, but nevertheless, you did terrify people.... Whatever your intentions, this city regarded you as a one-man weapon of mass destruction.”

The sentence was later reduced. And so closed the book on one of the more bizarre political protests in Washington history.

Today, the federal government's National Cancer Institute invests nearly $5 billion each year in medical research aimed at learning more about various types of cancer and finding cures for them. While it's a war in which many battles still lie ahead, there have been some encouraging signs of progress, with death rates decreasing for the most common types of cancer. By 2022, it's estimated that cancer survivors will amount to more than 5 percent of the U.S. population. 

But it took a long time for the federal anti-cancer effort to get rolling, and it started small. In 1910, President William Howard Taft proposed creating a national laboratory dedicated to cancer research, but Congress wasn't much interested. In 1922, the U.S. Public Health Service allowed a few of its scientists to begin studying cancer. One of the pioneers was a Washington-based researcher, Dr. Carl Voegtlin of the Division of Pharmacology at the Hygenic Laboratory. He headed a group of scientists who looked at the effect of various chemicals on tumors. But it was a very small investment in fighting an affliction that claimed 83.4 lives per 100,000 population in 1920, making it one of the nation's leading causes of death. Sen. Matthew Mansfield Neely of West Virginia introduced the first legislation to fund cancer research. Credit: West Virginia State Archives

More resources needed to be invested in fighting cancer, and the man who started the battle to get that money was a colorful politician from West Virginia named Matthew Mansfield Neely. Born in a log cabin in Doddridge County in 1875, Neely dropped out of Salem College but still somehow managed to get a law degree from West Virginia University. After a few years in practice, he gradually worked his way up the political ladder, serving as mayor of Fairmont and as a state delegate before winning election to Congress as a Democrat in a 1913 special election. After he was swept out of his Congressional seat by Warren G. Harding's Presidential landslide in 1920, the indefatigable Neely then ran for the U.S. Senate in 1922 and won. 

In some ways, Neely was a Senator from central casting. He was known as an impeccable dresser and a flowery, grandiose orator, who reveled in archaic language and recited his remarks without notes, employing what was rumored to be a photographic memory. Despite his flamboyance and flair for speechifying, he disliked crowds, and usually quickly slipped away afterward rather than rub elbows with the public.

Neely got interested in cancer as a political issue after he saw statistics that showed a rise cancer mortality from 70,000 deaths in 1910 to 115,000 in 1927. He came up with a gimmicky, attention-getting solution. In February 1927, he proposed that Congress offer a $5 million reward for "any information leading to the arrest of human cancer." As medical historian Siddhartha Mukherjee notes, "It was a lowbrow strategy — the scientific equivalent of hanging a mug shot in a sheriff's office." 

Neely's stunt was pretty much ignored by other members of Congress. But according to historian Richard Rettig, when when the public got wind of it, they jammed Neely's office mailbox with more than 2,500 letters. Many were from snake-oil healers who mistakenly thought that Congress had passed the bill, and wanted to grab a share of the nonexistent prize money. The cancer bounty also got the attention of Dr. Joseph Bloodgood, a cancer surgeon from Johns Hopkins University, who met with Neely and introduced him to other medical researchers. They convinced Neely that the search for a cancer cure would take time.

As a result, in May 1928 Neely introduced a new bill, which would have instructed the National Academy of Sciences to investigate cancer and report back to Congress on the best way to coordinate cancer research. In a May 1928 speech, he noted that Congress had appropriated $10 million to eradicate the corn borer, a crop pest, and $5 million to investigate tuberculosis in farm animals, while allocating not a single dollar for human cancer research. In a speech, Neely flamboyantly inveighed that cancer was a "monster that is more insatiable than the guillotine," and warned his fellow Senators that "if the rapid increase in cancer fatalities should persist in the future, the cancer curse might in a few centuries depopulate the Earth."

That rhetoric must have scared Neely's collagues, because the Senate passed the legislation and authorized $50,000 for the study. But it died in the House. 

That year, Neely was defeated in his re-election bid. His friend, Sen. William J. Harris, a Democrat from Georgia, took up the cause, introducing several bills in 1929 and 1930 that didn't go anywhere either. The idea of a real federal war against cancer seemed to be a non-starter.

