Monumental Washington: Blog

Boys, I'm Killed

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 12 Apr 2016 02:32:23 GMT

The shots rang out at nearly the same time, the crowd watching agreed; one witness said he only heard one shot. Davis Tutt was the first to reach for his pistol as he faced James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok, but Hickok had the better aim. Tutt exclaimed "boys, I'm killed," after the bullet from Hickok's gun found his ribs. That gunfight in Springfield, Missouri marked the beginning of several legends, that of Wild Bill Hickok himself, and the gunfight duel itself as shown in the movies: enemies with guns facing each other in the middle of town.

Hickok's story retreated further into legend with the fictionalized TV show, "Wild Bill Hickok," which ran from 1951 through 1958.

Where's My Pa?

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 11 Apr 2016 01:02:42 GMT

Grover Cleveland, during the presidential election of 1884, got his illegitimate child thrown in his face. His response to the scandal that followed went down in election lore because he won. He did not deny that the child was his. "Tell the Truth" was his tag line. But knowing "the truth" depends whether you believe the affidavit of the widow who said she was raped, or the stories in the press that had her consorting with multiple men, some of whom were friends of Cleveland. Some facts remain: that her son was taken from her and put into an orphanage, and Maria Halpin was briefly committed to Providence Insane Asylum.

Official versions of the story still exonerate Cleveland, telling his version of the story. Supporters responded to "Ma, Ma, Where's My Pa?" with “Gone to the White House, Ha, Ha, Ha!”

Stumping From the Front Yard

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 10 Apr 2016 02:59:05 GMT

President Garfield had pioneered the technique of conducting a campaign for president from his front porch in 1880. It helped to have a home with access to a railroad stop built just for him. The tracks near his house brought the curious public to see him at a time when candidates generally did not campaign in person at all. William McKinley, who also had railroad tracks near his house, took the front porch technique into new territory in 1896 by recruiting friendly audiences. The last front porch campaign, by Warren Harding in 1920, controlled the message even more, befriending reporters by building them a press room and buying the reporters a car.

It was a far cry from the first folksy front porch campaign of Garfield, when reporters camped out on his lawn.

Bat's Last Gunfight

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 09 Apr 2016 00:52:26 GMT

"Bat Masterson is said to be cool, decisive, and a bad man with a pistol." So the local paper declared when he was elected sheriff in Dodge City, Kansas during the wild west days of the late 1800s. His reputation as a killer was perhaps exaggerated, but it didn't hurt to be feared. He spent five years as a lawman, then lost an election. He left town, going back to his earlier occupation as a gambler, ending up in Tombstone, Arizona. He heard his brother was in trouble in Dodge and got on the next train. Back in town, he immediately challenged his brother's enemies. In the ensuing gunfight no one was killed, but Bat was fined $8 and told to leave town. He got out of Dodge the same night.

To "get out of Dodge" does refer to the wild Kansas town, but the phrase originated with the TV show Gunsmoke, set in that city.

Endurance, Fidelity, Intelligence

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 07 Apr 2016 03:48:29 GMT

The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog race has run since 1973 along the route that brought medicine from Anchorage to remote Nome when the city was in danger from a diptheria outbreak. Several Nome children had fallen ill with the contagious disease in the winter of 1925, and the only way to reach them was by a relay of dog teams. Balto, a Siberian Husky until then not considered particularly remarkable, led his team through a bitter cold blizzard to deliver the antitoxin on the final leg of the thousand-mile journey. Balto's feat stopped the outbreak and only five of the 1400 Nome residents died.

Balto's fame led to a life-size statue in New York's Central Park, the city's only monument to a dog.

Monument to the Railroad

(Monumental Washington) — Wed, 06 Apr 2016 04:12:53 GMT

The Bunker Hill monument in Boston, which commemorates an early battle of the Revolutionary War, also helped kick off the revolution in transportation that was the railroad age. In 1826, Gridley Bryant developed new technologies to move the big stone blocks for the monument. It would be one of the first attempts at rail transport in the United States, and some of Bryant's inventions are still in use.

This early railway was powered by horses, rather than locomotives.

Geronimo's Bones

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 04:09:52 GMT

Feared and reviled for his violent resistance as his nomadic tribe was corralled onto reservations, Geronimo, an Apache warrior, was pursued between 1881 and 1886 and captured by the United States government. Although late in life he was allowed some freedom to earn money exhibiting himself at expositions and shows, when he died in 1909 he was still officially a prisoner of war at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and his grave is marked there. In 2009, the rumor that the Yale society Skull and Bones had stolen his skull in 1918 hit the headlines when his descendants sued to recover the remains.

Geronimo's bones may never have been buried at Fort Sill, with no skull to be stolen. According to a tale handed down from a member of the burial party, Geronimo had been laid to rest near Elk Mountain, Oklahoma.

Revenge of the Whale

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 04 Apr 2016 03:22:31 GMT

The hunting of whales was big business for a hundred years. In the late 1700s, an industry based on the oil of the massive animal began to grow in importance. Whales were hunted with ferocity for the huge profits whale oil brought as more lamps burned the smokeless fuel. But tales of the animals attacking back were not just fiction. The most famous was the attack on the Essex in 1820, which was the inspiration for Herman Melville's Moby Dick.

In 1851, the year Melville's masterpiece is published and panned, a whale attacked the Ann Alexander and sunk her.

The Spy Who Got Away With It

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 03 Apr 2016 04:19:48 GMT

The secret of the first the atomic bomb developed by the United States during World War II was fiercely protected. Most of those caught passing on nuclear secrets were jailed and two were put to death. But one atomic spy evaded any consequences although he was known to authorities. He was left alone because the United States feared his prosecution would tip off the Soviets that they had cracked their coded communications, as that was the the only evidence against him. When the communications were declassified he was publicly identified as Theodore "Ted" Hall.

Hall worked on the Nagasaki weapon, a plutonium bomb, the same type that the Soviets detonated as their first nuclear test in 1949.

Phony as a Twe Dollar Bill

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 02 Apr 2016 00:28:33 GMT

The Secret Service, whose job it is to find and destroy counterfeit money, doesn't go after the obvious fakes: they don't bother with novelty items like the twe dollar bill, which really exists, and will set you back $750 in legal tender. They were concerned, though, when they found a stash of billion dollar bills in West Hollywood. Unconcerned by a $200 bill with George W. Bush on the front, a clerk at a Dairy Queen in Danville, Kentucky gave out almost $198 in change.

Three dollar bills did exist, although they came to mean phony. The federal government of the United States has never printed a $3 bill, but the "United Colonies" did.

The Locked Room

(Monumental Washington) — Fri, 01 Apr 2016 01:19:57 GMT

Rare cases of demonic possession had happened in the United States, but they were not widely known until William Peter Blatty's bestselling 1971 book, The Exorcist. Blatty had heard about a case nearby while he was a student at Georgetown in Washington, DC. The real case was shrouded in misinformation, but the 13-year-old boy who inspired the book recovered and led a normal life. The demons, though, apparently lingered in the place where they were cast out of the boy, and the room was kept locked until the building was demolished.

When the movie opened in 1973 audiences were completely freaked out.

Edison's Attempted Electricide

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 31 Mar 2016 01:43:47 GMT

The prolonged death of the first man to die in an electric chair in 1890 was shocking: a gruesome spectacle of a man at first not given enough juice to kill him and then so much that he smoked. Also shocking was the behavior of one of the great inventors of the age, Thomas Edison. He hoped to discredit AC (alternating current) power, backed by his rival George Westinghouse, in favor of DC (direct current), by associating it with death. Edison recommended its use for the execution. He also electrocuted animals for the press to show that AC power was dangerous. Not only was he wrong, but AC power had advantages that made it the industry standard.

Florida is one six states where a condemned prisoner can choose to die in the chair, and in 2015 inmate Wayne Doty has done so.

The New Jersey Exception

(Monumental Washington) — Wed, 30 Mar 2016 02:04:23 GMT

Beginning in 1776, women could vote in New Jersey. That is, if they were single and worth at least 50 pounds. It was not unusual for states to restrict voting to those with property. It was unusual to allow women the vote, so much so that some historians believed it a loophole, rather than the intent of the state. The law mentioned only "individuals," without reference to gender. But in 1797 New Jersey made the inclusion of women clear by using he or she in the language of the statue. For the very first time women were specifically allowed to vote.

In 1807, New Jersey took voting rights away from women and free blacks, but extended the right to poor white men.

Beyond the Blue and Gray

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 29 Mar 2016 02:52:34 GMT

A volunteer marching off to the Civil War might don the blue uniform of the Union, or the grey of the Rebs, or he just might be in bright red pantaloons with a tasseled fez on his head. Before the war tales of the North African fighters, called Zouaves, inspired imitation by American militias. When war came, as many as 100 volunteer units on both sides of the conflict donned the distinctive gear. What set them apart was not just appearance, but also their light infantry drill.

Zouave units were so renowned for bravery that wearing the uniform became a reward.

Booze, Bands, and Balls

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 28 Mar 2016 03:37:06 GMT

William Henry Harrison won the 1840 campaign for president using some new tactics, but giving out booze wasn't one of them. Nor was the word booze invented then, although the free whiskey from the E. C. Booz distillery surely helped popularize the term. The most innovative tactic of the campaign was its transformation of the wealthy Virginia aristocrat into a "log cabin" man. Harrison's cabin was more a mansion.

The Whig party sold the nation on Harrison using slogans, songs and stunts. One was to "keep the ball rolling" from Kentucky to Maryland.

The Genius of the Other Einstein

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 27 Mar 2016 01:45:30 GMT

Isidor "Izzy" Einstein was the brains behind Izzy and Moe, prohibition agents who racked up almost 5,000 arrests in New York City during the first five years of prohibition. Izzy's genius lay in thinking up colorful scenarios the two would enact to gain entry into one of the 30,000 or so of the city's speakeasies. Their antics ended up being covered extensively in the press, and they became as beloved by the public as any prohibition agent was likely to get.

Only a government would fire people for being too good at their job, but that's what happened to Izzy and Moe when they were let go in 1925.

The Fashioning of a Fashion

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 26 Mar 2016 03:52:02 GMT

Levi Strauss gets the credit for "inventing" blue jeans, but it was Jacob Davis who brought Strauss the idea to make a better pair of pants using metal rivets. The idea was sufficiently innovative to receive patent protection in 1873. A hundred years later, the western working class wear produced by Levi Strauss and Co. was everywhere. The durable blue trousers had become a symbol of the casual freedom of the post-war American lifestyle.

It was the 1950s when the popularity of blue denim really took off, spread by those American ambassadors, teenagers and movie stars. Bing Crosby wore a tuxedo made of the stuff in 1951 to show it could go anywhere.

The National Elixir

(Monumental Washington) — Fri, 25 Mar 2016 04:47:02 GMT

After the Civil War, Georgia pharmacist John S. Pemberton experimented with medicinal mixtures he hoped would provide an alternative to opiates. His own addiction to morphine, a result of his war service on the Confederate side, provided motivation. The exotic coca plant promised to deliver a cure. His first successful drink was coca mixed with wine, but in 1886 a new version with sugar syrup and carbonated water promised a more widespread appeal. Although Pemberton invented Coca-Cola, he had little to do with its success.

Federal agents seized a shipment of Coca-Cola in 1909 for violating the Pure Food and Drug Act for its dangerous ingredient: caffeine.

The Monkey Men

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 24 Mar 2016 10:51:25 GMT

Until its repeal in 1967, a Tennessee law banned teaching evolution in school. In 1925, the "Scopes Monkey Trial" had decided the matter. The trial was a set-up from the start: a young teacher, John Scopes, had agreed to be accused of giving an evolution lesson in order to test the law. The contest riveted the press, who came to the small town of Dayton to watch the match between former presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan and the most famous defense attorney of the day, Clarence Darrow. Some believed no less than the modern world was at stake. Others thought the whole thing a publicity stunt.

For journalist H. L. Mencken, the trial was both. In a series for the Baltimore Sun, he was hardly impartial, firming supporting his friend Darrow against what he saw as narrow-minded rural fundamentalists.

No Man But the Undertaker

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 22 Mar 2016 23:47:50 GMT

Clyde Barrow boasted that no man but the undertaker would ever get him. "Never go crooked. It's but for the love of a man that I have to die," Bonnie Barrow supposedly said to fellow gang member Henry Methvin two nights before she was killed. An ambush by six Texas Rangers put an end to the two year, five state criminal odyssey of Bonnie and Clyde on May 23 of 1934. With the nostalgic glamour of their outlaw status, it's easy to overlook the dozen who died at their hands.

Yet the tale did survive their demise. Gibsland, LA holds a yearly festival near where the couple died.

The Last Slave Ship

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 22 Mar 2016 01:24:59 GMT

As of 1808 it was illegal to import slaves into the United States. Fifty years later, a group of men decided to defy the ban by outfitting a yacht built for speed into one that would hold human cargo. Almost 500 men would fit into the Wanderer. Each was allotted a space only 12 inches wide for the six week journey. The trip was expected to be very profitable for investors who hoped to get $650 for each individual. Four hundred and nine slaves made it onto the Georgia shore. But the influx of foreigners caused talk and in the north the news caused outrage. In the south, sentiments went the other way: the slavers were acquitted at trial.

The Wanderer was suspected of being a slave ship before she even left the US, due to the extensive modifications made to the pleasure craft.

The Revolution of 1909

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 20 Mar 2016 20:49:18 GMT

One of the most important inventions of the 20th century became something so commonplace, so utterly taken for granted, that it hardly registers as a technological revolution. Plastic, until a word for anything flexible, first became a practical item in 1909 with the announcement by inventor Leo Baekeland of a substance he called Bakelite. Two years earlier, he had made the first entirely synthetic material that was malleable and also cheap and durable. It was resistant to heat, chemicals, and electricity, making it especially useful in radios and cars.

After World War II better plastics took Bakelite's place, and today it is best remembered by collectors of costume jewelry.

The Forgotten Holiday

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 20 Mar 2016 00:44:36 GMT

For the seven years of the Revolutionary War, New York City was in British hands. But when the war ended, in September of 1783, with the Treaty of Paris, the British had still not left. On November 20, 1783, George Washington entered Harlem, New York. The last of the British troops left our shores on November 25th. A celebration took place on that day for more than a century. Evacuation Day marks the final act of the war. The last shot of the conflict was fired by one of the 20,000 retreating British off Staten Island as they sailed home.

The British greased the flagpole that flew their ensign; John Van Arsdale became the hero of the day when he donned cleats to climb it to fly the Stars and Stripes.

Death with a Minute Left

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 19 Mar 2016 01:06:13 GMT

At 5 am on the 11th of November, 1918, Germany signed an agreement with the Allies to stop fighting the Great War, now known as World War I. But it was not yet over. The Allies, including American commander General John J. Pershing, knew that the war would soon end, but decided to continue attacking German positions that morning. During the time between the signing at 5 and 11 o'clock, when the armistice was official, 3,000 more Americans died. The very last was Henry Gunther, a German-American from Baltimore, who was killed at 10:59.

"Almost as he fell, the gunfire died away and an appalling silence prevailed."

Related MW photographs:

Pershing's Shadow

R.I.P. Parcella Post

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 17 Mar 2016 23:28:31 GMT

In 1913, the Post Office began a new service called Parcel Post. For the first time anything, even live chickens, could go through the mail, as long as it was under 50 pounds. In 1914, Mrs. John Pierstroff bought 56 cents worth of postage for her 5-year-old daughter May and put her on a mail train. May made it to her grandmother's house in Lewiston, Idaho, 73 miles away. The Post Office immediately discouraged the practice, but several other children made it through the mail safely before the Post Office declared in 1920 that humans could no longer be posted.

On November 20, 1922 it happened again. This time the child was dead, mailed via Parcel Post to an undertaker in Albany, NY. The child was buried as Parcella Post because the parents were never discovered.

Grape Soda and Glory in the Air

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 17 Mar 2016 00:36:58 GMT

Orville and Wilbur Wright were dubious when Cal Rogers decided to fly from one end of the continent to the other. In 1911, they knew their machines were fragile and not fast. Top speed was 55 miles an hour. But "somebody's got to be first," Rogers said, and anyway there was the $50,000 William Randolph Hearst was offering. Rogers got a sponsor for the $18,000 worth of manpower and spare parts he needed. An ad for new sparkling grape drink, Vin Fiz, would be painted under the wings. During the 49-day trip, he crashed-landed 15 of the 70 times he touched down. Cal Rogers missed Hearst's 30-day deadline, but got the first.

Another pioneering aviator, Harriet Quimby, appeared in ads for the grape soda. Both flyers might be better known but for the fact that they each died in 1912.

A Johnson's Johnson

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 15 Mar 2016 16:23:57 GMT

The scepter as a symbol of power can be traced to classical antiquity. President Lyndon B. Johnson's scepter-like personal appendage made a separate rod unnecessary. Johnson liked to show it off in situations involving establishing a pecking order with himself at the top. He nicknamed it Jumbo and would ask "have you ever seen anything bigger than this?" Not everybody was impressed by the display.

Johnson used another ancient symbol of power, the throne, and required subordinates to attend meetings there. His was made of porcelain.

A Bonaparte and the Beauty of Baltimore

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 15 Mar 2016 13:15:01 GMT

They were young and in love. He was Jerome Bonaparte, the impetuous youngest brother of Napoleon I, about to become Emperor of France. She was Elizabeth Patterson, the beautiful daughter of a rich merchant of Baltimore. At just 18, she had persuaded her father to let her marry the 19-year-old visitor from France. But Napoleon would not accept his brother's American bride, ordering him home. Jerome complied, sailing for France with his pregnant wife. Napoleon would not let her embark on French soil, but Jerome again obeyed his brother. He let his American wife sail away and raise their child alone.

Elizabeth "Betsy" Bonaparte began a line of American Bonapartes. Her great-grandson, Charles J. Bonaparte, served as Attorney General of the United States under President Theodore Roosevelt.

Assasination of a Newspaperman

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 14 Mar 2016 02:04:44 GMT

In July 1926, Donald Mellett's short reign as the editor of the Canton Daily News ended abruptly in his garage with a gunshot to the head. On the job less than a year, he was already making good on his promise to make the paper profitable. He had boosted circulation by publishing stories about the corruption between the Canton Ohio police and the gangsters that ran the town. After Mellett's death, widespread outrage expressed by other newspapers helped bring in a private detective who solved the case. The police detective who arranged Mellett's murder went to prison for life, along with the trigger men. The police chief, initially accused by his detective of ordering the murder, went free.