But by the mid-1930s, according to historians Rettig and Guy Faguet, public pressure on Congress was building. Fortune magazine, part of Henry Luce's publishing empire, ran an article entitled "Cancer: The Great Darkness," and Life and Time also ran articles about the still-mysterious affliction that helped stir up an outcry. Physicians organized letter-writing campaigns. In 1937, Neely — who somehow had managed to get himself again elected to the Senate — worked with Sen. Homer T. Bone, a Democrat from Washington state, and Democratic Representatives Warren Magnuson of Washington and Maury Maverick of Texas to revive the proposal to fund cancer research. 

Bone saw cancer as an economic justice issue; he believed that the disease hit hardest against the poor, who lacked access to healthcare. Maverick tried to sway House colleagues with stark statistics and self-interest. "One out of eight persons over 40 will die of cancer," he told them in a speech. "As most of us are over 40, I have figured there will be around 60 of us who thus meet deaths."

But the legislation to create a federal cancer research effort also met with suprisingly strong opposition. Some of the critics, according to Faguet, were promoters of folk medicine and faith healers afraid of losing followers, while others were conservative doctors who feared what they saw as a government takeover of medical research. But in the end, the Senate and House passed and reconciled the bills. In August 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the National Cancer Act, which created the National Cancer Institute and provided an annual budget of $700,000. Voegtlin became NCI's first director. 

Neely went on to win election as governor of West Virginia in 1940, and served briefly again in the House before returning to the Senate in 1947, where he spent the remainder of his life. Ultimately, he was vanquished by the foe that he'd tried to fight with legislation. After surviving a bout with bone cancer that cost him three of his fingers, Neely was again stricken with the disease in 1957. He became so ill that he spent much of his time in a hospital bed, though he roused himself to make occasional appearances on the Senate floor — still dressed elegantly, in his wheelchair — when then-Democratic leader Lyndon Johnson faced a close vote. He died in January 1958.

Since Congress established the National Cancer Institute in 1937, funding research to better understand — and hopefully find a cure — for the disease has been the major focus of the federal war on cancer. But on another front, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has fought a long battle against unproven remedies offered to the desperately ill by practitioners and promoters outside the medical mainstream. In particular, the agency fought a pitched battle in the 1950s and early 1960s against a Texas-based self-styled healer named Harry Hoxsey — even taking the unusual step in 1957 of putting up posters in 46,000 post offices throughout the nation, warning people that Hoxsey's anti-cancer treatment was worthless and fraudulent. 

Hoxsey was the dark side of the self-made, rags-to-riches success story that Americans so revere. According to medical In 1957, the FDA put up a warning poster in 46,000 post offices about Hoxsey's dubious cancer cure. Credit: Wikimedia Commonshistorian James Harvey Young, he was born in 1901 and grew up in a rural village in Illinois, one of 12 children of a self-taught unlicensed veterinarian. After his father died in 1919, eighth-grade dropout Hoxsey went to work as a coal miner and insurance salesman, before discovering a far more lucrative career. He began peddling an anti-cancer herbal mixture that he claimed had been invented by his great-grandfather, who'd supposedly noticed that after a horse had eaten wild plants in a meadow, the animal's leg tumor had vanished. As Hoxsey told it, the potion had been passed down in the family, and his own father had taught him the precise mixture by having him write it out 250 times, until he'd committed it to memory. (That Hoxsey's father had died of cancer, despite the herbal cure, was a part of the yarn that Hoxsey usually left out.) In 1922, Hoxsey began peddling the mixture, supposedly first using it to cure a Civil War veteran of lip cancer. Soon after that, with the support of investors, he took over an old building once used by the Order of the Moose in Taylorville, Il., and converted it into the Hoxide Institute, where he advertised that cancer patients would receive treatment "under strictly ethical medical supervision, painlessly, without operation, and with permanent results."

Hoxsey's Taylorville clinic attracted a steady stream of patients. But after many of them died at the institute, a local doctor wrote to the American Medical Association, which launched a string of lawsuits aimed at stopping Hoxsey. Three times he was prosecuted and fined for practicing medicine in Illinois without a license. To evade authorities, Hoxsey began moving his operations — from Detroit, to Wheeling, W.Va., to Atlantic City, N.J. — before finally setting up shop in Dallas in 1936.  After beating similar charges there on appeal, Hoxsey acquired an honorary degree as a doctor of naturopathy, which enabled him to become licensed in the state.

According to a 1956 Life magazine article, Hoxsey's Dallas clinic eventually generated $1.5 million in revenue annually, from thousands of patients who were willing to pay $460 apiece for "little more than a physical examination, medical advice and some pills." He also published an autobiography, entitled You Don't Have to Die. Using high-powered radio stations across the Mexican border, he promoted his herbal therapy and also peddled what he touted as "bonded eggs," produced by chickens who'd been treated with his cancer cure, according to the Texas State Historical Association.

By the mid-1940s, Hoxsey — whose office contained a folksy plaque explaining that there were two kinds of people, "dem that takes and dem that got took"— was attracting delegations of elected officials to his clinic to tout his miraculous regiment. He even managed to gain the support of at least two U.S. Senators — Elmer Thomas of Oklahoma and William Langer of North Dakota. Langer was so impressed after visiting Hoxsey in Dallas that he introduced a Senate resolution, calling for creation of a special subcommittee to hold hearings on Hoxsey's method and verify that it could cure cancer.

After the AMA Journal criticized Hoxsey as a "cancer charlatan" in 1949, Hoxsey tried to silence the organization with a defamation suit. An elderly Texas judge ruled that Hoxsey's potions were "reasonably comparable" to medical treatments such as surgery and radiation, though he only awarded Hoxsey $2 in damages, according to historian Young. 

At that point, the FDA jumped into the fight. According to a 1960 Washington Post article, the FDA's labs tested Hoxsey's herbal preparations, and investigated the medical records of all the living patients for whom Hoxsey claimed a cure. In 1950, FDA went to court in an effort to prevent Hoxsey from shipping his herbal preparations across state lines. Hoxsey fought back, but after years of litigation, the government eventually won the case on appeal. 

Meanwhile, FDA fought Hoxsey's efforts to expand his operations. After he opened a clinic in Portage, Pa., one of its first patients was an undercover FDA investigator. After an examination that lasted a few minutes, the investigator — who was perfectly healthy — was told that he suffered from prostate cancer, and needed treatment. Shortly afterward, a federal marshal showed up and confiscated 500,000 doses of Hoxsey's cure. Hoxsey fought the seizure in federal court, but a jury ruled against him, and Hoxsey's herbs were destroyed.

In April 1956, the FDA published a warning in the Federal Register, saying that its scientists had determined that Hoxsey's treatments not only were worthless, but dangerous. Some of the preparations dispensed by his clinic included potassium iodide, which the agency said actually accelerated the growth of tumors. The FDA also said that its investigators had not found "a single certified cure" by Hoxsey's method, and castigated it as "a gross deception to the consumer," according to an Associated Press account.  

It was the first time ever that the agency had publicly denounced a cancer cure as a fraud. In 1957, the agency decided to make its point even more strongly, asking post offices across the U.S. to display its "Beware" posters warning people not to try Hoxsey's cure. Hoxsey responded with a federal lawsuit, claiming that the government was depriving him of a property right — that is, to sell his potions — without due process. But a federal judge in Washington rejected Hoxsey's claim, ruling that the government had a right to disseminate information where public health was at stake.

Soon after that bold denunciation, the Pennsylvania clinic closed, and Hoxsey's business began to collapse. 

In  September 1960, according to the Associated Press, the FDA forced a Texas-based clinic owner to consent to a permanent injunction, barring him from selling Hoxsey's treatments or sharing the profits with him. FDA had shut down the last remaining outlet in the U.S. for Hoxsey's cure. But a few years later, one of Hoxsey's nurses crossed the border to Tijuana, Mexico, and set up a clinic outside of FDA authority, which reportedly still is in operation today. Hoxsey himself stayed in Dallas, and shifted his attention to investments in the oil businsess. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1967, and when his body didn't respond to his famous herbal treatment, he underwent conventional surgery. After spending his last years in isolation as an invalid, he died in 1974.

Agustin de Iturbide y Green was the heir to the Mexican throne but a strange series of events led him to a career as a professor at Georgetown University. (Photo source: Wikipedia) Georgetown University has some pretty prestigious professors. But did you know the school once had an imperial prince on their staff? Don Agustin de Iturbide y Green, with a name as weighty as the Infanta, taught Spanish and French at Georgetown near the end of the 19^th century. How did Don Agustin, the heir to two emperors, end up in elbow pads? It’s sort of a long story, which takes us from Georgetown to Mexico to France and back.