In 1927 the Canton Daily News was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Mellett's work, but the paper also folded that year.

Marie Antoinette's Escape to Maine

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 13 Mar 2016 02:25:43 GMT

In 1793, Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France, was in prison. She had become the symbol of a hated aristocracy, and revolutionaries were calling for her head. Her friends, though, had made a deal with Captain Stephen Clough, who had sailed from Maine with a load of goods to trade. In exchange for help with his cargo, which had languished at harbor amid the disorder, he agreed to take the Queen to Maine. One of the guards bribed to help her escape betrayed the plot instead.

Captain Stephen Clough was still in France when she was beheaded by guillotine. He brought a piece of her death dress back to his home, which became known as Marie Antoinette House.

A Lynching at the Curve

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 12 Mar 2016 01:54:58 GMT

A dispute that started with boys playing marbles escalated into a famous lynching that sparked a trailblazing effort by Ida Wells to document what was going on in the south: the extra-judicial execution of anyone who threatened the social order. Not everyone killed was black, but the many public displays of the dark-skinned dead were meant to send a message. The tactic served to frighten away those blacks who might try to compete with whites or attempt to cross the racial divide. Ida Wells found herself burnt out of her Memphis newspaper office when she suggested some sexual contact between whites and blacks was consensual.

An alleged sexual offense was often the reason given for murder by a mob without benefit of trial.

Laudanum for Ladies

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 23:45:57 GMT

Laudanum, the "mother's little helper" of the 19th century, was a mixture of alcohol and opium. Since at least 1821, when the book Confessions of an English Opium Eater had described its charms and also the chains of the drug, it was known that it could be hard to break a reliance on the mixture. Yet, with little else that worked so well to relieve pain, it was freely prescribed to women throughout the 19th century. With the adoption of the syringe in 1853 the miracle morphine could dull any distress. Eugene O'Neill's mother Ella's addiction began with laudanum and morphine administered after a difficult childbirth. Her son's play, Long Day's Journey Into Night, tells of her long struggle to free herself from it.

Women also gave it to their children to help them teeth and help them sleep, and some did so permanently.

To the Tube and Beyond

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 01:10:16 GMT

Few who tune into the WTTG television station in Washington, DC know that the letters refer to a real person. Thomas T. Goldsmith was an engineer for the DuMont television network. Its founder Allen DuMont was the technology hero of his day: in 1937, he began making the first cathode ray tubes that didn't burn out, which made television sets commercially viable. The era of "the tube" had begun. In 1946, his fledgling DuMont network demonstrated what TV could do, showing General Eisenhower laying a wreath on Lincoln's memorial to viewers in New York.

In 1947, DuMont employee Goldsmith patented a Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device, or the world's first electronic game, but it was never manufactured.

Civil Rights and the Singer

(Monumental Washington) — Wed, 09 Mar 2016 01:37:42 GMT

In the fight for black Americans to receive their full rights as citizens, Frank Sinatra isn't the first name that comes to mind. But he firmly and publicly objected to racial discrimination well before the movement to end segregation got going. He wouldn't play a club that didn't admit all races, and he insisted his band be integrated. In 1955, the Las Vegas Sands had let Nat King Cole stay, but not eat in the restaurant. Sinatra found out and invited him to dinner. With his clout as a headliner, he helped fellow performer Sammy Davis Jr. break the racial barrier that limited black access to casinos.

In 1961, as the civil rights movement was getting going, Sinatra played Carnegie Hall to benefit Martin Luther King Jr, and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Absolut Perfection

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 08 Mar 2016 01:14:20 GMT

When you start with Absolute Perfection, where do you go from there? On to the longest running advertising campaign in history, and one of the most successful. Absolut Vodka's ads of the 1980s and beyond were not only a success for their brand, but for all vodka. The memorable formula of "one bottle, two words, and a little bit of wit" helped increase Absolute sales from 10,000 cases to many millions over its 25-year run, but it also helped make vodka the largest selling spirit in the US. Success attracted new luxury brands: as of 2015, brands more expensive than Absolute sell better.

Andy Warhol kicked the campaign into high gear in 1986 with the first of its artist-created ads. He did say "good business is the best art."

Bombs and Bombshells

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 06 Mar 2016 23:41:45 GMT

It was a spectacle, what Las Vegas was beginning to be famous for in 1951. Mushroom clouds offered a unique view in an otherwise plain desert landscape. Atomic fallout was all in a day's work for Chamber of Commerce publicity photographer Donald English, who created showgirl ballet in the desert to show off the charms of the town. He took Sally McCloskey up to Angel's Peak, where there was a view of the bomb tests, to perform what Parade magazine called Angel's Dance. Four of her poses were apprehension, impact, awe and survival.

Don English also created other iconic photos of bombs and bombshells, like Miss Atomic Bomb, Lee Merlin.

The Molasses Massacre

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 06 Mar 2016 00:46:58 GMT

Molasses turned murderous one January day in 1919 on the Boston waterfront. A tank of viscous brown liquid suddenly burst, hurling more than 2 million gallons of the sticky sweet stuff into town. This molasses wasn't slow: it moved at 35 miles an hour, trapping people and animals, killing 21 and injuring more. Structures in its path were splintered. The company said an anarchists' bomb must be to blame; others said the molasses had fermented and exploded on its own. Most likely the disaster was due to shoddy construction. The tank had leaked from the start, providing locals with a free treat.

For decades a faint, sweet scent still lingered in Boston's North End.

The First Brokered Election

(Monumental Washington) — Fri, 04 Mar 2016 22:14:56 GMT

On November 7th, 1876, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes went to bed believing he had lost the presidential election. Almost 300,000 more people had voted for his opponent, Democrat Samuel Tilden. But Tilden was one vote short in the electoral college, while Hayes was 20 votes away from a win. The fight over those 20 votes lasted for months: Republicans said Tilden votes in disputed southern states were the result of fraud. The election was decided by a commission of 15: five Senators, Representatives, and Supreme Court Justices. On the eve of the inauguration, they awarded all 20 votes to Hayes.

Republicans had made a deal: they agreed to end the post Civil War federal oversight of the south called Reconstruction. The southern Democrats were then able to halt the participation of former slaves in government and society with "Jim Crow" laws.

The Final Dedication

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 22:12:32 GMT

Although Mount Rushmore was completed in 1941, it was dedicated fifty years later, by President George H. W. Bush on July 3, 1991. This last dedication was for the work as a whole, which hadn't happened in spite of six earlier dedications. The first dedication took place in 1925, after the site was selected. Another dedication by President Calvin Coolidge followed on August 10, 1927, also taking place before work on the sculptures had begun. After each of the four sculptures was completed, a dedication ceremony took place.

Charles E. Rushmore, a New York lawyer, became associated with the granite peak, otherwise known as Slaughterhouse Rock, in the late 1880s, when he was a frequent visitor to the area. Before that the Lakota Sioux called it the Six Grandfathers.

Khrushchev's Iowa Adventure

(Monumental Washington) — Wed, 02 Mar 2016 21:15:00 GMT

Soviet Premier Nikita Krushchev accepted President Eisenhower's invitation to visit the United States in 1959, he wanted more than a state visit: he wanted to see the sights. A traveling circus atmosphere surrounded the "funny little man" wherever he went, although he didn't make it to Disneyland. Among the stops was a corn farm in Coon Rapids, Iowa owned by Roswell Garst, who had already met "Mr. K" in his own country. The two bonded over their interest in farming methods, and perhaps a disdain for the press: by one account Krushchev joined Garst in pelting reporters with corn cobs.

Khrushchev's return visit to the US the next year was less friendly. He angrily banged his shoe on his desk at the UN and declared communism would bury capitalism.

Who Invented the Frisbee?

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 01 Mar 2016 21:33:55 GMT

Of the claims to the title "inventor of the Frisbee," the clear winner is Walter Morrison, if one considers only who brought the idea to the marketplace. He saw the sales potential in a flying saucer-like disc as early as 1937, briefly selling cake pans for a quarter to throw around on the beach in southern California. But the students of Yale, who had been tossing the Frisbie Pie Company's tin plates since 1920, also claim the game. If not for Yale and their local bakery, the flying disc might still be called the Pluto Platter, the name Morrison gave his invention. Wham-O bought Morrison's flying saucer and renamed it the Frisbee in 1957, after hearing it from students at Yale.

The Frisbie Pie Company closed in 1958, so the dispute over whether its pie plates or cookie tin lids flew better may never be settled.

The Mystery of the Automaton

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 01 Mar 2016 03:13:05 GMT

The Automaton Chess Player, known as The Mechanical Turk, was exactly that, a chess-playing machine in the guise of a man clothed as a Turk. He sat at a cabinet with the chess board on top. Before the game, the cabinet doors were opened to show the small empty space within and the gears of the mechanism. The novelty of a machine that could play chess was a sensation that toured Europe and America. The Turk won most of his games. He beat Ben Franklin in Paris when Franklin was Ambassador there in 1783. When The Turk came to America, no less than the man of mysteries himself, Edgar Allan Poe, tried to explain how the automaton worked.

Poe correctly guessed that the mechanical marvel concealed a chess master in the flesh, even if he did not precisely describe how it was done.

The Secret Ingredient

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 00:51:19 GMT

Character actors are those highly skilled actors whose face you might recognize but whose name you don't. When a male actor from the golden age of Hollywood appears in over 250 films, maybe it's not surprising that he was in more Best Picture nominated movies than any other actor. Ward Bond created many memorable supporting roles, like Detective Tom Polhaus in The Maltese Falcon and Bert in It's a Wonderful Life. He had small roles in big pictures like The Grapes of Wrath, The Quiet Man, Tobacco Road and The Searchers. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, but was never nominated for an Academy Award. He ended his career in a starring role on television, in the hit show Wagon Train.

He appears in seven of the American Film Institute's List of the best 100 films, more than any other actor.

Winner's Curse

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 28 Feb 2016 01:14:21 GMT

Generally acknowledged as the highest honor in the movie business, the Oscar has not always been followed by the same level of success. Luise Rainer won twice in two years and then went on to ... not much. Her experience first gave rise to the legend of the "Oscar Curse," the notion that the award actually hurt the prospects of those who received it, in spite of the fact she voluntarily left Hollywood. It's not difficult to find examples that seem to confirm the curse, but It turns out the receiving the top prize usually has a positive effect on an actor's career.

The modern version of the curse says failure in love will follow a woman's Oscar win. But it's only true if her husband is also an actor.

The Lucky Little Girl

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 27 Feb 2016 00:34:47 GMT

That Sarah Rector, a poor black girl in rural Oklahoma, should strike it rich at age 11 was the first unlikely bolt of fortune. It was even more fortunate that she was able to keep it, given the number of greedy and unscrupulous adults who surrounded such children. Sarah was not the only child who owned land: a settlement with the Creek Indians had allotted small plots to members of the tribe, including the children of their freed black slaves. When oil was found, more than a hundred of the children who became rich were swindled by those who were supposed to help them. Two of the newly rich children were blown up in their beds.

Sarah Rector was able to enjoy her wealth in Kansas City as an adult, where she drove fine cars and owned a Hupmobile dealership.

The Phony Express

(Monumental Washington) — Fri, 26 Feb 2016 01:06:01 GMT

Of all the tall tales of the west, tales of the Pony Express may reach the highest. It was impressive at the time, the feat of delivering mail across 1,966 miles in 10 days when it had previously taken a month or more. But posting a letter from Missouri to California initially cost $5, or more than $100 in today's money. So when the telegraph came along in late 1861, the costly private mail delivery business vanished, along with its records. Then the legend began: after the Civil War former rider Bill Cody brought the Pony Express back to life in his traveling show, Buffalo Bill 's Wild West. For thirty years, riders dashed past Indian raiders and leapt from one moving horse onto the next, finding the glory, adventure and excitement in a failed business that had lasted less than two years.

Among those who said they rode for the Pony Express was "Broncho Charlie" Miller, who was only 11 years old at the time.

Wence the Waterbed

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 25 Feb 2016 01:05:15 GMT

While waterbeds have been known for almost 4,000 years, in the 20th century the water filled bed reached the masses. In 1987, 22 percent of mattress sales were waterbeds. Inventors had tried, unsuccessfully, during the 19th century to make the water filled bed commercially successful, but the bed did not become practical until the invention of vinyl in the 1960s. In the 70s and 80s, its popularity coincided with the sexual revolution, and the waterbed became identified with the hedonism of the times.

Waterbeds may have invented to ease the pain of the old and infirm. It worked for President Garfield on his death bed journey to New Jersey.

Related MW photographs:

Garfield Circle

Garfield's World

Garfield's Youth

A Fighter for Freedom on Two Fronts

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 23 Feb 2016 22:42:28 GMT

Lucretia Mott, hired as a teacher in 1808, was shocked to find out that she was paid three times less than her colleagues who were male. For the rest of her long life, she helped spread the unpopular notion that women were men's equals and ought to have the same rights. But most of her energies went to the fight against slavery, which was not just unpopular but dangerous: in 1838 a mob in Philadelphia burned down the hall where abolitionists met. Enraged at the mingling of white women with black people during the Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women, the angry crowd was diverted on the way to Mott's house, while she stood in the parlor to meet them. Two years later she found that women were not wanted at the World Anti-Slavery convention in London, so she helped plan the world's first convention for women's rights.

After moving to the country from Philadelphia, her house became a stop on the underground railroad.

Parts of Liberty

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 23 Feb 2016 00:48:53 GMT

The torch-bearing arm of the Statue of Liberty stood in Madison Square Park for six years, from 1876 to 1882, after its display at the 1876 Philadelphia World's fair. The work, to be called Liberty Enlightening the World, wasn't finished. The arm was a fund-raising stunt: visitors could climb up to see the view from the torch. The project was dependent on contributions from both the French and American public: Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi showed her head in the Paris Exposition of 1878 to raise the money needed for the lady's copper body, which he completed in 1884. Americans were to finance the pedestal, but not until the lady was being unloaded in 1885 did enough money come in, helped by a newspaper publisher's campaign.

Neither the French nor the American government paid for the monument. Congress had turned down a funding request for the pedestal in 1883.

The Bloody Print

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 22 Feb 2016 03:47:34 GMT

In December 1916, the last ever stage robbery happened near Jarbidge, Nevada. The robber took $4000 in gold double eagle coins meant for a mining payroll from the driver, who was also carrying the mail. Only $182 of the loot turned up when the driver was found shot in the head. The mail pouch contained an envelope with a bloody hand print. That print would help convict a local drifter, Ben Kuhl, of the crime. It was the first time fingerprint evidence was admitted at trial. Kuhl died after nearly 30 years in prison, never revealing where he hid the stash of coins: it may still lie somewhere in Jarbidge Canyon.

Other tales of lost gold waiting to be found are still told in Nevada.

The Three Stone State

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 21 Feb 2016 00:33:50 GMT

Although New Hampshire is known as the Granite State, its next door neighbor Vermont has three official state rocks: granite, slate, and marble. All three are present in Washington, DC's buildings and monuments. The Jefferson memorial is made of Vermont's marble, as is the Supreme Court building, the District of Columbia's World War Memorial, and the Arlington Memorial. Vermont slate was used for the historic Blair House on Lafayette Square. Union Station was the first building in Washington to be clad in Vermont's famous white granite, but it is also found at the Museum of Natural History and at the base of the General Sherman monument.

Vermont's white granite was recently chosen to re-face the Grande Arche de la Défense in Paris France.

Related MW photographs:

Sherman's Peace

World at War

Five Years of Glory

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 20 Feb 2016 01:35:35 GMT

The Washington Monument, perhaps the most recognized of the monuments in the capital city, was for five years the tallest building in the world. The feat followed more than 20 years of ignominy when the monument stood as a half finished stump. Mark Twain remarked in 1867 that it looked like a broken chimney. Pigs wallowed at its base as cows and sheep gnawed its grounds. Work resumed on Washington's monument in 1878 and the capstone set in late 1884. In 1889, the monument lost its place as the tallest in the world to the Eiffel Tower.

The stone tower is still the tallest structure in Washington, but neither the monument nor the Capitol building limits the height of the city's buildings.

Boom Town Dust

(Monumental Washington) — Fri, 19 Feb 2016 02:51:59 GMT

Since 1962, the town of Bodie California has been frozen in time, a case of arrested decay. Bodie State Historic Park was once a gold rush town that saw thousands move there in the late 1870s. By 1880, the main street was lined with 65 saloons. The town grew large enough to have its own Chinatown. Bodie's furious growth gave it a reputation as much for violence as wealth: "the bad man from Bodie" became a catch phrase. But the wild times wouldn't last. In just a few years the population began to decline from a peak of more than 7,000 to fewer than 700 by 1910. As the population declined many left possessions behind.

When objects left by the people who once lived there were lifted by later visitors, some lived to regret it.

Little Scotland

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 18 Feb 2016 02:05:06 GMT

Georgetown was laid out in 1752, well before the revolution that created the city of Washington next door. George Washington himself was just reaching his teens as the city took shape from land taken from two landowners, George Gordon and George Beall. George Beall was one of the six sons of Ninian Beall, a Scotsman who had been granted land by Queen Anne to bring other Scottish settlers to the area. He did his part, having six daughters as well. Part of the land grant is now Dumbarton Oaks, near Wisconsin and R Street.

The town's name either derives from these men or King George the Second, then King of Great Britain.

Three of the Real Deal

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 16 Feb 2016 23:51:50 GMT

Who was "the real McCoy?" Scholars maintain the phrase started out as a Scotch Whiskey advertisement for "the real Mackay." In America, Mackay became McCoy, but no one is sure how the phrase became popular in the States. Did Elijah McCoy inspire the phrase when railroads expressed a preference for his patented invention? Or was it the boxer Kid McCoy, whose deceptive style and many imitators caused some to ask who was "the real" McCoy? Or maybe the real McCoy was Bill McCoy, a prohibition smuggler with a reputation for selling liquor that was not cut or counterfeit.

To tell the truth, no one knows. Will the real McCoy please stand up?

The Last Lady Stagecoach Bandit

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 15 Feb 2016 21:13:57 GMT

In 1899, stagecoaches were disappearing from the West, but a few still ran between small towns like Globe and Florence in Arizona. Joe Boot and Pearl Hart decided to rob it: it would be one of the last robberies of its kind. If not for the fact that the boyishly dressed Pearl was female, the $400 dollar robbery might have gone unremarked. Instead, Pearl Hart became famous, if only briefly, recounting her crime in The Cosmopolitan, where she described giving each passenger back a dollar so they would be able to eat. It was her first and last armed robbery; after her release from prison in 1902 not much is known about her life with any certainty.