The Rosedale estate in Georgetown was the grand home of Alice Green, granddaughter of Revolutionary War General Uriah Forrest and great-granddaughter of Maryland Governor George Plater.[1] This belle was basically American royalty, which was great for when she married Don Angel Maria de Iturbide y Huarte, the exiled prince of the Mexican imperial line and a student at Georgetown University. By the time the lovebirds met and wed, Angel’s father, Agustin the First, had been deposed and executed.[2] Although Alice’s husband and their son, Agustin, had a technical claim to the throne, few suspected that Agustin I’s nine-month rule would bring his descendants anything.

The French emperor, Napoleon III, and the Austrian imperial house, the Hapsburgs, got together with the Mexican Congress in 1863 and decided the country should be put in the hands of a divine ruler. Archduke Ferdinand Maximillian was sent ‘south of the border’ to become Maximillian the First (which, as with Agustin, “the First” was a pretty unfortunate presumption). The Mexican people were just as displeased with this Austrian intrusion as they had been with Spanish rule. Good ole Max figured the Mexican people would be happier with one little concession: Alice and Angel’s bright little boy, who had the good manners to be of Mexican descent.

Little Agustin was by this time two years old and the family was living in Mexico City.  Maximillian I and the remnants of the Iturbide house lobbied the parents intensely.[3] They were eventually talked into giving the child over to be adopted by Maximillian and his wife Carlotta, receiving in exchange a sizable pension. Mme. Alice Green had supposed little Agustin would not be taken from her till he was at least “old enough to be sent to Europe to be educated.” However, the Iturbide family was suddenly and forcibly exiled from Mexico. [4]

What Alice Green did next was recounted several times in newspapers as a tragic and romantic tale. This “lady of great beauty and strong intellect” high-tailed it back to Mexico City, outpacing the tear-splattered letters she’d sent ahead.[5] When in Mexico City, this “thorough United States republican” received official word from the palace that she would be taken to see her son. “Unsuspecting deceit,” she entered the imperial carriage. When “the American mother” realized it was taking her out of the city, the “woman of much beauty of person and great dignity of manner” threw herself dramatically out of the carriage and refused to move.[6] Sadly, the desperate maneuver  didn’t work out and the “charming and accomplished woman” was ejected from Mexico.[7]

Alice Green went next to William H. Seward, the U.S. secretary of state. Though the U.S. could do nothing  – since Alice and Angel had both signed legally binding documents and because the country had the slight distraction of the Civil War going on – Seward suggested that Green go to Paris and appeal directly to Carlotta and the French Emperor.[8]

The results were not what Alice Green hoped. Napoleon III had no time for her and Carlotta reputedly treated our American heroine with abominable rudeness:

Carlotta received Alice Green coldly, not even inviting her to be seated. The American mother, feeling herself the equal of the almost fugitive intruder on Mexico, frankly sat down beside her on a sofa, and they had it out with singular self-control on both sides. Each assured the other that she was considerably changed. Carlotta patronizingly told Alice Green that she had done the latter great honor in consenting to the interview, and that the mother of young Augustin [sic] should not make her regret it.[9]

And so poor Mme. Alice Green Iturbide failed in her quest to recover her child.

Luckily for her, however, the whole Mexican emperor thing didn’t really work out for Maximillian. In 1867, two years after he adopted little Agustin, Maximillian I was overthrown and executed. Since deposed dead emperors don’t really need heirs, the child was returned to Alice Green, now widowed, at Rosedale.

Educated in the U.S. and abroad, Agustin de Iturbide y Green enjoyed “all the social advantages given to an imperial prince” for the rest of his life, except for this brief period when he was imprisoned in Mexico for 14 months after insulting the Mexican President. Oops.

Agustin eventually made his way back to Rosedale and to Georgetown where he married twice, became a professor, and died in 1925 after suffering a nervous breakdown. This Mexican-American prince died childless, and the ‘claim to the throne of Iturbide’ passed to relatives in another line.[10] Easy come, easy go!

It's easy to remember the battles -- First Manassas, Second Manassas, Antietam and more -- but the Washington, D.C. area was also home to many other significant Civil War events, too. After all, it was here that Col. Robert E. Lee resigned his commission in the U.S. Army and followed his home state of Virginia to the Confederacy; it was here that President Lincoln directed the Union's war effort; it was here that the President was assassinated in 1865.

And, it was also here that thousands of African Americans first experienced freedom after generations in bondage through the "contraband" camps, which the federal government created on the abandoned lands of secessionists during the war. 

Local Civil War blogger Ron Baumgarten has been exploring these largely-forgotten camps recently on his Civil War blog, All Not So Quiet Along the Potomac and will be sharing some of his research in a talk for the Arlington Historical Society this Thursday night at 7pm. The program is free and takes place in the Reinsch Library auditorium at Marymount University.

I recently sat down with Ron and he gave me a preview of his talk. Check out the video above!

In the early days of the Civil War, thousands of slaves fled their masters in the south and passed through Union lines. In the midst of fighting a war, the Federal army wasn't quite sure how to handle these emigres. Prior to the Emancipation Proclamation, what was their status? Siezing on the fact that Confederate masters considered slaves to be property, Union General Benjamin Butler coined the term "contrabands" -- as in enemy property that was possessed as the contraband of war.

Contrbands flocked to the nation's capital in 1861-1862. They were housed in cramped quarters on Capitol Hill and, later, at Camp Barker near present-day Logan Circle. As these camps became overcrowded and unsanitary, Lt. Col. Elias Greene, Chief Quartermaster for the Department of Washington, suggested that the federal government alieviate the problem by taking over abandoned secessionist farms in northern Virginia and putting the former slaves to work -- for pay -- farming crops to feed the Union army. The idea was passed up the chain and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton signed off on it.

In 1863-1864, the government created five camps in present-day Arlington and Fairfax: Camp Springdale, Camp Todd, Camp Rucker, Camp Wadsworth and Camp Beckwith. (Around the same time, the government also created the more widely-known Freedmen's Village on the Arlington Estate.) Hundreds of contrabands were relocated to the camps and earned $6-10 per month farming. But that was only part of their development. Thanks to the efforts of charitable organizations -- namely the Association of Friends for the Aid and Elevation of Freedmen -- the contrabands also gained access to education. Children and adults alike were tutored in camp schools run by the Friends and many learned to read and write.

It was no accident that the lands that were used for these camps had previously belonged to Confederate sympathizers who had relocated at the start of the war. As Ron told me in our conversation, the chain of events made for a powerful shift: "Here were lands that once belonged to those who held people in bondage now being used to help… to transform society in a way and to integrate these former slaves into American society and prepare them for freedom and economic self sufficiency. So, that in and of itself is really revolutionary in essence because where there was slavery there was slavery no more. And, as a matter of fact, where there was slavery, the seeds of social and political and economic change were already being planted."

It's a fascinating and powerful story, and there's so much more to it that cannot be covered in a short video or blog post. So, come on out to the AHS program at Marymount on Thursday night!

Special thanks to Ron Baumgarten, Alcione Amos and the Cherry Hill Farmhouse in Falls Church, Virginia for their help with this post. Visit the Anacostia Community Museum for more information on contraband camps in Washington, D.C.

NOTE: Not all the photographs shown in the video were taken at northern Virginia contraband camps. Some were taken at camps in other parts of Virginia and Washington, D.C., but the depictions are believed to be similar to those in the northern Virginia camps.

President Taft probably didn't realize he was starting a tradition when he threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the Washington Nationals' Opening Day game in 1910. (Source: George W. Bush White House)“Scan all the annals of Washington base ball as you will – go back to the very inception of the national game – there will be found no day so altogether glorious no paean of victory changed by rooters and fanatics half so sweet as that witnessed yesterday in honor of the opening of the season on 1910.” So read the Washington Post the morning after the Washington Nationals’ 3-0 season-opening victory over the Philadelphia Athletics.

The account may have been a bit rhetorical, but D.C. had reason to be excited, beyond the normal good cheer of baseball’s opening day and the happy result of the game. On April 14, 1910, the city had made history by inaugurating a now-famous tradition: the Presidential first pitch.