Charley Parkhurst, a California stagecoach driver, might also have faded from history but for the fact he was born Charlotte.

Not Left Alone

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 15 Feb 2016 01:54:00 GMT

In March of 1929, the ship I'm Alone was sitting off the coast of Louisiana in international waters, waiting for a vessel to pick up its cargo. It carried 2,400 cases of liquor meant for Americans, who hadn't been allowed a legal drink in ten years. The ship was well known to the Coast Guard for "rum running" but its position beyond US coastal waters should have kept it safe. Instead, the Coast Guard fired on the boat, killed a sailor while taking the crew, and sunk the ship. The ship had sailed from Canada with war hero John Thomas Randell as its captain, and the sinking caused a diplomatic firestorm with that country. Canada won the court case that followed because the incident had clearly taken place outside of US jurisdiction. Another question the case posed - what is reasonable force - is still asked today.

The fate of the ship made its rum running Captain Randell into a Canadian folk hero.

The Railroad Rosa Parks

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 14 Feb 2016 00:12:53 GMT

Ida B. Wells had a first class ticket from Memphis to Nashville, Tennessee on May 4, 1884. She was sitting in the ladies' car when The conductor told her to move to the men's smoking car, where Negroes were allowed. She refused and was dragged out of the car by force. She sued and won a judgment of $500, because by law she was entitled to the first class seat she had paid for: segregation itself was not at issue. Twenty-one years later, a federal Supreme Court case would allow separate but "equal" accommodations, institutionalizing segregation on all public transportation. The railroad appealed the case to the Tennessee Supreme Court, which agreed with the railroad that the smoking car was not inferior, and anyway, Miss Wells was probably a troublemaker.

Even a state senator's wife, if black, was not immune to such treatment.

The Hunted Man

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 13 Feb 2016 01:40:09 GMT

Did the long arm of Stalin reach all the way to Washington, DC, and kill a man who had betrayed the Red cause? Stalin had already killed fellow founder of the Soviet state, Leon Trotsky, in nearby Mexico. Walter Krivitsky feared he was next. He had defected after serving as an intelligence officer, but also denounced the USSR in a series of articles in the American press. Krivitsky told his family that under no circumstances should they consider his death suicide. But that is just what the FBI decided when it found him dead of a gunshot to the head on February 10, 1941 in a hotel near Union Station. He planned to take a train later that day.

His wife and child spent the rest of their lives scraping by in New York City, where Krivitsky had been headed.

The Miracle Drug

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 21:34:33 GMT

Of the 620,000 men who died during the Civil War, more than half were neither killed in action nor wounded, but succumbed to disease. Doctors knew little about illness and less about treating it. One treatment was effective: quinine quelled the periodic fevers of malaria, but doctors would prescribe it for just about anything, like a toothache or a cough. Because the only manufacturers of quinine were in the North, the South depended on smugglers. Some of the most effective were women who could hide items in their voluminous skirts.

Female smugglers would also carry dolls with hollow heads to conceal medicines like quinine and morphine.

The First Format War

(Monumental Washington) — Wed, 10 Feb 2016 23:39:31 GMT

Edison is closely associated with the electric light bulb, which he improved, but did not invent. But Edison did make the first sound playback device. In 1877, inventor Thomas Edison etched sound waves on a fragile tinfoil cylinder; it wasn't commercially viable until he began to use wax, and found a method of duplicating cylinders instead of recording each individually. Edison continued to improve his machine throughout the rise of the flat shellac disc, but in spite of achieving superior sound, by the 1910s, the platter had prevailed.

In 1878, Edison listed ten things recorded sound might do: he envisioned an auxilary to the telephone, to capture its "fleeting communication," but it took a hundred years for the answering machine to become a common item in American homes.

The Murder Ballad Man

(Monumental Washington) — Wed, 10 Feb 2016 00:50:11 GMT

Hanged in 1868 for the murder of Laura Foster, Thomas C. Dula inspired the ballad Tom Dooley, first recorded in 1929. The tale the song tells differ from the facts; but the available facts don't tell who killed Laura, who was found in a shallow grave, stabbed through the heart. Tom Dula was sleeping with her, as well as the other two suspects: Laura's cousin, the married Ann Melton, and Ann's cousin Pauline. Pauline fingered Ann and Tom for the crime, and showed investigators where she said Ann had buried the body. Ann was freed when Tom, condemned to die, said he did the crime alone.

The Kingston Trio's 1958 hit recording of Tom Dooley is credited with sparking the enormous popularity of folk music in the early 60s.

Wiping History

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 09 Feb 2016 00:56:32 GMT

Mary Anderson patented the windshield wiper in 1903, long before most Americans owned a car: she noticed the need for her device while riding a streetcar. Anderson found very little interest in her invention: automobiles were still a novelty and windshields themselves were optional. By the time her patent expired in 1920, cars had gone from rare to commonplace. Both windshield and wiper were standard equipment by 1913. Anderson never pursued her claim, perhaps because she was already wealthy. While her patent was in effect, other inventors were trying to replace her hand-cranked device with one that would wipe automatically.

Wipers went intermittent in the 1970s, but the inventor, Robert Kearns, spent more than 15 years in court enforcing his patent.

The Bridge of Heroes

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 07 Feb 2016 23:31:47 GMT

A major bridge into Washington that had been named for a revolutionary war hero was re-named in 1983 for another kind of hero. A snowy day turned tragic when a plane took off from National Airport on January 13, 1982 with its wings heavy with ice. It struggled into the air and then crashed into the 14th St. bridge over the Potomac and slid into the river. Survivors dumped into the icy water were hard to reach through traffic jams in blizzard conditions. Finally, a helicopter crew risked hovering low over the water with ropes. They saw one man repeatedly handing ropes to others before he sank under the water. The repaired bridge now bears his name, but 46 year-old bank examiner Arland D. Williams Jr. was not the only hero that day. Two other men dived into freezing water to save others and the surviving flight attendant gave away the only life jacket she could find.

The Metro had its first fatal accident that same afternoon, killing three.

Getting the Blue Envelope

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 07 Feb 2016 02:38:48 GMT

B. F. Keith opened up a new world of entertainment for the middle classes before the turn of the 20th century. Called The Father of Vaudeville, he provided variety shows that were "clean" - clean enough that he was able to get the financial backing of the Catholic Church. A blue envelope from a theater manager meant a performer was going over the line. Some expressions that were frowned upon: slob, son of a gun, saying pants instead of trousers. Performers who disobeyed were blacklisted. Using risque material came to be known as "working blue."

Eva Tanguay, the biggest star in vaudeville, could get away with pushing the envelope.

Farewell to Storyville

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 06 Feb 2016 04:44:11 GMT

In 1897, prostitution didn't exactly become legal in New Orleans, but it was officially tolerated, if only in one section of town. Called Storyville after the man who wrote an ordinance limiting vice to specific blocks, the red light district flourished for the next 20 years. So accepted was the trade that "blue books," or guides to establishments and the girls therein were sold on street corners. The Secretary of the Navy demanded it be shut down in 1917 to protect the purity of its sailors stationed nearby who were about to go to war. By 1940, the whole neighborhood had been torn down to make way for a housing project.

Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday sang Farewell to Storyville in the 1947 film New Orleans.

The Captives Return

(Monumental Washington) — Fri, 05 Feb 2016 03:13:35 GMT

To settle west of the Appalachian mountains in the late 1700s was to risk a dangerous frontier. The French had enlisted native tribes in their war with the British over the territory, but the French defeat did not end attacks on settlers by natives hoping to drive them out. Those they did not kill they captured. Once taken prisoner, many captives were treated well and assimilated into the tribe. Young captives who grew up with a tribe and remembered no other way of life came to be known as White Indians.

In 1764, when the British subdued a Indian revolt and demanded the release of all captives, some did not want to go back to the white world.

The Case that Won't Close

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 04 Feb 2016 04:58:38 GMT

On April 3, 1936, Bruno Hauptmann was executed for the murder of the baby Lindbergh. Since then the sensational kidnapping case of the son of an American hero has refused to stay closed. Doubts about Hauptmann's guilt linger, and many who do believe him guilty admit he did not receive a fair trial. Other theories include the sister-in-law, the butler, the mysterious man in the cemetery, and Charles Lindbergh himself as the guilty party.

In spite of the fact that Lindbergh had his son cremated after he was found, many people claimed to be the missing baby.

At the Center of the Earth

(Monumental Washington) — Wed, 03 Feb 2016 04:13:48 GMT

In August of 1818, when John Symmes Jr. published to the world his great discovery, he also attached a certificate attesting to his sanity. He need not have bothered: many people thought him crazy anyway when he announced that the earth was hollow. To him, it was no mere theory but a deduction based on the vast evidence he had gathered. For the rest of his life, he traveled and lectured to spread his idea. He lobbied President John Quincy Adams, who was interested, and Congress, who was not, to fund an expedition to the North Pole to find the opening he knew was there.

Symmes was neither the first nor the last to imagine other lands and peoples inside the earth.

The Last Trip of the Airship

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 03:25:59 GMT

Passenger travel by dirigible airship ended with the fiery crash of the Hindenburg on May 6, 1937, in Lakehurst, New Jersey. Just the year before, the Hindenburg was a great success, ushering in a new era of fast, luxury travel across the Atlantic. In 1936, the Hindenburg had successfully made 17 round trips across the ocean, carrying 2,600 people. On October 9, the Hindenburg's "Millionaires Flight" took 72 influential Americans on a cruise over the fall foliage of New England. The guest list included executives of Pan Am and TWA airlines, and future Vice President Nelson Rockefeller.

Although most of the passengers survived the Hindenburg crash, airship travel did not. Faster, more efficient and safer airplanes had already begun to take over long distance travel in 1935.

Winning the Battle After Losing the War

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 01 Feb 2016 04:22:51 GMT

Confederate forces won the last battle of the Civil War in May of 1865. In the month after General Robert E. Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox on April 9, rebels still fought to the south and west. Surrenders continued throughout April in North Carolina, Alabama and Georgia. Across the Mississippi, Lt. General Edmund Kirby Smith had still not laid down arms when Union soldiers moved on Brownsville, Texas on May 11th. Confederate fighters routed the Federals, forcing their retreat. The last victory was followed by the final defeat: Kirby's surrender on May 26, 1865.

The last shot of the Civil War was fired at sea on June 22. The CSS Shenandoah was in Arctic waters, attacking Union whaling ships, and didn't know the war was over.

FDR's Benefit Birthday Balls

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 30 Jan 2016 19:04:55 GMT

On President Franklin Roosevelt's first birthday in that office, January 30, 1934, parties were held across the nation to raise money to fight polio, also called infantile paralysis. In spite of the name, the infection could hit older people harder than infants: older children and adults who got the disease might be left with useless muscles, and require an "iron lung" to breathe. FDR never walked without help after 1921, when he became ill at 39. He worked hard to regain use of his muscles and continued to hope he would walk again, but concealed the extent of his disability from the public. Widespread concern about the disease made the benefit balls popular, and they were held every year for the rest of his life.

Fear of polio peaked in the summer of 1952 with an outbreak that killed 3,000 and paralyzed thousands more. In 1954 an effective vaccine began to eradicate the disease.

Wounds of War

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 30 Jan 2016 02:05:37 GMT

One need not to be killed or physically scarred in combat to be a casualty of war. Soldiers who lost their sanity during the Civil War were simply ejected from the ranks. Military leaders recognized then that a certain number of soldiers would become mentally damaged in battle, but not until the First World War was a phrase, shell shock, used to describe the mental breakdown of soldiers in the trenches. During the Second World War, combat fatigue or battle fatigue became the term for the mental malady of war. Today the term PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder, describes the lingering effects of any extreme trauma, but has become shorthand for the psychological wounds of war.

After the Battle of Little Bighorn, Major Marcus Reno was called a coward, yet he had clearly suffered combat stress: he temporarily lost his sanity when the brains of his Indian scout splashed all over him.

Related photographs from MW

The Tribe at Washington's Side

(Monumental Washington) — Fri, 29 Jan 2016 03:15:39 GMT

When the British occupied Philadelphia in the fall of 1777, General George Washington was forced to retreat to nearby Valley Forge to wait out the winter. Harsh conditions, hunger, and lack of supplies led to death for 2,000 of the force of 12,000. The Oneida tribe, friendly to Washington and his cause, helped at a crucial time with bushels of corn brought hundreds of miles from New York. When winter was over, the British moved in to attack the rebels at Barren Hill, but Oneida warriors helped the rebel army escape to fight another day.

The British had planned to capture the Marquis de Lafayette at Barren Hill. Instead, Lafayette earned a place in the pantheon of American heroes.

Related MW photographs

The Mysterious Sickness at the National Hotel

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 28 Jan 2016 01:07:52 GMT

Before its demise, the National Hotel in Washington DC rivaled it's famous peer, the Willard, in status and the stature of its visitors. The president-elect, James Buchanan, was a resident while he awaited his inauguration in March of 1857. He fell ill, along with 400 others who frequented the hotel during the early months of that year. The disease featured a swollen tongue, diarrhea and vomiting, and took at least 30 lives. Theories about the mysterious disease included poison. No one determined exactly what caused the outbreak, but modern scholars suspect dysentery or cholera.

The National Hotel was a favorite of performers like John Wilkes Booth, who stayed in room 228 the night before he killed President Lincoln. Today the Newseum stands on the site.

Elvis on the Shores of the Potomac

(Monumental Washington) — Wed, 27 Jan 2016 01:34:59 GMT

Hillbilly music was popular in Washington DC of 1956. Fans of country music came out on a blustery March night in 1956 to see a new performer named Elvis Presley, and cruise the Potomac at the same time. The Mount Vernon could accommodate 1,000 dancing couples on such a Country Music Midnight Cruise. But the ship had broken down earlier that day, so Elvis played his three hour set to a stationary crowd.

Presley was still unknown to most adults, but his single Heartbreak Hotel, released earlier that March, had already started its climb on the charts.

The End of Mr. Means

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 26 Jan 2016 00:57:14 GMT

Gaston Means had already gotten away with a lot: a lot of money, and possibly murder, when he landed in Washington and went to work. Officially, he was an agent of the Justice Department. Unofficially, he was a fixer. He could make your troubles go away, or put you in touch with people who could get things done. The sort of things that got done were permits to sell medicinal alcohol when it was illegal for any other purpose. Means had started out as an investigator, but the sort of things he found out were likely to cost you.

His last con was inside information on the location of the kidnapped baby of Charles Lindbergh. He got $104,000, but spent the rest of his life in prison.

Double Zero

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 25 Jan 2016 02:48:31 GMT

Bruce Springsteen's song Nebraska tells the events of the bleak January of 1958 in Lincoln, Nebraska, when 19-year-old Charles Starkweather went to his girlfriend's house and murdered her parents and two-year-old sister. Starkweather and the 14-year-old Caril Ann Fulgate hung around for six days before they took off on a 500-mile murder spree. Seven people ended up dead along the way to Wyoming. When caught, Starkweather said Caril was his accomplice; she said she was his hostage. He died in the electric chair. She went to prison and was released in 1976.

Other artists found in Starkweather's story the shadow side of America's open road. Stephen King remembered "the very first time I saw a picture of him, I knew I was looking at the future. His eyes were a double zero ..."

Free Love On Trial

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 23 Jan 2016 23:19:47 GMT

Preacher Henry Ward Beecher had done as much as his sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe, to bring abolitionist ideas into the mainstream of American thought. His sermons, published in the leading papers of the day, reached far beyond his Brooklyn church. Among his unconventional ideas was that of a God of love rather than vengeance. But the notion of "free love" went too far, and he refused to associate with Victoria Woodhull, who was the leading advocate of the idea. When she heard about the married Beecher's love affair with a married parishioner, she expressed outrage at his hypocrisy by writing about it in her paper. When the cuckolded husband started legal proceedings, the trial was a national sensation.

Beecher's trial ended in a hung jury. Woodhull was punished more: she was jailed on an obscenity charge for writing about the affair.

The Great White Hurricane

(Monumental Washington) — Fri, 22 Jan 2016 20:42:29 GMT

A massive amount of snow combined with high winds made the blizzard of 1888 into the Great White Hurricane. For two days in early March, the killer storm dumped between two and five feet of snow along the Eastern seaboard, from Washington to Maine. New York was hit hard. Transportation of any sort, even walking, was nearly impossible, and sometimes fatal, as the winds whipped the snow into piles that buried houses. The wires that crossed the city above the streets became useless and then dangerous as fires broke out.

The storm was a vivid demonstration of the advantage of underground wiring, and put an end to opposition by telegraph and electric companies.

The Franklin's War

(Monumental Washington) — Fri, 22 Jan 2016 02:13:41 GMT

Ben Franklin spent almost two decades in London as a representative of the Pennsylvania colony, but after his return in 1775, he quickly became an advocate for independence. When war came to the colonies, Benjamin Franklin earned his status as founding father not by fighting, but by helping articulate the principles of the new nation. His son William, Governor of New Jersey, had a completely different point of view. William believed the rebellion fooihardy at best, and treasonous at worst. The Continental Congress in 1776 threw him in jail. He spent two years there, and never repudiated his loyalty to the crown.

It was his victorious father, Ben Franklin, who was able to declare his son treasonous, and disinherit him.

The Yellow Brick Road

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 01:53:41 GMT

As the century turned from the 19th to the 20th, William Jennings Bryan was one of the nation's most influential men. He ran for president in 1896 on a crusade to expand the nation's money supply by making silver, as well as gold, part of the monetary standard. "Free silver" was of great interest because of the depression that had gripped the country since 1893. He lost the election, and the issue faded when economic conditions improved, and the US government formally adopted a gold only standard in 1900. Bryan's crusade was over, although he ran for president twice more.

That year Frank L. Baum published his children's story, the Wizard of Oz. Scholars now believe it also tells the story of the silver movement, with Bryan as the Cowardly Lion.

A New Fad Comes to the White House

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 21:35:58 GMT

In 1891, among those able to afford it, a new technology was gaining converts: the electric light bulb was now brighter, safer and cleaner than a gas lamp. That year, electric lamps came to the White House as a supplement to gas lighting. President Benjamin Harrison and his wife were leery, preferring not to touch the switches. Few foresaw the complete abandonment of the use of gas lighting that was in store. As late as 1919, when most new homes included the new technology, the home gas industry called electric lights a fad. It did take until the 1930s, and President Franklin Roosevelt's Rural Electrification Administration, to bring electric lights to the entire United States.