Indeed, the game and the pitch were the talk of the town. The Evening Star ran a front page cartoon showing the mad dash to the stadium, and an accompanying article described the scene:

 “The streets leading to American League Park…. were thronged with carriages and automobiles filled with base ball fans, and the street cars looked like a sugar barrel assaulted by flies. Not only were they packed inside, but the platforms were jammed and eager humanity swarmed over the running boards of the open cars. For it is the big day on the base ball calendar.”[1]

Even Congress took the afternoon off on account of the ballgame.

Washingtonians dashed to the ballpark for Opening Day in 1910 to see President Taft inaugurate the new season with a ceremonial first pitch. (Source: Evening Star newspaper, April 14, 1910) At American League Park (the precursor to Griffith Stadium in Shaw), every seat was occupied and fans without seats staked out spots in the standing room area behind a rope in the outfield. The President, of course, didn’t have to fight it out for a ticket. American League commissioner Ban Johnson had presented him and Vice President Sherman with passes to all league games. And so, upon arrival, the White House entourage was escorted to box seats by the field.

Washington manager Jimmy McAleer asked star pitcher Walter Johnson to serve as the honorary catcher for Taft’s toss but the shy Johnson demurred. And so, McAleer appointed Gabby Street for the honor. When the big moment arrived, however, Taft was not going to let Johnson off the hook. Rather than tossing to Street, the big man turned and fired the ball toward Johnson.[2]

“President Taft threw the first ball into the diamond and opened the season with a true presidential flourish. He did it with his good, trusty right arm and the virgin sphere scudded across the diamond as true as a die to the pitcher’s box, where Walter Johnson, also the possessor of a good trusty right arm, gathered it in and started winding up for one of his rifle shots across the plate.”[3]

The overflow crowd let out a roar and the Post complimented Taft’s “faultless delivery.”[4] Despite his initial hesitance, it seems Walter Johnson appreciated the moment as well. The next day he sent the ball to the White House with a request that the President sign it for him. Taft obliged, scrawling “To Walter Johnson, with the hope that me may continue to be as formidable as in yesterday’s game – W.H. Taft” on the ball before returning it.

Over the years, the Presidential first pitch tradition evolved. Rather than tossing the ball to a specific player as Taft had done, subsequent Presidents tossed it into a group of players who fought over it in a scrum like bridesmaids battling over the bouquet at a wedding. Scrumming gave way to the much tamer and safer first pitches we see today in the 1970s. And, while the tradition was largely a D.C. thing for many years, gradually other cities got into the act – especially after Washington’s team moved to Texas following the 1971 season.

For a nice summary of Presidential first pitches, check out Steven Goldman’s article on S.B. Nation.

On April 30, 1970, President Nixon announced the attack on Cambodia in a televised address to the nation. (Photo: Jack E.Kightlinger/NARA) On April 20, 1970 President Nixon addressed the nation outlining his plan for the withdrawal of 150,000 troops from Vietnam, signaling that he was serious about his promise to get America out of the war. Ten days later however, the anti-war movement was stunned by his announcement of a major new escalation in the fighting — the U.S. invasion of Cambodia. Campuses across the country exploded in dissent, culminating in the killing of four students at Kent State University by National Guard troops on May 4.

In the tense days following Kent State, impromptu rallies erupted all over the Washington region, and a major demonstration was planned for May 9 on the National Mall. Law enforcement entities went on hair-trigger alert, mobilizing all available resources including the entire D.C. police force and 5,000 locally-stationed troops.[1]

“Henry Kissinger said Washington and the White House were besieged. There were district buses lined up around the White House for who knows what. The 82nd Airborne was in the basement of the Executive Office Building across the street.” [2]

It was in this combustible atmosphere that an idea germinated in Richard Nixon’s muddled mind in the wee hours of May 9, 1970. It would prove to be one of the most bizarre incidents of his presidency, and that’s saying a lot.

After a contentious press conference at 10:00pm on Friday May, 8, Nixon stayed up until 2:15am making phone calls. He slept for a couple hours, woke up, put on a classical music album (Rachmaninoff), and peered out the window at the gathering crowds on the mall. He then hatched a not-so-brilliant plan — he would take his valet, Cuban immigrant Manolo Sanchez, down to the Lincoln Memorial. Ostensibly, Nixon wanted to provide Manolo with the opportunity to see the monument lit up at night for the first time. While there, perhaps, he just might talk some sense into the young anti-war protesters. So he informed the “petrified” secret service, and the small party left the barricaded White House in darkness around 4:35am.[3]

In the early morning hours of May 9, 1970 President Nixon drove to the Lincoln Memorial and mingled with a group of anti-war demonstrators. Here, Nixon chats with Barbara Hirsch, 24, of Cleveland, Ohio (left) and Lauree Moss, of Detroit, Mich. (Photo: © Bettmann/CORBIS) Upon arriving at the Lincoln Memorial, Nixon engaged a small (but steadily growing) group of protesters camped out for the rally scheduled to begin later that day. Nixon, as always socially awkward, tried to get the dialogue started with some small talk:

"To get the conversation going I asked how old they were, what they were studying, the usual questions." When several of the students said they attended Syracuse University, Nixon commented on how good the school's football team was. Far from being overawed, the students found Nixon's line of questioning downright bizarre. [4]

"I hope it was because he was tired but most of what he was saying was absurd," one of the Syracuse students told the Washington Post afterwards. "Here we had come from a university that's completely uptight, on strike, and when we told him where we were from, he talked about the football team. And when someone said he was from California, he talked about surfing."[5]

Nixon's rambling dialogue covered various topics from travel and marriage to race relations and pollution, but eventually the President got around to his primary purpose — explaining his recent actions on Vietnam as motivated by a desire for peace:

“I had tried to explain in the press conference that my goals in Vietnam were the same as theirs — to stop the killing, to end the war, to bring peace. Our goal was not to get into Cambodia by what we were doing, but to get out of Vietnam.

There seemed to be no — they did not respond. I hoped that their hatred of the war, which I could well understand, would not turn into a bitter hatred of our whole system, our country and everything that it stood for.

I said, I know you, that probably most of you think I’m an SOB. But I want you to know that I understand just how you feel.” [6]

To listen to more of Nixon’s recollections of his strange interactions with the protesters that day, view the clip below which includes color home movie footage of the May 9 protests in D.C., combined with several minutes of Nixon’s Dictaphone recordings.

As the dawn approached and rays of sunshine spread over the Mall, Nixon decided it was probably time to wrap up the rap session, and headed back to the Presidential limousine, to the great relief of his small (and increasingly apprehensive) Secret Service detail.

But Dick and Manolo’s excellent adventure wasn’t over just yet. The President ordered the detail over to the Capitol, where they walked through the nearly-deserted building with tour guide Nixon pointing out the sights in the House Chamber.

"He [Nixon] takes a seat in his old representative seat. And he asks Manolo to go up to the speaker’s platform and to deliver a short speech. Then they go off to breakfast. He said he hadn’t had hash ever since he had been president. They try a famous hash diner.

That was closed. So they went off to the Mayflower Hotel and had breakfast. And only after that did he go back to the White House, after this amazing evening, early morning."[7]

Nixon’s now infamous pre-dawn sojourn took place at a tumultuous time for his presidency, when the nation seemed to be fraying along social, political and racial lines. But his erratic behavior that morning would have even his closest allies wondering if he was going off the deep end. Nixon's Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman wrote in his diary hours after the Lincoln Memorial visit, "I am concerned about his condition," and noted that Nixon's behavior that morning constituted "the weirdest day so far."[8]

Youth clash with police during 1991 riots in Washington's Mount Pleasant neighborhood. (Source: Flickr user secorlew. Used via Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.) Angry mobs clashing with police… Looting… Flames…. It was a scene out of the 1968 riots. But this was a different time and place. The year was 1991 and D.C.’s Mount Pleasant neighborhood was boiling over.

The firestorm started at around 7pm on the evening of May 5. Angela Jewell and Girsel Del Valle, rookie cops from the Metropolitan Police Department’s 4^th District, were out on patrol in the neighborhood. They approached a group of men who appeared to be drinking in public at 17^th and Lamont Streets, NW. Angry words were exchanged and the men supposedly became disorderly. The officers began to make arrests.

What happened next was the source of some debate.

According to a police spokesman, one of the men, 30-year-old Daniel Enrique Gomez, drew a knife and lunged at Officer Jewell. In an effort to defend herself, she fired her weapon, critically wounding Gomez in the chest.

But some bystanders in the predominantly Latino community presented a far more disturbing version of events: that Gomez had been shot when he was already in handcuffs.