In the White House of the 1960s, President "Light Bulb Johnson" began turning those lights off.

Racing into the Auto Age

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 23:54:31 GMT

In 1903, most Americans hadn't yet seen a car, much less driven one. Roads, such as they were, accommodated horse traffic, and few of those roads were paved. But that year two men, acting on a $50 bet, set off to be the first to drive across the North American continent. The lack of pavement was not the only obstacle. There were no gas stations, and few people with the know-how to fix the inevitable breakdowns of the horseless carriages. The bet specified they do it in three months. They rolled into New York after 63 days, 12 hours and 30 minutes.

In 1903 the second car race held in Europe started near Paris with 224 cars and finished in Madrid with only half of the autos having made it.

The Final Plunge of the Market Master

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 00:09:13 GMT

The Boy Plunger, Jesse Livermore, earned that name by plunging his money all in when he sensed a win. He made a fortune betting on stocks, and then lost it all, not once, but twice. A 1923 book about his trading exploits is still popular today. Then he saw an opportunity in the market of 1929. In the plunge of the market some lost their shirts and others their lives, but he made a killing, more than a billion dollars in today's money. He is still considered a legendary trader.

But five years later he was broke, again. This time he committed suicide.

Grand Central Station on the Underground Railroad

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 17 Jan 2016 02:30:17 GMT

After the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, federal law required free states to aid in the capture of escaped slaves. It became much more dangerous for an escaped slave to move about during the day, even on free soil. Escapees would hide in safe houses where the people who sheltered them risked jail and fines. One such house in Indiana, owned by Levi and Catherine Coffin, where three escape routes converged, became known as the Grand Central station of the Underground Railroad. Levi Coffin was called its president for helping more than 2,000 slaves reach freedom in Canada.

Slaves who reached Coffin's house included Eliza Harris, whose story of crossing the frozen Ohio river with a child in her arms was told in Uncle Tom's Cabin.

The German Invaders

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 16 Jan 2016 01:57:46 GMT

In 1942, Germany successfully landed eight men on US shores. They were instructed to blow up bridges, tunnels and power plants, industrial targets that would demoralize the war effort. One of the men, George Dasch, decided to betray the operation to the FBI. He traveled to Washington, DC, and booked himself into the Mayflower Hotel. Unaware that he could have just gone downstairs to meet with FBI head J. Edgar Hoover, who lunched there every day, he went to the bureau. With his information Hoover quickly captured the rest of the saboteurs. But Hoover took the credit, helped by President Franklin Roosevelt's decision not to try the men in open court. The military tribunal he authorized then became precedent for later administrations.

Dasch went to prison instead of dying in the electric chair. He was deported after the war, and wrote Eight Spies Against America.

By the Light of the Moon

(Monumental Washington) — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 01:38:24 GMT

The turning point of the Civil War in favor of the Union is often said to be the battle of Gettysburg in July 1863. In May of that year another event, the death of Stonewall Jackson, so hurt the Confederate cause that it remains one of the major 'what ifs' of the war. Jackson, a brilliant tactician and leader, had routed Union forces at Chancellorsville on May 2. But he made the fateful decision to continue fighting that night by the light of the full moon. Soldiers on his own side didn't recognize him. Major John D. Barry fired on approaching soldiers he took for enemy. It was Jackson. He died of their friendly fire several days later. Recent scholarship shows the position of the moon on that night would have made him a silhouette.

'I would have chosen for the good of the country to be disabled in your stead,' Lee said to Jackson before he died.

The Revolt of the Wives

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 14 Jan 2016 01:07:09 GMT

Peggy O'Neale Timberlake Eaton committed several unpardonable social sins in Washington, DC. The original one was simply being brought up in a bar, the lovely daughter of a couple who ran a boardinghouse and tavern. Bad enough, but she also enjoyed the company of the men she met there: she played a vivacious piano and was known to flirt. Married at 17 to a sailor, she worked at the tavern while her husband was away and allowed herself to be escorted around town by her husband's friend, a widowed Senator. When she married the Senator less than a year after her husband died another social line was crossed. Her elevation to Cabinet status when her husband, John Eaton, became Secretary of War under the President Jackson was too much for some the more proper women in town.

As bad as her sins were, the rumors were worse. Starting with the wife of Vice President John C. Calhoun, many of the wives of prominent men refused to have anything to do with her. The scandal didn't die until Jackson gave her husband an appointment out of town.

A Traitor's Reasons

(Monumental Washington) — Wed, 13 Jan 2016 01:03:36 GMT

Benedict Arnold was already a hero on the American side of the War for Independence, having been instrumental in the victories at the battles of Saratoga and Valcour Island, when he went over to the other side. Although Arnold was deeply unhappy with his compensation and treatment by the provisional American government, evidence suggests his young wife Peggy encouraged his treachery and certainly facilitated it. From a family of Philadelphia loyalists, she put her husband in touch with a British intelligence officer of her acquaintance. Arnold then made a deal to give up West Point and Washington himself for 20,000 pounds.That British officer, Major Andre, was caught but Arnold escaped.

Benedict Arnold lived out his days as a man who no one trusted. The only US monument to him does not mention his name.

Blackmail to the Chief

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 12 Jan 2016 01:01:28 GMT

When the GOP found out Carrie Phillips had proof of her affair with presidential candidate Warren G. Harding, she agreed to keep quiet in return for a trip abroad during the election plus cash. She was not his only mistress nor the only one he paid. He willingly gave money to Nan Britton, who bore his child but was ridiculed when she wrote about it after his death. His Senate secretary, Grace Cross, wanted something in return for her love letters from the president, but was thwarted when the evidence was literally snatched from her.

Members of the press knew about Harding's appetite for women not his wife, but limited their reporting to saying that Harding had ogled the first Miss America, Margaret Gorman.

The Long Arm of the Shortest President

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 11 Jan 2016 00:39:19 GMT

William Henry Harrison is famous today for the longest inaugural speech at the start of the shortest presidency. Yet by the time he was elected in 1840, Harrison already had a dozen books published about his life. Son of a signer of the Declaration of Independence, he also was an 1812 war hero, but his popular campaign song Tippecanoe and Tyler Too referred to an earlier career as an Indian fighter. Harrison's military defeat of native rebels at Tippecanoe followed a career of persuading native leaders to sell land for as little as a penny per 200 hundred acres. With the blessing of President Jefferson, Harrison's deals took nearly 60 million acres of present day Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and Missouri out of native hands.

Not all natives were on board with the agreements. The Prophet, a Shawnee named Tenskwatawa, urged his men to fight for their land.

Nixon's Happy Birthday

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 09 Jan 2016 14:30:00 GMT

Rowan and Martin, as hosts of the hugely popular television show, Laugh In, brought youth culture into the living rooms of the late 60s. They brought Nixon onto the show and had him utter the show's signature line, Sock It To Me, which he delivered as a question that seemed like a joke. But it was no joke: Rowan and Martin were Nixon supporters, and some say the appearance helped Nixon into the White House.

On January 10, 1973, Nixon called the entertainers to thank them for a private skit they had made for his birthday January 9.

Old and In the Way

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 09 Jan 2016 00:21:48 GMT

In the years just after WWII, historic was just another name for old. Huge sections of Washington DC were deemed obsolete, and urban planners wanted to accommodate cars by carving expressways throughout the city. Several historic structures near the White House also had an appointment with the wrecking ball. The impending destruction of the Renwick building inspired Jackie Kennedy to get involved in the effort to save it and other historic houses around Lafayette Square. She was able to persuade planners to incorporate historic structures into new federal buildings.

In the smallest, poorest quadrant of Washington, an entire neighborhood was wiped out before preservation efforts could take hold.

The Lost Colonists

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 07 Jan 2016 21:57:54 GMT

At the behest of "The Virgin Queen" Elizabeth I, Sir Walter Raleigh tried three times to establish an English colony across the ocean. A small number of Raleigh's men first landed in Florida and explored the coast to the north. A second larger group of men intended to stay but found it difficult to survive. They left hastily when ships appeared which could carry them home. The third group included women and children, one born just after arrival and named Virginia for the new land. This group became known as "the lost colony" because no one knows what became of them, their settlement found completely abandoned.

In spite of Raleigh's lack of success in establishing a colony, the name he gave the land remained. Its namesake, Elizabeth I, would be dead four years before the English were able to establish a lasting settlement in 1607 at Jamestown, Virginia.

Shades of Green in a Dry Town

(Monumental Washington) — Wed, 06 Jan 2016 19:46:40 GMT

"The Man in the Green Hat" was the most famous bootlegger in the capital, and perhaps the country, after his five-part expose on his exploits supplying Congress with alcohol ran in the Washington Post in 1930. While George Cassiday found no reason to carry a gun, other liquor outlaws did, as Senator Frank L. Greene of Vermont found out in 1924. Caught in the crossfire of gun battle near the Capitol building, he was shot in the head and never completely recovered. More civilized outlaws operated out of "The Little Green House." During Harding's administration, his cronies set up a lucrative business selling permits for legal medicinal alcohol.

"Cactus Jack," aka Speaker of the House John Nance Garner, ran a speakeasy for colleagues out of a Capitol office he called the "Board of Education."

How Much to Get the White House?

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 05 Jan 2016 20:45:19 GMT

If you want to live in the White House but not go to the trouble of being elected president, there is another option: only 17 miles from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue this $3 million replica is for sale, marked down from a $4 million asking price in 2013. A White House look-alike a little farther away, in Haymarket, VA, sold for under $1 million in 2012. Farther still, the Atlanta White House, listed at just under $10 million in 2009, went for just over $2 million in 2013. If you just want an Oval Office, $250,000 can do the job.

Another option is this Dallas home, listed now for just $15 million. That's a $4.5 million discount from 2014.

Everyone Loves a Villain

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 05 Jan 2016 00:58:29 GMT

After the Titanic went down on April 12, 1912, J. Bruce Ismay became the man everyone loved to hate. He had survived when many women and children had not, giving rise to stories that he had dressed as a woman to get on one of the few lifeboats. That was untrue, but the facts remained: he was the managing director of the White Star Line, and was quoted saying he did not want lifeboats "cluttering up my decks." The Titanic could have had many more lifeboats, if not for his decision. But in the chaos of the evacuation, many boats left with fewer passengers than they could hold.

Ismay told the Senate, investigating the tragedy, that he turned away and did not witness the ship break in half and sink.

An Atomic Cocktail

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 03 Jan 2016 21:15:10 GMT

The atom bomb brought with it both fear and a new kind of fun. Going to Vegas to have a blast could be taken literally in the 1950s. Until 1962 tests were done above ground, 65 miles away, close enough to view from the roof of a downtown bar. The effects of fallout were known, but it was thought sufficient to test on days when the wind blew it away from where people lived. Anything that fell from the cloud could be washed off in the shower. In 1990, Congress admitted that what came from those clouds caused harm; as of 2015, the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act has paid out $2 billion to people who were near the explosions.

In 1956, Elvis Presley, booked in Vegas as the "Atomic Powered Singer," bombed with the older audience.

The Lamest Duck

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 03 Jan 2016 00:21:04 GMT

President James Buchanan often is found near or at the top of the list of worst presidents. He is accused of standing by and letting the Civil War begin. Seven southern states left the Union on his watch, but he had already been voted out of office when South Carolina left. Six were to follow before Lincoln was inaugurated in March. During that time Buchanan believed he lacked the constitutional authority to act with force, and as a lame duck, he lacked the confidence of the populace. A similar situation arose when Franklin Roosevelt was elected in 1932: the public had repudiated the policies of Herbert Hoover, but there were four long months of a mounting financial crisis before the president-elect could change course.

Beginning in 1934, the 20th amendment shortened the lame duck period by changing the inauguration from March 4 to January 20.

Shaking Hands With the New Year

(Monumental Washington) — Fri, 01 Jan 2016 16:59:00 GMT

Until 1933, ordinary citizens could shake the hand of the President of the United States at the White House on the first day of the year. But Herbert Hoover had not been re-elected the previous November, and with the nation in the throes of depression, he went to Florida rather than face the increasing throngs of people showing up for a personal handshake. Hoover was the last to hold the traditional reception that had started with Washington at the first executive mansion in New York.

Woodrow Wilson had suspended it in 1914 for the entirety of his two terms. After Harding revived the tradition in 1922, it lasted only ten more years.

Mr. New Year's Eve

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 31 Dec 2015 21:16:02 GMT

Before Dick Clark, Guy Lombardo presided over New Year's Eve for nearly 50 years. Until 1976, Lombardo's Royal Canadian Orchestra was the soundtrack of the night. Mr. New Year's Eve first broadcast to the nation's party-goers in 1929 over radio. His big band sound faced competition from a new kind of popular music in 1973, brought to viewers by Dick Clark, whose show American Bandstand was already a hit with the younger generation. Clark's New Year's Eve show lasted for the next 30 years.

Auld Lang Syne played at Guy Lombardo's very first New Year's Eve and became his band's signature, spreading the song from Scotland around the world.

An Army of Irregulars

(Monumental Washington) — Wed, 30 Dec 2015 20:44:03 GMT

As much as one-fifth of the fighting men of the Civil War were actually boys under the age of 18. Many were even younger: at least 100,000 Union soldiers were under 15. Eleven boys under 16 won the Congressional Medal of Honor for extraordinary valor. Many performed duties other than combat, but their jobs were just as necessary and often as dangerous. Drummer boys risked death transmitting orders with their beats to the troops on the field. The "Boy's War" also provided cover for women who wanted to fight as men, their smooth faces not unusual among so many boys.

One of the secret soldiers, Albert Cashier, continued to live as a man long after the war ended.

Dangerous at the Top

(Monumental Washington) — Wed, 30 Dec 2015 04:55:03 GMT

Some of the most dangerous weather in the United States happens among the peaks of the Presidential Range in New Hampshire. Benign weather can turn deadly very quickly in these mountains, because northern and southern air masses collide along the peak line. The 23-mile summit line includes nine peaks named for presidents. The highest peak is also the deadliest. In 1934 Mount Washington recorded a wind speed of 231 miles an hour, the highest wind ever recorded at the time. It remained a record for over 60 years.

Other peaks in the same mountain range are named for prominent Americans who were not presidents. New Hampshire changed the name of Henry Clay mountain to Mt. Reagan, but the federal US Board on Geographic Names declined to use the new name.

Saved by the Ladies

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 28 Dec 2015 20:29:33 GMT

One of the most historic sites in the United States could have fallen into complete ruin if not for the efforts of the Mount Vernon Ladies Association. George Washington's heirs didn't have the money to maintain his large home and estate, but failed in efforts to sell it to either the state of Virginia or the United States. In 1853, Ann Pamela Cunningham stepped in, forming the Ladies Association to save the place. She not only succeeded through many difficulties, including the Civil War, but her effort inspired the historic preservation movement itself.

The Mount Vernon Ladies Association still operates George Washington's home and gravesite, hosting over a million people every year.

Change for a Ten Thousand

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 28 Dec 2015 02:05:41 GMT

Until 1969, it was possible to get change for a $10,000 bill. On its face was Salmon P. Chase, in charge of creating the first folding money issued by the federal government. Chase put his own face on the first $1 bill ever issued by the United States. During the Civil War, as Secretary of the Treasury, Chase issued greenbacks, paper money not backed by gold or silver, to avoid going into debt to private banks or unpopular taxes. After the war, when Chase became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, he declared his own war money unconstitutional. In 1869, George Washington became the second face on the dollar bill.

If you come across one of the three hundred or so $10,000 bills around today, you'll get much more than that in change.

The Almost File

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 26 Dec 2015 14:21:05 GMT

Many people think "almost" is the saddest word in English. Several former presidents would not agree. Two would-be presidential assassins didn't especially care which president they hit: the man who shot presidential contender George Wallace also went after Nixon, and John Hinckley, would-be killer of President Reagan, stalked Jimmy Carter. Both Lincoln and Kennedy survived attempts before they were killed. Almost every president has had some kind of attempt on his life.

Not until the third successful assassination of a US president in 1901, when William McKinley died, did formal protection of the president begin with the Secret Service, which until then guarded only money.

Potato for Christmas

(Monumental Washington) — Fri, 25 Dec 2015 14:30:00 GMT

The potato was not esteemed among the French when Benjamin Franklin lived there, having once been banned for causing leprosy. Antoine-Augustin Parmentier was in the midst of a campaign to popularize the food, organizing a dinner with all the dishes made from potatoes, which Franklin enthusiastically attended. A few years later, Thomas Jefferson brought the French fry to America, telling his chef to prepare potatoes in the French manner for a dinner party at the White House.

Then a new fried potato dish shows up. The potato chip was still a fancy food in 1890 when it appeared on the Christmas dinner menu at the Ebbitt House in Washington.

War on Christmas ... Trees

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 24 Dec 2015 14:30:00 GMT

As an ardent environmentalist, Theodore Roosevelt did not want a Christmas tree inside the White House. At the turn of the 20th century, the saving of pine trees from perishing for the holiday became a cause, prompting letters to President McKinley to stop "arboreal infantcide." TR's son Archie defied the ban, secretly getting a small tree from the grounds and putting in a closet. On Christmas Day 1902 he surprised his family with the tree and presents for all, including the dog, cat, and pony.

His cousin Franklin started a Christmas tree farm at his Hyde Park, NY estate in the 1930s and planned to return to that occupation after he retired from politics.

Massachusetts Forbids Christmas

(Monumental Washington) — Wed, 23 Dec 2015 14:30:00 GMT

The Puritans who settled in Massachusetts were decidedly against Christmas celebrations, associated with a pagan holiday featuring revelry and indulgence. As of 1659, feasting on that day would cost you five shillings. During the following two centuries in the United States, a Christmas holiday was not a universal practice, even among Christians. During the second half of the 19th century, attitudes changed, and Christmas became a federal holiday in 1870.

With many Americans embracing Christmas during the 19th century, the German custom of the Christmas tree became popular.

Yet Another Harding Scandal

(Monumental Washington) — Wed, 23 Dec 2015 00:11:50 GMT

First Lady Florence Harding leading cause was the plight of the injured soldiers of WWI. When her husband created the Veteran's Bureau in 1921, she persuaded him to appoint close friend and political supporter Charles Forbes to head the agency. Put in charge of the record $500 million budget, Forbes began to find ways to enrich himself at the Bureau's expense. He made at least $2 million in bribes, kickbacks, and the sale of "surplus" supplies. When Florence heard about the money that somehow never made it to disabled soldiers, she at first refused to believe that old friend Charlie Forbes had betrayed both her and the country. President Harding was angry at Forbes, yet inclined to let him resign. In the end, Forbes spent less than two years in prison and paid just $10,000 for his crimes.