The incident sparked immediate outrage in the community. Crowds took to the streets and pushing and shoving soon led to flying rocks and bottles. Demonstrators overturned several cruisers and set them on fire as MPD officers called for reinforcements. In the words of one witness, “all hell broke loose.”[1] Around midnight a crowd broke into a 7-11 store at Mt. Pleasant St. and Kenyon St. A few blocks away, an Up Against the Wall clothing store was looted.

Many in the city government were caught off guard. As D.C. Councilmember Frank Smith, Jr. remarked, the chain of events pointed to larger fissures in the community, “This takes me by surprise; its magnitude concerns me very much. This is an intimation of the flashpoints in the community.”[2]

The biggest flashpoint was the strained relationship between the city’s primarily white and black police force and the Latino residents of the Mount Pleasant neighborhood. Quite literally, they did not speak the same language and there was considerable distrust on both sides.

As one resident told the Post in the days after Gomez’s shooting, “We are oppressed by the police. If you look Spanish or speak Spanish, they’re suspicious of you.”[3] Another added, “This explosion has been brewing for a long time. If you live here, you see a lot of abuse by police.”[4]

Columnist William Raspberry saw a connection to 1968. “The parallels between the Latino communities and riot-torn black communities of the ‘60s are striking. The same substandard, overcrowded housing; dreary, poorly paid jobs (or no work at all); the same resentment on the part of neighbors, the same voicelessness, the same complaints of police brutality. And the same feeling that nobody cares.”[5]

Given the history, it’s no surprise that police struggled to get the situation in Mount Pleasant under control. After rain showers helped bring a short-lived calm to the area, roving packs of youth clashed with police again the following night.

Map showing some of the major incidents of the Mount Pleasant riots as of May 7, 1991. (Source: Washington Post) Multiple businesses were looted including a Safeway on Columbia Road and a Giant Food Store on 14^th Street as the disturbances expanded beyond Mount Pleasant. Protesters torched a Church’s chicken fast food restaurant. On 16^th St., a crowd boarded a Metrobus and set it ablaze, one of a number of vehicle fires in the neighborhood. Police countered with tear gas and other non-lethal measures to disperse the crowds, but had trouble wrangling the protesters.

As the unrest wore on, observers noted a shift. “Sunday night’s rage, triggered by the shooting and focused sharply on the police by Hispanic residents, gave way Monday to an unfocused free-for-all by teenagers and young men in their early twenties. Rather than guns, they carried an anger relieved only by breaking and taking things.”[6]

In response, Mayor Sharon Pratt Dixon – who many had criticized for being slow to react to the emergency – instituted a nighttime curfew in Mount Pleasant, Adams Morgan and Columbia Heights. Businesses were expected to close and residents traveling to and from work would have to show identification in order to be on the streets. Violators risked fines of $300 or 10 days in jail. (The curfew started out as midnight - 5am and was later expanded to 7pm - 5am.)

Map showing curfew area implemented by Mayor Dixon and the Metropolitan Police Department during riots. (Source: Washington Post, May 7, 1991) The mayor also announced a change in approach to law enforcement. After initially telling police to disperse crowds but not make any arrests, which she feared might further strain relations with the community, Dixon changed tactics. Saying that the situation was “not as contained as it needs to be,” she announced, “We’re going to have to be more aggressive. We’re going to cordon off the area and we’re going to arrest them now.”[7]

Fearing further violence, some business owners along the commercial strips began boarding up their windows like you might see before a hurricane. A few Latino community leaders walked with the police on patrol in hopes of keeping the peace.

Fortunately, the combination of tactics had the desired result. After a third night of unrest, the violence dissipated over the following days. By week’s end the mayor lifted the curfew.

While there were some injuries (primarily to police officers) and significant property damage, no one was killed in the riots, a fact which MPD Chief Issac Fulwood celebrated: “Our whole idea from Day One was to use a minimum of force. That’s why we haven’t had any persons killed in this community.”[8]

But even as law enforcement put a positive spin on the city’s response to the unrest, it was clear that D.C. faced new challenges. As Council Chairman John Wilson reflected, “We’ve learned a lot of things in the past week. We learned that the city is changing. That the government had better have better communication with all segments of the city. That the militancy of our young is at its highest ebb. That the poor of this city are extremely frustrated.”[9]

For photos of the riots, see Secorlew's gallery on Flickr. Also, check out the Telemundo(?) news report below.