Forbes rejected many legitimate claims during his tenure yet he is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

A Most Successful Spy

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 21 Dec 2015 23:48:58 GMT

The most successful spy is the one we know the least about. During the Civil War, a spy inside the Confederate White House in Richmond went undetected. She hid in plain sight, a servant of Jefferson Davis himself, who made little effort to conceal documents from her. "Little Mary" Bowser was assumed to be illiterate, but instead was intelligent, educated, and possessed a photographic memory. Bowser had been freed from slavery and educated by Elizabeth Van Lew, who was the Union's spymaster in Richmond and had helped her get the job.

Even less is known about Clara, a Richmond prostitute who gathered information from her clients for the Union.

The Great Big Breakup

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 20 Dec 2015 16:30:00 GMT

More than one thing goes wrong before the breakup happens. So it was with the South. Although fearing federal interference with the institution of slavery, Southern states had other objections to federal government policies. In an early pre-war skirmish, South Carolina refused to go along with tariffs imposed on them from Washington. The dispute ended in a compromise, and like the famous Compromise of 1850 over slavery, neither resolved the problem nor quelled growing resentments. South Carolina became the first state to leave the Union, on December 20th, 1860.

Seven states left the Union between Lincoln's election and his inauguration. A month into his term, the hot war began.

"Cump" Sherman

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 20 Dec 2015 00:14:13 GMT

General William Tecumseh Sherman is known for the scorched earth "March to the Sea" made from Atlanta to Savannah Georgia in 1864, which demoralized the rebels and set the stage for their defeat the following year. He bears the middle name of a Shawnee Indian Chief who, though admired, was unsuccessful in his quest to stem the western flow of white settlers from the east into Native lands. Family and friends of William T. Sherman always called him Cump for his middle name.

Sherman in turn gave his name to both a tree and a WWII tank.

The In-Laws from Hell

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 19 Dec 2015 01:10:01 GMT

Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of President Abraham Lincoln, has a reputation as a difficult woman, yet loyalty to her husband and her country were among her virtues. If suspicion fell on her during the contentious years of the Civil War, it was due to the actions of her kin, many of whom joined the Confederate cause. Of Mary's large family of seven siblings and eight half siblings, all the half brothers and one full brother joined the Confederate cause. All of her half sisters and one of her full sisters had husbands sympathetic to the Secessionists.

David Todd, a half brother, garnered a reputation for exceptional cruelty as an overseer of Union prisoners in the Confederate capital of Richmond.

Truth and the Legend

(Monumental Washington) — Fri, 18 Dec 2015 00:55:04 GMT

The most enduring legend about the remarkable woman Sojourner Truth is probably not true. The Ain't I A Woman speech for which she is best known was written down by Frances Gage 12 years after her speech of 1851. Reports of the speech given just after the event do not mention of the refrain that gives the speech its title. Truth was was unlikely to have spoken as the speech is written, in a southern dialect; born as a slave in upstate New York, Truth's first language was Dutch.

She could neither read nor write, but Truth published an autobiography which included the Gage version of the speech in its later editions.

The Other Hamilton Duel

(Monumental Washington) — Wed, 16 Dec 2015 19:23:54 GMT

Three years before the famous duel that killed Alexander Hamilton, his oldest son died in the same place and in the same way. Philip Hamilton and George Eacker faced off at the Weehawken dueling grounds after Eacker insulted the elder Hamilton. Eacker claimed Hamilton was ready to overthrow Thomas Jefferson and refused to back down when confronted. Alexander advised his son to fire into the air, as he himself did later in his own duel with Burr. He used the same pistol his son had used, and both Hamiltons lingered, dying the day after they were shot.

Alexander's daughter Angelica was another casualty. She lost her sanity and never recovered after her beloved brother died.

The American Black Chamber

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 15 Dec 2015 17:06:34 GMT

Do gentlemen read each other's mail? Henry L. Stimson thought not. On the orders of Stimson, President Herbert Hoover's Secretary of State, the Cipher Bureau closed its doors in 1929. Herbert O. Yardley had established the office to decipher the coded communications of other countries. The work led to the arrest of German agents operating in the United States during the first World War. After his office closed, Yardley published the sensational book The American Black Chamber in 1931, giving a controversial look into American intelligence capabilities.

Yardley's only other successful book also involves a skills of probability and secrecy.

The Assassin's Death

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 14 Dec 2015 19:39:16 GMT

Did Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth die a violent death in a Virginia barn after 12 days on the run? Or did he live another 38 years, only to commit suicide in an Oklahoma hotel room? The story of Booth's survival leads to Finis L. Bates, who in 1907 published The Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth: Written for the Correction of History, about how he came to believe the Oklahoma man was in fact Booth the assassin. The resemblance was undeniable, and for years carnival crowds could view the corpse and decide for themselves.

The man who said he was Booth claimed Andrew Johnson ordered the killing, but Johnson was also a target of Booth's plot.

Washington Starts a War

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 14 Dec 2015 00:49:13 GMT

Before the colonies had yet thought of independence from the British, a young soldier named George Washington engaged the French in the first skirmish of what was to become French and Indian War. The Governor of Virginia sent Washington into French held territory that the British claimed in the Ohio valley. Washington retreated in defeat, yet the British ultimately won the war, taking the area west of the Appalachians that had been called New France.

The British victory in 1763 helped alienate the colonists when the British prohibited settlements west of the Appalachian mountains.

"History is More or Less Bunk"

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 12 Dec 2015 17:46:03 GMT

As a historian, Henry Ford was a great automobile entrepreneur. He told a reporter that what happened in the past had no influence on the present. That idea would be a hard sell to anyone sitting in a traffic jam. He later changed his mind: it turned out some history wasn't bunk. He opened a museum to show that the history should include the stuff of everyday life.

The automobile and recent history intersect at The Henry Ford exhibit of the limousine President Kennedy rode on his last day in Dallas.

Russia's Lincoln

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 12 Dec 2015 02:07:51 GMT

Tsar Alexander II was a friend of the Union during the Civil War. A reform minded monarch, he grappled with a problem similar to slavery in the United States. In 1861, he abolished the system of serfdom in the Russian kingdom, freeing peasants whose rights were little better than outright slaves. In 1863, Alexander sent ships to New York and San Francisco, ready to enter the war on the Union side if either neutral France or England recognized the Confederate government.

Like Lincoln, Alexander II was assassinated. His 1881 death set back the cause of reform and set the stage for revolution.

Washington's Gay Rights Pioneers

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 10 Dec 2015 19:30:28 GMT

Beginning in 1950, during the Lavender Scare, any federal worker suspected of homosexuality could find themselves out of work. Astronomer Frank Kameny was fired from his job at the Army Map Service in 1957 and decided to fight back. He established the Mattachine Society of Washington in 1961 to help individuals interrogated by federal investigators. In 1965 Mattachine co-founder Jack Nichols led the first public protest in Washington with pickets at the White House.

Washington, DC outlawed discrimination based on sexual orientation in 1973, but took another 20 years for the federal government to do so.

Three Weeks in Washington

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 10 Dec 2015 01:19:15 GMT

Among the famous visitors to the Willard Hotel in Washington, DC, was Emily Dickinson. She spent three weeks in town in 1855 with her father Edward, who was finishing his term as a Whig congressman from Massachusetts. Emily was 25, and it was the farthest she was to go from home. Later in life known for her seclusion, it is not surprising that Emily found Washington to be all jostle, scramble and confusion.

She preferred the hotel halls to the streets, and may have met Thomas Dawes Eliot, also staying at the Willard. Emily's sister said they saw him, an anti-slavery Whig like their father, as the perfect man.

The Third Challenge

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 08 Dec 2015 21:49:02 GMT

Aaron Burr had challenged Alexander Hamilton to meet him on "the field of honor" twice before the fatal duel of 1804. The first two times Hamilton apologized, but Hamilton refused to back down the third time, angered by Burr's manner of demanding a retraction. Burr had heard a "despicable opinion" that Hamilton uttered, but the opinion itself is still a mystery. It is possible that the offensive statement went beyond politics. Hamilton himself said he had made "very unfavorable criticisms" about Burr's private conduct.

Novelists can invent where historians must speculate. Gore Vidal wrote that Hamilton spoke of Burr's incest with his beloved daughter Theodosia.

The Father of the Underground Railroad

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 08 Dec 2015 01:01:26 GMT

Much of what is known about the Underground Railroad, the system of safe houses that conveyed escaped slaves to freedom, is due to the careful records of prominent Philadelphian William Still. He detailed the stories of 649 escaped slaves in his 1872 book, The Underground Railroad Records. He kept those records to help reunite families, such as his own, who had been fractured in the effort to gain freedom. William had found his long lost brother Peter by accident when Peter was able to make his way north.

Still's activities as a successful Philadelphia businessman helped his effort to desegregate Philadelphia's horse-drawn street cars.

Battle of the Three-named Sculptors

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 06 Dec 2015 14:30:00 GMT

Daniel Chester French might be the best known sculptor of Washington's monumental art, because he made the best known sculpture in town: Lincoln seated at one end of the National Mall. He also sculpted a fountain in the center of DuPont Circle, in a neighborhood that has been fashionable for more than a century. A prolific artist, most of French's work is in places other than Washington. James Earle Fraser contributed a larger number of works to the capital city, including many important ones: two sculptures each at the Supreme Court, the National Archives, the Treasury Building, and Memorial Bridge.

Two other three-named sculptors, Robert Ingersoll Aitken, and Carl Paul Jennewein each have a number of monumental works in Washington.

The Woods of New York

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 05 Dec 2015 14:30:00 GMT

Fernando Wood was a canny and corrupt politician during the Gangs of New York days. As mayor during the Civil War, he suggested that New York City secede from both the country and the state. He bought his Congressman brother Benjamin a newspaper, which became a house organ of southern sympathizers in the north. Benjamin Wood is today better known as the husband of Ida Wood. Ida had arrived in New York high society as the aristocratic New Orleans beauty Ida Mayfield. In 1931, Ida made headlines at age 93, when she was discovered living frugally as a recluse with a half million dollars in $10,000 bills stuffed in her clothes.

While settling her nearly $1 million estate, investigators found she had been born Ellen Walsh, from a poor Irish family who never heard from her after she left home at 19.

A Swindler's Moniker

(Monumental Washington) — Fri, 04 Dec 2015 14:30:00 GMT

Motley H. Flint seems like the name of a swindler from a novel, but he was a real life character. His brother Frank P. Flint was a US Senator and is remembered by a fountain dedicated to him in Los Angeles. Younger brother Motley is less fondly remembered, if at all, as he was instrumental in bilking many small investors of their life savings. Julian Petroleum promised profits from oil discovered in Southern California, but there was much more stock sold than oil found. A victim of the swindle killed Motley in cold blood in front of a full courtroom.

Motley Flint had $63,000 in his pocket when he died, more than enough to cover his murderer's loss of $35,000.

Honest Abe, Bartender?

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 20:03:58 GMT

Recently, blogs have uncovered Abe Lincoln's days as a bartender. But Honest Abe himself denied it in a debate with Stephen Douglas in 1858. Was Abe not so honest after all? Lincoln did own a store with a partner, William Berry, and such stores sold liquor to be taken off premises. To sell drinks consumed on site, a license was necessary, and Berry did obtain one in both their names. Lincoln got out of the business weeks later, local lore says, because of differences with his partner over alcohol. Berry was a known alcoholic, and Lincoln himself was more interested in reading than operating the store.

When Berry died two years later with his store deep in debt, Lincoln took it on and spent the next 15 years paying it off.

Father of Prohibition

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 03 Dec 2015 01:02:46 GMT

Richmond P. Hobson is still more influential than his current name recognition would suggest. Called The Father of Prohibition, he campaigned tirelessly to ban alcohol, making up alarming statistics as he toured the country. He should also be called the father of the war on drugs. When prohibition was enacted, he began making much the same speech against opiates, at the time thought less dangerous than strong drink. He stoked fears of an army of addicts committing depraved crimes. Then addiction became the crime, sending many to jail.

Harry J. Anslinger took up Hobson's theme in the 1930s, this time against marijuana, asserting the substance turned innocents into criminals.

Citizen Spies of World War I

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 19:46:45 GMT

Carrie Phillips was pro-German and vocally against the US entering the war. She was also the lover of a US Senator and future president Warren Harding. She did try to persuade him to vote against going to war with Germany, but in spite of his passion, Harding refused. But was she a German spy? The American Protective League thought so. This citizen's group had the blessing of the US government to spy on their neighbors, were able to detain them, and even had badges.

Phillips' pro-German views meant she endured surveillance during both world wars, but she was never arrested.

Who Was Molly Pitcher?

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 30 Nov 2015 21:16:13 GMT

There was no one named Molly Pitcher, but there were women who carried water into battle for the fighting men of the Revolutionary War. Molly! Pitcher! might have been the cry they heard from thirsty fighters. One woman in particular could have been the model for the legend of Molly Pitcher. She was remembered less for the water she brought than for her bravery. She took her husband's place on the artillery line when he was injured, and when a cannonball blew threw her legs she remarked that it could have been worse!

"Captain Molly," Margaret Corbin, is another likely Molly Pitcher. She continued fighting after her husband's death, and was the first woman pensioned as a war veteran.

Nixon's Cheerleaders

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 29 Nov 2015 21:19:49 GMT

Nixon never got to be a cool guy, but he tried. As he was running for president in 1960 and governor in 1962, the pop culture wave was building, and Nixon looked for ways to be in the swim of things. One of his efforts was to enlist a squad of young good looking girls to wear cool dresses and cheer. As a bonus, they could drown out those annoying anti-war protesters.

By 1972, Nixon had lost the pop culture contest when Andy Warhol's portrait of Nixon declared: Vote McGovern.

The Suburban Dream

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 29 Nov 2015 01:30:57 GMT

Before the Civil War, the Navy Yard area was one a few crowded areas of a District that was still mostly countryside. South of the Navy Yard flowed the Eastern Branch of the Potomac, now called the Anacostia, and across the river was country. Near Navy Yard jobs, the country beyond the river became one of the first to promise the suburban dream. In 1854 a planned housing development called Uniontown started selling houses, but not to Africans or Irish.

In 1877 Frederick Douglass bought the mansion that Uniontown developer John Van Hook had built for himself.

Franksgiving and the First Black Friday

(Monumental Washington) — Fri, 27 Nov 2015 14:30:00 GMT

Thanksgiving as the start of the Christmas shopping season goes back at least to the depression days of 1939, when Franklin Roosevelt moved the holiday up a week. The late holiday that year would shorten the holiday shopping season, and Roosevelt believed more time to shop would help the economy.The stock market had crashed ten years earlier and the recovery had stalled. But FDR's move was unpopular, and some dubbed the new holiday Franksgiving.

The term Black Friday would have been familiar in FDR's time to mean a market crash. Not until the 1960s did it come to mean the day after Thanksgiving.

The Fashion for Full Plates

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 26 Nov 2015 14:30:00 GMT

Thanksgiving was a tradition, but not yet a national holiday, when one woman asked President Lincoln to make it official. Thanks to her efforts, in the dark days of 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, the whole nation had a holiday on the last Thursday of November. Presidential proclamations of thanksgiving had taken place since Washington, often in celebration of a military victory. A few states had made Thanksgiving official. But to make it a holiday for all, it took three decades of lobbying by pioneering journalist Sarah Josepha Hale.

As the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, Hale published "fashion plates." Nothing to do with food, these plates were hand-colored illustrations of the best and most current clothes.

Gilded Lead

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 26 Nov 2015 03:21:02 GMT

King George III in the form of a statue of himself on a horse, made of lead and gilded with gold, was installed in a park in New York in 1770. The king's sculptor, John Wilton, had made it out of 4,000 pounds of lead, covered in bright yellow gold and standing on white marble, to resemble the famous equestrian of Marcus Aurelius in Rome. The statue was pulled down by a crowd after George Washington ordered the Declaration of Independence read to the citizens of New York on July 9th of 1776. Bullets made from the lead were used in the War for Independence.

Pieces of the monument turned up for years afterwards, but the head found its way back to England.

Ben Franklin Changes HIs Mind

(Monumental Washington) — Wed, 25 Nov 2015 01:24:28 GMT

Benjamin Franklin was an outstanding man of his times. A man of his day owned slaves, and so did he. He also changed with the times, and in Pennsylvania, slavery became increasingly unpopular. Franklin's attitude also changed during his life, from acceptance of the widespread practice, to the realization that African peoples were not in fact inherently inferior, and at the end of his life, petitioning Congress to end slavery.

Franklin's will stipulated that his son-in-law free his slave before he could inherit.

Who Pardoned the Turkey?

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 23 Nov 2015 14:30:00 GMT

A White House turkey was first spared death in 1863. Tad Lincoln had named their Christmas turkey Jack and made it his companion. He was so distraught at the bird's impending demise that he interrupted a Cabinet meeting to beg his father to spare its life. The practice of giving a Christmas turkey to the White House became a formal ceremony in 1947, leading some to say Truman had started the turkey pardon. But he was happy to serve the bird.

George H.W. Bush started the modern tradition when he formally pardoned a turkey in 1989, sending it to Frying Pan Park.

No Ordinary Men

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 22 Nov 2015 21:22:54 GMT

Jack Lewis was no ordinary man, in part because he believed there were no ordinary men. Better known as author C.S. Lewis, he died on November 22nd, 1963, the day another man called Jack met a violent death in Dallas. The death of writer Aldous Huxley that same day was serene and peaceful. Huxley's death was little noticed at the time; the news that Lewis had died spread slowly.

"Men must endure their going hence." But their works remain.

Room Number Eight

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 22 Nov 2015 00:44:02 GMT

Visit St. Paul's Cemetery in Old Town Alexandria, you will see a tombstone carved in 1816, holding the remains of a woman. Some said she was very beautiful, some said her face couldn't be seen for the black veil covering it. In any case, the identities of the two strangers who entered Alexandria by boat are unknown. It seems the strangers wanted it that way. When the small boat carrying a man and a woman arrived on the Alexandria, Virginia shore, the woman was very ill. She and the man went to Gadsby's Tavern, where she died in room 8. The man paid for the inscription, and then left without settling his debt.

Speculation says the woman could be the daughter of Aaron Burr, Theodosia, but she was shipwrecked three years earlier.

Washington's Whiskey

(Monumental Washington) — Fri, 20 Nov 2015 19:14:20 GMT

In Washington's view "the moderate use of strong liquor" was a benefit known to all armies and could not be disputed. It was also profitable: after he retired, he began making rye whiskey at his Mount Vernon estate. But whiskey had also tested Washington. Could the new federal government could enforce its laws? Defiance in western Pennsylvania over a tax on distillers lasted several years before Washington sent in federal troops to quell the rebellion.

Forty years before the Boston Tea Party, taxes on rum angered the colonists and started them on the road to revolution.

Broken Promises

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 19 Nov 2015 21:37:48 GMT

The difference between what a politician says to gain office and what he does after he wins can be dramatic, like Woodrow Wilson's 1912 promise to a black church official that he was for fair dealing and "advancing the interests of their race." Instead, Wilson advanced segregation soon after he was elected. In 1913 he allowed the Postmaster to remove non-whites from contact with white co-workers and the public. Segregation in other federal agencies followed. Wilson defended the practice by defining segregation as progress.

Wilson had also campaigned for a New Freedom. Instead, he presided over the imprisonment of those who expressed views even vaguely critical of government.

The Year of the Spy

(Monumental Washington) — Wed, 18 Nov 2015 20:31:48 GMT

1985 is called "the year of the spy" because of the significance of the American spies arrested for betraying the United States. It was also the year that a very damaging spy, Aldrich Ames, began his career. That year, Moscow was able to find and arrest many agents working for the US, executing at least ten. But Ames does not account them for all. When Ames was arrested in 1994, he admitted giving names, but insisted he first turned over information in June of 1985. Moscow had discovered three significant spies in May. If Ames' timing is correct, there was another double agent in the American ranks that year.

Aldrich Ames says he handed over his first documents on June 13, 1985 at Chadwick's in Georgetown.

The Fall of Albert Fall

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 17 Nov 2015 19:23:32 GMT

Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall almost got away with selling the right to exploit federal government oil reserves to oil companies Sinclair and Pan American Petroleum. The deals seemed legit, and Fall's moves were within the letter of the law. But secrecy and lack of competitive bidding raised doubts, and Fall had gotten too rich too quick. During an inquiry, disappearing documents increased suspicions. Then investigators discovered a $100,000 no-interest "personal" loan to Fall from one of the oil men involved. That sent Fall to jail.

The oil fields went back to the government and some were sold, this time with competitive bids: Teapot Dome was the last, in 2015.

John Paul Jones and a Barrel of Rum

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 16 Nov 2015 21:29:29 GMT

Today, Revolutionary War hero John Paul Jones lies in a magnificent sarcophagus in a place of honor at the Naval Academy at Annapolis. But for over a hundred years his remains were lost. He died suddenly in Paris in 1792, and in the following years of revolution his burial site was forgotten. It took six years of determined research by Ambassador to France Horace Porter before the body turned up, fully preserved, in a barrel of rum.

The swashbuckling sailor who helped win the war was left 'at sea' when new nation dismantled the Navy.

Related MW photographs:

No Surrender

Jones Fountain

Sex Kittens and a Forgotten Famous Robot

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 15 Nov 2015 17:58:51 GMT

Elektro the Robot became famous during the 1939 World's Fair in New York. He could talk, smoke and blow up balloons. His robot dog, Sparko, could bark, beg and sit. Forgotten during the war, he was resurrected in 1950 and went on tour for Westinghouse. His abilities became less impressive as time went on and he retired to an amusement park. Elektro's fame was renewed, briefly, in 1960 when he played Sam Thinko in Sex Kittens Go To College. Then Elektro was forgotten again and lay scattered in parts until he was put back together again in 2005 and went back on exhibit.

Visiting Elektro in the Mansfield Memorial Museum is not the only reason to see Mansfield, Ohio.

The Last Whig President

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 14 Nov 2015 16:46:03 GMT

Millard Fillmore was the last Whig President, but not by election. He got the top job when President Zachary Taylor died suddenly in the summer of 1850. Fillmore had been on the ticket to balance the southern slave-holder Taylor with a northern viewpoint. As president, pro- and anti-slavery attitudes were splitting his own party and threatened to split the country. Fillmore presided over the Compromise of 1850, which dampened the conflict temporarily but contained elements that made each side unhappy.

The Compromise stopped the slave trade in Washington, DC, but did not outlaw slavery itself in the District.

The Traitor's Traitor

(Monumental Washington) — Fri, 13 Nov 2015 17:14:18 GMT

As an aide to Revolutionary War General Horatio Gates, James Wilkinson had revealed that his boss was associating with men who wanted Washington replaced with Gates. After the war, Wilkinson became Agent 13, paid by the Spanish to further their interests in the new world. Although suspected during his lifetime, he evaded justice. Instead, he became the main accuser of Aaron Burr, although Wilkinson had clearly been in on Burr's scheme to seize territory in the southwest. Once again Wilkinson betrayed his boss.

James Wilkinson also betrayed Thomas Jefferson, who appointed him to govern the Louisiana Territory. Wilkinson told Spain about Lewis and Clark, who then tried to capture the explorers.

The Man Who Made Jefferson President

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 12 Nov 2015 20:59:28 GMT

The ultimate cliffhanger in politics ushered in President Thomas Jefferson by one vote. After nearly a week of stand-off in the House of Representatives, that vote was cast by Matthew Lyon of Vermont. Lyon's vote for Jefferson was a defeat for the Federalists, as they hoped to keep Jefferson out of office by electing second choice Aaron Burr. Lyon had been thrown in jail for criticizing Federalist John Adams, whose Sedition Act was early attempt to modify the constitutional guarantee of free speech. Lyon's revenge was the ensuing collapse of the Federalists as the dominant national party.

It is also true that Vermont Congressman Lewis Morris failure to vote for Burr on the last ballot decided the election for Jefferson.

The First Third Party

(Monumental Washington) — Wed, 11 Nov 2015 19:12:52 GMT

The first third party in the United States formed to battle the influence of the Freemasons, a club to which many of the wealthy and well connected have belonged since the founding of the United States. Freemasons' rituals and beliefs are not shared with outsiders, but in 1826, when member William Morgan threatened to expose the secrets and then disappeared, resentment of the insider's society coalesced into a political movement opposing the Jacksonian Democrats then in power.

Another first, and lasting, contribution from the Anti-Masonic Party: the nominating convention for a presidential ticket in 1832.

Winning Vietnam

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 10 Nov 2015 18:19:50 GMT

The winner was young, Asian, female, and still a student. The prize: a commission to build the memorial to service members killed or missing in the Vietnam War. When Maya Lin was chosen, literally no one knew who she was because the competition had been conducted anonymously. Objections to her youth, gender and ethnicity followed, as did opposition to the design itself. Its powerful simplicity won over those who came to the wall to remember one of the 58,272.

A tradition of leaving mementos at the wall began almost immediately, and are archived by the National Park Service.

Related MW photographs:

Wall of Names

Point of War

Three Soldiers

Don't Eat Emily Spinach

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 09 Nov 2015 20:15:27 GMT

Emily Spinach was a garter snake who lived in the White House. Teddy Roosevelt's mischievous daughter Alice would enjoy the shrieks of White House diners as the snake appeared from beneath a covered dish. At other times, visitors to the White House might have encountered grizzly bear cubs on the lawn or an alligator in the tub. Andrew Johnson's pet mice were nice, but Josiah the badger was not, nipping ankles and "hissing like a teakettle."

In comparison, Benjamin Harrison's opossum, Mr. Reciprocity, was not that strange.

Andrew Jackson, Slave Master

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 08 Nov 2015 20:55:34 GMT

As a wealthy southern plantation owner, Andrew Jackson owned and traded as many as 300 people over the course of his life. After his death, reminiscences of a house slave named Hannah, who remembered Jackson fondly, helped place Jackson squarely within the myth of the benevolent slave master. While Jackson may have treated some slaves well in comparison to other owners, he had no qualms about using violence to keep his property in line.

Tennessee was an early haven for abolitionists, but pro-slavery attitudes increasingly prevailed during Jackson's lifetime.

The Madness of Mary Lincoln

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 08 Nov 2015 01:53:36 GMT

At the instigation of her eldest son, Mary Todd Lincoln was judged insane. It was 10 years after the assassination, but Mary hadn't found peace. Never a stoic personality, Mary became increasingly nervous, and hated being alone. Her fears led to delusions and irrational behavior. Robert Lincoln believed his mother unable to manage her own affairs. He was concerned with Mary's habit of buying things she didn't need and couldn't use. After a trial, she spent a few months in a privately owned establishment for upper class women of dubious mental stability.

Robert, the eldest and only surviving child of the Lincolns, was marked by political assassination. He was present when President Garfield was shot in Washington, and when President McKinley was shot in Buffalo.

Does the City of Washington Exist?

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 07 Nov 2015 00:11:42 GMT

When the new federal district was created in 1790, municipalities named Washington and Georgetown were within the District of Columbia but governed themselves. The cities disappeared when the Organic Act of 1871 passed. The District of Columbia became the only governing entity. But new laws still had to specify to what part of the District they applied. Until 1895 Georgetown and the old City of Washington were still treated as separate areas, as old ways and old laws remained in effect.

The City of Washington began as a small part of the District but today lends its name to the whole. Georgetown was a city before either existed and is now only a neighborhood.

The Ballooning Civil War

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 05 Nov 2015 17:30:07 GMT

Days after the Civil War began, inventor Thaddeus Lowe landed a balloon in South Carolina on a test flight. Alarmed southerners briefly jailed him as a spy, and after returning to north he became one. Showing President Lincoln he could telegraph enemy locations directly from the balloon, Lowe persuaded Lincoln to make him Chief Aeronaut of the newly created balloon corps. The balloons proved useful, and the rebels were never able to shoot one down. But Union generals could not turn the advantage into victory, and the new technique lost support. War balloons were abandoned in 1863.

World War One saw a revival of the balloon corps, but a newer technology, the aeroplane, got all the glory.

A Congressman's Lonely Crusade

(Monumental Washington) — Wed, 04 Nov 2015 21:57:41 GMT

John Quincy Adams, elected to Congress in 1830, was thrilled to be back in the game. He had been President a few years earlier, but old foe Andrew Jackson had defeated him for re-election. During his time in Congress, the issue of slavery became more and more contentious, with anti-slavery groups sending waves of petitions to Congress. Most of Congress backed President Jackson's southern views, and they prohibited discussing the petitions. Adams fought this "gag rule" for almost a decade, virtually alone, arguing on first amendment grounds that unpopular views must be heard, and he finally won repeal in 1844.

Many petitions called for ending slavery only in the District of Columbia and other federal areas, but did not call for abolishing slavery in the south.

Battles of the Confederate Flag

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 03 Nov 2015 13:35:49 GMT

The Confederate Flag as we know it now was not the national flag of the Confederate States of America. The first official flag of the rebel states, called the Stars and Bars, looked so much like the United States flag that it caused confusion in battle. The second flag used Virginia's battle flag, the familiar Southern Cross, in the upper left corner with a field of white. It was known as The Stainless Banner. This "white man's flag" resembled a flag of surrender so a vertical stripe of red was added late in the war. This became The Blood Stained Banner. Only in the 20th century did the southern cross become the southern flag.

When first Union officer killed in the war, Colonel Elmer Ellsworth, died ripping down the rebel flag, the battle flag had yet to become the symbol of the South.

The Man to See

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 02 Nov 2015 21:36:50 GMT

Before he became known as the Civil War photographer, he was "Brady of Broadway." If you were anybody in New York City, you knew photographer Mathew Brady. Discovering photography pioneer Louis Daguerre at a young age would set Brady's course. Recognizing that portraiture was no longer just for painters, Brady set up in New York. So many of the celebrated came to see him that he became famous himself. Brady then expanded to Washington, where important people sat for his cameras.

Recognizing the historical value of the camera, Brady became obsessed with documenting the Civil War. After it was over, no one wanted the bloody images, and he died penniless.

How Baseball Became American

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 01 Nov 2015 21:06:33 GMT

Abner Doubleday fired the first Union shot of the Civil War and led a heroic battle at Gettysburg, but is better remembered as the inventor of baseball. But that is almost certainly untrue. Doubleday was not even living in Cooperstown in 1849, the year he supposedly invented the game there. Doubleday was the beneficiary of an effort to promote baseball to the world as the quintessential American sport. It's resemblance to a British game was inconvenient, so an American inventor was found.

Albert Spalding created the Doubleday story by commissioning a panel to find its "American Dad." He deserves the credit for making baseball American.

Prisoner No. 9653

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 31 Oct 2015 19:51:36 GMT

It is hard to imagine in 2015 that a man could run for president from behind the bars of a federal penitentiary and receive almost a million votes. Eugene Debs, Socialist Party candidate in 1920, was in prison for speaking out against American involvement in the first World War. Under The Espionage Act, he was arrested and convicted for words which could have caused a man hearing them to resist the draft.

Debs was the most well known among many others jailed for expressing opposition to the war. Debs was pardoned by President Harding, who wanted to meet the famous rabblerouser.

A President's Best Friend

(Monumental Washington) — Fri, 30 Oct 2015 16:37:15 GMT

Handsome and debonair, President Warren Harding found himself in 1921 at the helm of a country at peace and increasingly prosperous. The clouds that would gather over his reputation were yet in the distance. His Airdale quickly became a reliable source for stories about the White House, appearing in the press nearly every day. Laddie Boy got his own chair for attending cabinet meetings, had his portrait done in oil, and was the first dog to have a personal interview in a newspaper.

The First Lady did not benefit from Laddie Boy's good press, but Florence Harding was the animal rights activist in the administration.

Life in the Big Chair

(Monumental Washington) — Fri, 30 Oct 2015 00:15:14 GMT

Public life is rarely completely transparent, although Washington was home to one unique attempt. In 1960, long before web cameras invited us to witness Jennifer Ringley's every moment, you could make your way to the corner of Nichols Avenue and V Street SE and see Lynn Arnold living inside a sheer glass cube. No less remarkable was the giant chair where the glass cube sat. Although the experiment lasted only 42 days, the chair became a landmark of the Anacostia neighborhood, where Washingtonians with egos large enough for the big chair are seldom seen.

Art as well as commerce seeks attention by exposing the mundane.

A Second Jefferson Memorial

(Monumental Washington) — Wed, 28 Oct 2015 15:30:00 GMT

October 28, 1965 is the day the St. Louis arch came together. The project had begun as an effort to build the national monument to Jefferson in St. Louis, but Roosevelt, at the same time, championed the Jefferson memorial on the Tidal Basin in Washington. Thirty years passed since President Roosevelt signed the order to begin the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis. The Washington memorial to Jefferson was complete before the St. Louis project had a design.

The Twenty-Seventh City had once aspired to be the first city. After the Civil War, St. Louis hosted the National Capital Removal Convention.

Benchmark at the President's Park

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 27 Oct 2015 20:51:22 GMT

The closest many come to power in Washington, DC is the park just across the street. Protests have taken place in Lafayette Park, within sight of the president's mansion, since 1917, when suffragettes began a vigil. In August 1981, anti-nuclear weapons activist Concepción Picciotto began the longest continuous protest in the nation there. During the Vietnam war, protesters fought a legal battle to continue to exercise the right to assemble in the park.

Bernard Baruch had access to six presidents, yet he spent so much time in the park he is remembered by his own bench.

Andrew Jackson, Ghosthunter

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 26 Oct 2015 17:52:46 GMT

Legend has it that Andrew Jackson personally went to investigate one of the most famous hauntings in American history, that of the Bell Witch. For several years in the early 19th century, a female spirit taunted and attacked Tennessee farmer John Bell and his daughter. It is likely Jackson knew the story, as he lived nearby and did visit the Bell farm, but is no written record of the tale that Jackson encountered the witch.

The Bell Witch legend has been told for two centuries, and tonight will be told again on A&E.

Two Dollars of Fear, Loathing, and Fun

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 25 Oct 2015 21:02:11 GMT

Paying with a two dollar bill can get you arrested, even though It is legal tender for all debts, public and private. Clerks at this Best Buy didn't know that, nor did the cops that showed up. Three hours in handcuffed to a bar is a very bad day when you haven't done anything wrong. Maybe $2 bills really are unlucky. Or are they lucky? Ask Steve Wozniak, who uses them by the sheet.

John Trumbull, whose painting The Declaration of Independence is on the back of the bill, might be surprised that anyone would try make a counterfeit. But he wouldn't be surprised that someone could be detained for something he didn't do.

The Night in White Satin

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 24 Oct 2015 16:31:17 GMT

Clara Harris wore a dress of white satin to the theater with her fiance Henry Rathbone and the President and Mrs. Lincoln. It was April 14, 1865, and at the end of the night the dress was bloody. She couldn't bear to part with the dress and put it in a closet. A year later, she heard the low laughter of Lincoln coming from the room where the dress hung, as if he were still enjoying the play. She had the closet bricked over. Her son broke in and burned the dress in 1910, believing it was cursed.

Her son had good reason to tie the family troubles to the dress, if only because his father never recovered from the events of that night, becoming increasingly unhinged until he murdered Clara in 1883 and was committed to an insane asylum.

All the President's Hats

(Monumental Washington) — Fri, 23 Oct 2015 13:54:06 GMT

When Calvin Coolidge was President, a man was in danger if he wore a straw hat after September 15. While the social faux pas once ended in a man's death, most would simply have their hats snatched off their heads and stomped on. The custom led to a riot in 1922, when some hooligans started the stomping on the 13th, two days before the mandatory date. In 1925, Coolidge defied convention by wearing a straw hat on September 18. It made the front page of the New York Times.

Another president, John F. Kennedy, is said to have killed off all men's hats, but there are other suspects.

What's Going On

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 22 Oct 2015 12:48:41 GMT

Few people channel the soul of an era like Marvin Gaye. Born in Washington, DC in 1939, he first learned music in his father's church. Gaye became part of the explosion of black talent that was Motown in the early 1960s. The album What's Going On gave voice to the question in the air as the turbulent 60s turned into the 70s. Few artists have the range of Marvin Gaye: he expressed the personal, political and spiritual in a style instantly recognized as his own. Gaye's music rarely brought him the comfort it gave others. His troubled life ended with a gunshot at the hands of his father.

His hometown DC honored him with a park in 2006, which like him, is known as beautiful and troubled.

All Correct, Old Kinderhook

(Monumental Washington) — Wed, 21 Oct 2015 15:41:36 GMT

President Martin Van Buren sometimes gets the credit for the invention of the word most associated with Americans. His 1840 campaign used OK as an abbreviation for Old Kinderhook, a reference to his hometown. But "o.k." had already shown up in a Boston newspaper as a joke abbreviation of the phrase "all correct," author Allan Metcalf tells us. Ok, but Van Buren's campaign surely spread the word. With the telegraph it took off, because yes has one more letter than ok.

BTW, IANA IBK ROTFLMAO. TLTBT! WIC WGFF? WOA, WOB, YMMV. BFN, NRN K?

War of the Roses and the Marigolds

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 20 Oct 2015 17:11:37 GMT

In 1986, the Rose became the national flower of the United States, but not without a fight from a Marigold man. In 1959, the influential Senator Everett Dirksen took on the Marigold cause. During his ten years in Congress, Dirksen made the case for the flower in an annual speech: he noted the flower was native and found in all 50 states. Behind Dirksen's quest was the Marigold lobby, mainly David Burpee, head of Burpee seed company, but other marigold lovers backed the sunny flower's bid.

The corn tassel made a strong showing but it too went down to defeat, along with some 70 other flowers.

George and Martha's Escaped Slaves

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 19 Oct 2015 17:11:03 GMT

Washington's devotion to liberty did not extend to his human property. He hired slave catchers when that property escaped. When Martha's personal slave, Ona, made her way to New Hampshire, Washington found out where she was, but the strong anti-slavery sentiment there helped prevent her return. Washington also tried to find another slave named Harry, but he had gone with the enemy British.

During the Revolutionary War, many more slaves fought for the British than with the Colonists, because Britain promised them freedom.

America's First Foreign War

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 18 Oct 2015 20:29:41 GMT

When Thomas Jefferson took office as President in 1800, he had a choice: continue to pay as much as a million dollars a year to protect American merchant ships on the Mediterranean Sea from pirates, or use the fledgling United States Navy to fight back. Without payment, sailors would be sold into slavery or killed. The US had been paying hefty amounts since the Revolutionary War ended, without much choice in the matter, until the new nation could build a Navy. In 1801, Jefferson refused to pay and went to war. At the same time, he tried to neutralize an enemy ruler by supporting a regime change. Jefferson's efforts were not an immediate success, and it was not until a second war under President Madison that the payments and piracy completely stopped.

At home, the need for a Navy strengthened the hand of Jefferson's political opponents, the Federalists, who wanted a strong central government.

Arlington Cemetery's Uncle Jim

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 18 Oct 2015 03:52:08 GMT

Jim Parks was born as a slave on the land of Arlington National Cemetery. He and the land then belonged to George Washington Parke Custis, adopted son of the more famous George Washington. When the Civil War broke out in 1861 the owners left but Jim stayed. When the estate became the national cemetery in 1864, Jim dug graves for fallen Union soldiers. After the war, he helped restore the house and grounds. When "Uncle Jim" died, he was buried with full military honors for his service.

Jim witnessed the grounds of the estate become home for former slaves at Freeman's Village.

Fruit Plates and Iced Tea with Harry and Bess

(Monumental Washington) — Fri, 16 Oct 2015 19:19:41 GMT

Harry Truman, out of office in January, was restless by June. He revved up the engine in his new 1953 Chrysler New Yorker, and with Bess in the front seat and 11 bags of luggage in the back, hit the road. On the way to New York, they ate fruit plates with iced tea and stayed at $5 motels. Without Secret Service protection, he told Bess they wouldn't be recognized. He was wrong.

Meanwhile, at the White House, Ike and Mamie each got their own bulletproof 1953 Chrysler Limousine.

The Four First Presidents

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 15 Oct 2015 17:57:53 GMT

Washington is only the first President if you don't count the period after the American revolutionaries won the war but before the present constitution was enacted. Between the 1781, when the colonies defeated the British, and 1789, when Washington took office, eight Presidents presided over a loose confederation of states. Little federal power meant the President signed documents but didn't make decisions. John Hanson was the first President elected to a full one year term in this first government of states. The confusion surrounding whether the first federal government actually began in March or November of 1781 means that, even in 2015, a case can be made for a different first president, Samuel Huntington.

The man who presided over the very first Congress of States in 1774, before the declaration of Independence, gives us yet another first President, Peyton Randolph.

Duel Tragedy

(Monumental Washington) — Wed, 14 Oct 2015 19:50:56 GMT

If politics seems murderous, at one time it was literally so. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, men in Washington settled disputes by shooting at each other. So many duels were fought in a field just over the DC line in Bladensburg, MD that the spot became known as "the dark and bloody ground." One such duel took place between cousins Armistead Mason and John McCarty, descendants of the founder George Mason, because of insults hurled during an election campaign. McCarty killed Mason, and by some accounts, regretted it for the rest of his life.

Legend has it that future President Andrew Jackson, veteran of many duels himself, urged his friend Mason to the fight after the matter had almost been dropped.

Related MW photographs:

Mason's Bench

Kilroy: Still Here

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 13 Oct 2015 15:31:44 GMT

For American GI's of WWII, there is no more familiar phrase than Kilroy Was Here. The phrase was scribbled all over Europe and the Pacific during the war, often with a crude drawing of a man peering over a wall. When the war ended, a number of Kilroys emerged, but a contest determined the real Kilroy began the practice by marking the ship parts he had personally inspected.

The World War II Memorial on the National Mall in Washington includes a KIlroy etched into the granite.

Related MW photographs:

War Two

Atlantic Front

Troubled at the Top

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 12 Oct 2015 15:41:25 GMT

The Washington Post became the top paper in town during the reign of CEO Philip Graham. His marriage to Katharine Meyer brought him into the family that owned the paper, becoming publisher in 1946. Graham, at the center of social and political Washington in Georgetown of the 1950s and early 60s, was influential in Democratic Party politics as a close friend of John F. Kennedy. Brilliant and moody, also a heavy drinker, his highs and lows became more pronounced in the late 50s. He committed suicide in 1963, and it is likely that manic depression, now called bipolar disorder, contributed to his death at the early age of 48.

Graham was the second troubled man at the top of the Washington Post. Edward Beale McLean headed the paper until 1933, when his alcoholism and reckless spending and erratic behavior brought on its bankruptcy, and McLean was judged insane. He spent the remainder of his life in a sanatorium.

A Two Million Dollar Penny

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 11 Oct 2015 14:47:47 GMT

The first coin produced by the US Mint, a copper penny, is now worth over two million dollars. Unpopular because the design, which showed a chain of links representing the 15 states in the union in 1793, conjured slavery rather than liberty, the coin earned Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton the derisive nickname, Alexander the Coppersmith. The insult would have been instantly recognized by educated people of the day as a phrase from the bible: "Alexander the Coppersmith has done me much harm." The face of the coin, showing an image of Liberty with bad hair, was also criticized.

George Washington might have been blamed instead. In 1792, the year before the US Mint produced the coins, Washington personally supervised the coinage of half-dimes, featuring a similar face with flowing locks. Folklore has it Martha herself sat for the portrait, but the story lacks evidence. Here she is on another form of early money:

Visiting Helen Keller in Washington

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 10 Oct 2015 16:27:45 GMT

Helen Keller's deep ties to Washington DC began when her parents contacted Washington resident Alexander Graham Bell, who introduced her to Anne Sullivan, the teacher who was to free her from a prison of darkness and silence. She joined Sullivan in death at Washington's National Cathedral. In between, she visited Bell often, and met every president from Grover Cleveland to Lyndon Johnson. In 1964 Johnson awarded her the country's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, for her work on behalf of the blind and deaf.

Since 2009, Helen Keller has been part of Alabama's contribution to the National Statuary Hall Collection in the US Capitol building, where she can be seen in the Visitor Center.

Hidden in Plain Sight

(Monumental Washington) — Fri, 09 Oct 2015 13:19:24 GMT

Certainly the only memorial to a cigar maker to be found in Washington, The Samuel Gompers Memorial is also the only one used as a hideout. In 1942, three runaway boys, who had discovered that the sculptural group was hollow, spent a week inside the large work of art. They supported themselves by thieving, which surely would have drawn the disapproval of this champion of the working man. Gompers headed the American Federation of Labor, central to the sustained effort in the late 19th and early 20th century for better working hours and conditions.

Gompers believed independent unions helped workers more than organizing politically as socialists. During the 1950s, agitation for better working conditions began to be associated with communism.

Related MW photographs:

Gompers Group

Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 08 Oct 2015 15:13:58 GMT

Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover had an airport named after him before he became President. Named Hoover Field in 1926, a small airport operated where the Pentagon now stands. Enlarged by merger with the nearby Washington Airport, the busy aviation center was plagued by poor visibility and short runways. It closed in 1941. The only other memorial to Hoover in the Washington area also honors his cabinet service: the massive Department of Commerce building bears his name.

The Hoover Dam project also began when Hoover was Commerce Secretary. Called Hoover Dam during Hoover's Presidency, once Franklin Roosevelt took office, the name reverted back to an earlier project title, Boulder Dam. Congress restored Hoover's name to it in 1947.

Jail for the Ladies

(Monumental Washington) — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 20:18:54 GMT

The suffragette movement began in the mid-nineteenth century, but by the turn of the 20th, had seen little progress. Few people, including many women, thought allowing females a vote was an important matter. Alice Paul gave the movement new visibility with a 1913 march in Washington. To keep the matter in the public eye a group of women, called the Silent Sentinels, began a vigil in front of the White House. With the entry of the US into the European war in 1918, the women were attacked as unpatriotic for their protest. The women were jailed, and fed by force.

Susan B. Anthony had already cast a vote in 1872 after men at the polling place had allowed it. They all went to jail.

The Trend Setting Mr. Pleasonton

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 06 Oct 2015 17:30:50 GMT

Augustus Pleasonton, retired Civil War general, thought he had made a breakthrough scientific discovery: that blue light helps both plants and animals grow faster and stronger. His own experiments with grapes and pigs seemed to prove it. In 1871 he got a patent on the concept; his 1876 he turned his theory into a popular book, igniting the blue glass craze of 1877. His claim that blue light could cure disease had people sitting in front of blue glass for hours each day. Although Scientific American was quick to point out a dearth of reliable evidence, Pleasonton died believing in the power of the color blue.

He was not entirely wrong: it seems blue glass does help some people with a specific vision problem called Meares-Irlen Syndrome.

Murray The Outlaw of Fala Hill

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 05 Oct 2015 16:53:23 GMT

Simply known as Fala, Murray the Outlaw of Fala Hill was the full name of President Franklin Roosevelt's dog. Roosevelt was not above using his furry friend to defend his actions in a speech. That speech was a triumph, and may have helped him get elected for a fourth term, in spite of his obvious poor health. It helped that the accusation, that Roosevelt used a government destroyer to pick up the dog, was a distortion of the fact that the ship not only picked up Fala, but also the President himself.

Laddie Boy, President Harding's dog, sat in his own chair at cabinet meetings. The famous first dog was extensively covered by the press, and newsboys contributed 19,134 pennies for a lasting tribute to the popular dog.

Coming Home to Washington

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 04 Oct 2015 16:40:39 GMT

How do two unknown men get a memorial by a famous sculptor near the White House? Archibald Butt and Francis Millet were close friends and housemates, well known in the Washington social scene. Butt was a military aide to President Taft who had taken sick leave to go abroad and meet up with Millet. Butt may have been stressed over the feud between Taft and his former boss, Teddy Roosevelt. The two friends were returning on the Titanic when the ship went down. Friends commissioned Daniel Chester French, best known for the Lincoln Memorial, to memorialize the popular pair. President Taft made the first donation.

Francis Davis Millett had a long career as a writer and artist. He invented an early form of spray paint for the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago.

Related MW photographs:

Friendship Fountain

Saving Lincoln: True Adventure of the First Woman Detective

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 03 Oct 2015 15:56:17 GMT

Without Pinkerton detectives like Kate Warne, it is likely Lincoln would have been killed before he took office. She helped uncover details of a plot to kill the President-elect as he was passing through Baltimore, a city of virulent southern sentiment, on his way to Washington. The first woman ever employed as a detective, she was able to pose as a southern belle without suspicion. She and other Pinkerton detectives discovered the murder was to take place as Lincoln was changing trains in Baltimore. When Pinkerton delivered the news, Lincoln could not believe it. He only agreed to change his plans when he heard that a separate investigation had also uncovered a plan to murder him there. Pinkerton was then able to persuade the new President to disguise his trip through Baltimore.

Kate Warne stayed up all night accompanying Lincoln while he slept on the train, thus suggesting to Pinkerton the detective agency motto.

The Obstinate Mr. Burnes

(Monumental Washington) — Fri, 02 Oct 2015 13:48:25 GMT

David Burnes owned the land where Washington wanted the White House built. Washington found it difficult to reach an agreement with a man he labeled "obstinate." But Washington had tried to conceal his hand, fearing speculators would drive up prices near proposed federal buildings. But Burnes was no speculator, living on and working his land. He held out until Washington met with him. The negotiations got heated when Burnes reportedly reminded Washington that his wealth derived largely from his marriage. Burnes did get what he considered a fair price, but the new city was slow to pay and restricted his use of the land he kept, resulting in new disputes. He became known as crusty as well as obstinate, but prevailed and died a rich man.

His cottage remained on land near the White House until 1894.

The Third Black Senator

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 16:09:24 GMT

In 1870, the first black senator, Hiram Revels, took his seat in the US Senate in 1870 amid hope that non-white citizens would take their place as full participants in the reconstructed union of states. Revels took the Mississippi seat of Jefferson Davis, vacant when he left to become President of the Confederacy. Although challenged over whether he had the right to the seat, Revels opposed punishing former rebels. The second black Senator, Blanche Bruce, was also selected by the Mississippi legislature to represent the state. In 1913, Senators began to be elected by popular vote with the 17th amendment. By then, efforts to disenfranchise black people were well underway. More than 50 years passed before the third black man, Edward William Brooke III, took a Senate seat, from the Northern state of Massachusetts.

Tim Scott, currently serving in the Senate, is only the third black Senator from a southern state, South Carolina. A Republican, he is a member of the party historically most supportive of rights for people of color.

A Forgery in the White House?

(Monumental Washington) — Wed, 30 Sep 2015 15:57:36 GMT

Poor Gilbert Stuart, not believed when he said that the full length portrait of George Washington hanging in the White House was not his work. The nearly identical work at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington is certainly the one he originally painted, but he often copied his own work. But Stuart was particularly enraged over unauthorized copies of this painting, which he considered the worst of three Washington images he had made. Dolly Madison certainly thought it was an original Stuart when she had it cut down and rushed to safety ahead of the flames of 1814. The White House chooses to believe those who agree.

Now the Secret Service wants to copy the whole White House. Or maybe they can borrow this one.

Lincoln Meets the Natives

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 29 Sep 2015 13:08:18 GMT

In 1863, a delegation of Native Americans came to Washington to meet with Lincoln. Called Indians by newcomers to the continent, and commonly referred to as savages, their status as original inhabitants was not acknowledged. But Lincoln needed their allegiance in the civil war then raging, telling the group he would "try" to honor treaties the United States had made. He also told them, ironically, that the white man was less violent than the red race. This claim would be specifically refuted by the death of one member of the delegation, Lean Bear. He was killed by a Colorado troops who had been ordered to shoot Indians on sight. In his pocket was found a note from A. Lincoln himself, testifying to his friendship with whites.

One of the delegation, Yellow Wolf, died in Washington a few days after the summit. He was buried with a silver medal from President Jefferson. Called Peace Medals, these tokens began as gestures of peace important to the tribal leaders who received them, but became less valued as the natives lost power.

Howdy Doody Runs for President

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 28 Sep 2015 12:07:55 GMT

What other Presidential candidate would admit he's only a puppet? When Howdy Doody ran for President of all the kids in 1948, Buffalo Bob Smith, with the backstage help, pulled the strings of the puppet that became more enduringly famous than he. The wooden puppet had 48 freckles, one for each state, and promised if elected, Christmas would come twice a year but school would only last one day. A quarter million kids wrote in to get "I'm for Howdy Doody" buttons.

Also heavily favored to win in 1948: Thomas E. Dewey.

Forks in the Federal City

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 27 Sep 2015 17:23:34 GMT

Thomas Jefferson, lover of all things French, had introduced to the capital city something foreign: a fork. The so-called French fork was denounced as an affectation by Americans who had never owned one. Common people in the colonies had always used spoons. But Jefferson was ahead of the trend: forks that were unfamiliar at the start of the Jefferson administration in 1801 were commonplace but the middle of that century. Although spoons had been common for centuries longer than forks, certain spoons could be undemocratic: President Monroe was criticized for the gold spoons he brought from Paris for use at State dinners.

In 1981, plates joined the controversies over White House eating implements with Nancy Reagan's new set.

The Lost Masterpiece

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 26 Sep 2015 16:00:44 GMT

Louis Comfort Tiffany, still famed today for his stained glass, made a large panel for the White House entrance hall in 1882. Chester Arthur had taken office after the death of President Garfield, and Arthur was a man of refined tastes. As every occupant of the mansion has done to some degree, he remade the place. In fact, he got rid of 24 wagonloads of stuff from earlier White House inhabitants, before commissioning Tiffany to redo many of the rooms. A later President, Teddy Roosevelt, would do much the same, extensively remodeling the house and grounds. He removed the Tiffany masterpiece and had it sold, possibly for as little as $275. It ended up in a hotel that burned to the ground.

Teddy Roosevelt liked large animal heads better than Tiffany glass and added them to several rooms.

Image of the Black Man

(Monumental Washington) — Fri, 25 Sep 2015 13:15:58 GMT

Frederick Douglass was the most photographed American of the 19th century. His fight for the rights of negro people included re-making the image of what a black man is and could be. He objected to illustrations which showed features designed to confirm the notion of the ignorance and imbecility of the dark-skinned. Yet he also did not like an illustration of himself smiling because it did not show how he felt as a former slave. He embraced the new art of photography as providing a "true likeness." A photograph was impartial the way an image by a white artist could not be. Photographs could show character, not just skin color.

As photographs of white-skinned slaves shows, color alone was not a reliable guide to who was, and was not, entitled to live in freedom.

Related MW photographs:

First Photographer

Nixon's Bad Luck Birds

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 24 Sep 2015 13:16:22 GMT

The pigeons were dying along Pennsylvania Avenue in early 1973. Nixon had wanted no dirty birds crapping on his parade, so the inauguration committee spent $13,000 on Roost-No-More. Instead of keeping them away, dead birds lined the route Nixon took to the White House, as protesters lined the mall. Then a rooster escaped from an exhibit at an inaugural ball, allegedly molesting a guest.

But the first inaugural bird disaster took place a hundred years earlier. President Grant's second inauguration in 1873 was so cold, 100 canaries froze to death. Like Nixon, Grant's second term was worse than his first, with a bank panic that began a depression.

Bombs Away

(Monumental Washington) — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 11:44:16 GMT

On this day, Sept 23, President Truman told the country that the Soviets had detonated a nuclear bomb. It was 1949, four years after US citizens had first heard of the new weapon. The following year began the race for bigger and better bombs. The Soviets exploded at least 700 more bombs, and the United States tested its bombs more than a thousand times. All over the world, at least 2153 nuclear explosive tests have been conducted. The last explosion by the United States would come exactly 43 years after Truman's announcement, on September 23, 1992.

The General in charge of the nuclear arsenal, Curtis LeMay, wanted to use the weapon in North Korea, Cuba and Vietnam.

Her and Him

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 22 Sep 2015 12:49:19 GMT

The Life Magazine cover story on June 19, 1964 about President Lyndon Johnson's beagles, named Her and Him, was more damage control than fluff piece. For months, howls from the press and public had assailed Johnson after he picked up beagle Him by his ears for photographers. When the hounds protested, Johnson claimed everyone who liked dogs liked to hear them yelp. The American Kennel Club and the ASPCA disagreed. The White House kennel keeper, in his memoir Dog Days at the White House, says Johnson did love his dogs but never would admit there was anything wrong with lifting a beagle by the ears, but in an election year, Johnson had to turn public opinion around.

Maybe Nixon's dog, Checkers, could have helped him with public opinion if he had lived to see his master become President.

Eisenhower's Emmy

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 21 Sep 2015 13:38:51 GMT

Television applauded President Eisenhower by giving him an Emmy Award after he began televising news conferences in 1955. Truman was the first President to appear on a national broadcast, yet Eisenhower's award for his "substantial impact and extraordinary use of television" recognized that he used TV as the new "fireside chat." Radio had been the way President Franklin Roosevelt had bypassed newspaper reporters and gone directly to the people. In the 1950s, Eisenhower saw that he could do the same with TV. JFK often gets the credit, but Eisenhower was the first to master the medium.

Eisenhower was a big fan of the other new show of '55, the $64,000 Question.

The Case of the Missing Vice Presidents

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 20 Sep 2015 15:23:41 GMT

For a total of 37 years of the 226 years a President of the United States has been in office, there has been no Vice President. The office was simply left vacant when the occupant died, or when he ascended to the Presidency. John Tyler was the first VP to do so with the death of President William H. Harrison, but it was unclear whether the constitution gave him that authority. Some lawmakers believed he should only be an "acting president" and an election called. But nobody stopped him, so when President Zachary Taylor died a few years later, Milliard Fillmore did the same. Not until 1967 was it official that the Vice President got the top job when his boss died.

Neither Tyler nor Fillmore could parlay their unexpected Presidencies into an elected term, nor would they even be nominated, a distinction they share with another unexpected President, Chester Arthur.

The Painter and the Photographer

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 19 Sep 2015 16:17:28 GMT

Gilbert Stuart, the painter who made the image of George Washington Americans carry in their pockets, was as much entrepreneur as artist, and George Washington his most lucrative subject. Although Washington sat for him only three times, over a hundred of his paintings are of George. He copied and sold his first painting of Washington at least a dozen times, and he left his favorite painting of Washington deliberately unfinished - and undelivered to Martha Washington, who had ordered it - so that he could copy and sell it. He made at least 70 copies of the work. Famous and in demand, he briefly opened a studio in the capital. But Stuart's entrepreneurial instincts were less sure than his artistic skill, and he fled the city still owing his landlord.

About 50 years later, photographer Mathew Brady opened a portrait studio in Washington, within blocks of Stuart's old place. Like Stuart, Brady had a business bent that proved less successful than the pictures he made, and also like Stuart, some of his most famous portraits are of an American President.

The Lost Cornerstone

(Monumental Washington) — Fri, 18 Sep 2015 13:38:10 GMT

With pomp and ceremony, George Washington personally laid the cornerstone of the United States Capitol building on September 18th in 1793. The ceremony was not an official government act but was done as ritual of Freemasonry, then an esteemed club including many of the elite men of government. Washington, wearing his Masonic regalia, lowered a silver plate at the southeast corner of the new building, and laid the stone on top. Although paintings and engravings record the deed, no one knows exactly where the cornerstone is today. Attempts to find it have not revealed the silver plate or other proof of Washington's polished granite square. The location of the stone remains at best, a guess.

Also missing: cornerstones of the White House, the Treasury building, and the Washington Monument.

Unhealthy Stealth

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 17 Sep 2015 12:50:17 GMT

President Franklin Roosevelt, it is now known, lost his ability to walk when he got polio as an adult. During his presidency, that fact was concealed from the public, with the help of the press. Several presidents with serious health problems have been able to hide their physical vulnerability while in office. Grover Cleveland, in 1893, was determined to conceal an operation for a mouth tumor, so even though it was successful, he smeared the reporter who reported the story. When Woodrow Wilson was paralyzed from a stroke towards the end of his second term, his wife Edith vetoed release of information to the public. He was disabled so severely and for so long - while Edith controlled access to him - that she was called "The Secret President."

During her husband's presidency, Edith Wilson was better known as a descendant of Pocahontas.

Monumental Traffic Jam

(Monumental Washington) — Wed, 16 Sep 2015 16:08:34 GMT

The Arlington Memorial Bridge links Washington at the Lincoln Memorial to Arlington Memorial Cemetery. The bridge owes its existence to a monumental traffic jam in 1921, which trapped the President of the United States, Warren G. Harding, for three hours when he traveled to the Cemetery to dedicate the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Apparently many of Washington's 19,000 automobile owners had tried to join him. The experience shocked Congress into approving funds for the bridge, which had been proposed for 35 years. But after Congress delayed construction, the bridge took another 11 years to open.

In 2015, lane closures and emergency repairs promise new traffic problems while transportation funding remains stalled in Congress.

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Ericsson's Repose

Art Peace

The Plot to Bomb The White House

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 15 Sep 2015 13:57:49 GMT

Even after the fall of the Confederate capital and the surrender of General Robert E. Lee, the war was not over for some southern conspirators. As Washington celebrated the end of the Civil War, rebels planned to sneak into the White House to place explosives. Not much is known about Thomas F. Harney, the bomb expert tasked with the job, only that he was captured as an enemy combatant on his way into town and soon released. The plan to blow up the White House was not discovered until much later.

Almost anyone could walk into the White House in 1865, and Lincoln found it difficult to take seriously warnings that he was in danger.

Sgt. Stubby

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 14 Sep 2015 16:16:53 GMT

Decorated personally by First World War General John J. Pershing for heroism and bravery, Sgt. Stubby got a gold medal added to his chest in 1921. The brindle bull terrier mix was already decorated with an Iron Cross from the German spy he sniffed out, which made him a Sergeant. The first dog to achieve rank in the Army, Stubby earned private first class by warning his men of a poison gas attack. A stuffed Stubby and his war decorations now reside at Smithsonian Museum of American History.

American dogs weren't welcome in war when Stubby was smuggled aboard a ship headed to France in 1917. During the Second World War dogs were actively recruited and 19,000 dogs were screened for duty.

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Pershing's Shadow

Victory's Wing

Former Wars

The Confederate's Monument in Washington

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 13 Sep 2015 16:11:41 GMT

Although Albert Pike was a Confederate general during the Civil War, his monument in downtown Washington does not commemorate his war service. Pike was an important Freemason, and the author of an influential book on Masonic philosophy, whose members paid for the statue. Nevertheless, he has been a magnet for protests of racism as well as the supposed clandestine power of Masonry. An attempt to remove the statue in 1993 alleged Pike belonged to the Ku Klux Klan, but no such evidence exists.

After the war, President Andrew Johnson, also a Mason, granted amnesty to Pike for his service to the south.

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Pike's Woman

Lunch Companions

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 12 Sep 2015 13:51:26 GMT

FBI head J. Edgar Hoover ate lunch nearly every day with deputy Clyde Tolson at the Mayflower hotel downtown. Hoover also had his own agents tailing him every day. CIA head James Angleton had lunch every day with deputy Cord Meyer at La Nicoise in Georgetown. Anyone joining them for lunch was recorded by the vase of flowers on the table.

When President Franklin Roosevelt's lunch companions were the King and Queen of England, the hot dogs he served were as notable as the guests.

Main Street America

(Monumental Washington) — Fri, 11 Sep 2015 13:43:03 GMT

Pennsylvania Avenue, the most important street in the new federal city, was for many years one of its few paved roads, yet still a rough ride. Pierre Charles L'Enfant, the city's original planner, had laid the avenue roughly following the city's oldest road, which connected the waterfront of Georgetown with the Eastern Branch riverfront. L'Enfant planned for the White House and Congress to view each other down a grand avenue, at a time when avenues were not known as common streets but meant a wide tree-lined approach to a destination. L'Enfant's vision for this vista was ignored and the Treasury building was built where it blocked the view.

President Kennedy's inaugural parade shows the view down the Avenue as it might have been.

Supreme Prisoners

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 10 Sep 2015 12:52:59 GMT

The Supreme Court Building, imposing in its size, design and situation across the street from the Congress, occupies a space that had much humbler inhabitants during the Civil War. A crowded and dank prison stood where the temple of justice now stands. The site was the dwelling of captured Confederates, political prisoners, suspected spies of both sexes, as well as escaped slaves and local prostitutes. The building began as a temporary house for Congress after the British burned the Capitol in 1814, but was empty by the time it became a jail.

After Lincoln's assassination, the prison held many suspects, including the owner of Ford's Theater, his stage carpenter, and boardinghouse owner Mary Surratt, whose building still stands in Chinatown.

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Lex Supreme

Contemplating Justice

Bearded Urn

Anonymous in Washington

(Monumental Washington) — Wed, 09 Sep 2015 16:26:13 GMT

Boudoir Mirrors of Washington, a series of profiles of prominent Washington women, was published anonymously in 1923. Not much in the book seems scandalous enough for secrecy, even anecdotes about Alice Roosevelt Longworth, who was already shocking the public as a smoker before it was socially acceptable for women. Alice specialized in thumbing her nose at convention. The author revealed that Alice stood on her head, rearranged furniture to play hurdles at parties and at the White House, Alice ate asparagus with her fingers without removing her gloves!

"Princess Alice" was supremely indifferent to public opinion. Today she might today be described as having RBF.

Big Cheeses

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 08 Sep 2015 14:45:44 GMT

The recent institution of Big Block of Cheese Day at the White House is real life imitating a fictional White House. TV's West Wing evoked the real life incident of a huge block of cheese delivered to Andrew Jackson's White House in 1835. At 1400 pounds it was four feet wide and two feet tall. It was not the first big cheese at the White House. President Jefferson enthusiastically received a mammoth block of cheese in 1802. At 1200 pounds, it took two years to eat. Two years after Jackson got his cheese, there was still a lot left. He invited the public to have a whack at the wheel.

Reagan outdid Jackson in 1981 when he distributed 30 million pounds of stockpiled government cheese for free.

What Happened to Mary

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 07 Sep 2015 16:39:51 GMT

What Happened to Mary: not a question, but the title of a moving picture series starring Mary Fuller, a girl from Washington DC who became a big star in that hit. As big as Mary Pickford in 1914, by 1918 "What Happened to Mary" had become a question. She had dropped out of sight. Little is known of her later years, except that she moved back home and entered St. Elizabeth's Hospital, formerly the Government Hospital for the Insane in 1947. She died there in 1973.

Poet Ezra Pound, who lived there while she did, seemed not to mind his time at St. Elizabeth's. It spared him a worse fate.

Denying McKinley

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 06 Sep 2015 14:10:41 GMT

President McKinley, recently kicked out of Alaska, was also frozen out of his status as money. That's his face on the $500 bill, now a collectible rather than cash. McKinley is more famous for being killed in office than for empire building, yet he kicked Spain out of Cuba and made Guam, Puerto Rico, The Philippines and Hawaii possessions of the United States. He has no monument in Washington, unless you count this school, but helped supporters of alternative medicine place a large monument near the White House.

The McKinley name is popular for schools, even fictional ones. But he's unloved by some in Arcata, CA, where he's stood since 1906.

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Hahnemann's Habitat

Hot Blonde, Cold War

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 05 Sep 2015 13:33:45 GMT

Jennifer Miles may not have been very good at spycraft, but she certainly enjoyed trying. In Washington as a secretary to the South African Embassy, she became acquainted with many men, two of whom were Cuban diplomats to the United Nations. When she confessed to helping them the Cubans were expelled and she went back home.

Male diplomats take heed: Never get in an elevator with a Polish blonde. British film star Belinda Lee, never a spy, shows you why not.

Unraked Muck

(Monumental Washington) — Fri, 04 Sep 2015 14:05:35 GMT

Early Washington was more notable for mud than monuments. Charles Dickens visiting Washington in 1842 described "spacious avenues that begin in nothing, and lead nowhere; streets, mile long, that only want houses, roads, and inhabitants; public buildings that need but a public to be complete; and ornaments of great thoroughfares, which only lack great thoroughfares to ornament." Anthony Trollope visiting 20 years later complained: "Massachusetts Avenue runs the whole length of the city, and is inserted on the maps as a full-blown street, about four miles in length. Go there, and you will find yourself not only out of town, away among the fields, but you will find yourself beyond the fields, in an uncultivated, undrained wilderness." He told visitors not to stray too far from Pennsylvania Avenue, yet "there were parts of Pennsylvania Avenue which would have been considered heavy ground by most hunting-men."

Today's city is cleaner, but its politicians may still need one of these:

Humble and Grand

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 03 Sep 2015 16:43:27 GMT

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt has one of the biggest and most popular memorials in Washington sprawling for eight acres and visited by three million people each year. He also has one of the most obscure. It's easy to miss the marble block on the lawn of the National Archives. But that's the memorial FDR wanted, and in 1965 several friends made sure he got the plain stone the size of a desk he had specified.

Another FDR memorial site is in Georgia, where he built the Little White House and enjoyed banjo music.

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Roosevelt Stone

Bread Line

First Lady Man

(Monumental Washington) — Wed, 02 Sep 2015 13:24:07 GMT

Why does the President some consider the worst have a large outdoor memorial in Washington when more honored presidents have none? The answer is ... Harriet Lane, President Buchanan's niece, who became a celebrated First Lady to the bachelor president. Her 1903 will contained a bequest for the memorial, but because of Buchanan's unpopularity, it took 27 more years before it was dedicated at its site in Meridian Hill Park.

Buchanan, a supporter of slavery, ended up in a park also known as Malcolm X park.

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Buchanan's Seat

Beauty's Break

Cool in Washington

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 01 Sep 2015 11:53:43 GMT

Relief from the hot weather in Washington took on special urgency after President Garfield was shot in 1881, when for nearly three months he suffered in the summer heat before dying. For his comfort, naval engineers constructed a device using ice and air blowing on cold cloth, but it couldn't save Garfield from his own doctors. Ten years later, Inventor Alexander Graham Bell installed an early air conditioning system in his new house. Cool air for the public was still a novelty when the new luxury hotel, The Mayflower, opened with air conditioning in 1925.

Before air conditioning became affordable, being cool in Washington required importance, brilliance, or riches. Fortunately, there are other kinds of cool. This guy had all of them.

Republican Bastille

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 31 Aug 2015 13:30:17 GMT

The Watergate Complex in Washington was a favorite of Republicans both before and after the incident that led to the downfall of a Republican President. Rose Mary Woods, who played a starring role in the scandal, had suffered a burglary there herself three years earlier. The curvy complex along the river may always be Nixon's biggest monument in Washington.

For a better tribute, for a president who liked a drink, in one of the drunkest places in the country, try the Nixon room at the Capitol Lounge.

G-Girls

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 30 Aug 2015 13:19:23 GMT

Women poured into Washington during both world wars, taking the jobs of men while they were away. Lodging was especially scarce for the female work force during WWII. Some of the government girls moved into housing built just for them. Hollywood made several comedies featuring Washington's working girls during the wartime housing shortage: Government Girl, with Olivia de Havilland, The More the Merrier, with Jean Arthur, and Standing Room Only, with Paulette Goddard.

In spite of their working women, these Hollywood movies reflected the widespread belief that marriage was a woman's proper occupation. The choice was either marriage or work. Wait, don't they say marriage IS work?

Happy Birthday, Nuclear Arms Race

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 29 Aug 2015 11:43:41 GMT

On August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union exploded its first atomic bomb. Not only did it start a race for newer and better nukes, the hunt for Soviet spies was on. Stalin, seeing the American atomic bombs go off in 1945, had ordered his scientists to make one within five years. It only took four because they weren't starting from scratch. When the news broke, Americans wondered how it had happened so fast.

Now we wonder why Japanese make the peace sign.

The First Circus

(Monumental Washington) — Fri, 28 Aug 2015 20:02:14 GMT

Politics and the circus began about the same time in the United States. President Washington, a skilled equestrian, went to see John Bill Ricketts show off his riding skills in Philadelphia at a venue he had opened a few weeks before, in April of 1793. Washington enjoyed it so much he went again that summer and had a birthday party there in 1796. Washington sold an old horse to Ricketts that he put on exhibit.

Ricketts' entertainments included the first circus clown in the new nation. Many would follow, and not all were politicians.

She Had Hope

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 27 Aug 2015 16:55:40 GMT

Evalyn McLean, rich and beautiful, also had a tragic series of events in her life. Was it because she owned the Hope Diamond? She didn't think so, wearing it often. Yet the blue stone has a reputation, perhaps because it was probably stolen from the King and Queen of France during their revolution. Diamonds can be recut, and the setting changed. Yet recent research has shown that the Hope Diamond is most likely the re-cut French Blue. It was donated by famed jeweler Harry Winston to the Smithsonian in Washington DC in 1958.

Before he was the Smithsonian's benefactor, Harry Winston was a girl's best friend.

Newsboy News

(Monumental Washington) — Wed, 26 Aug 2015 14:13:02 GMT

The sight of young street urchins selling newspapers was common and unremarkable in Washington and other cities well into the 20th century. Some homeless or impoverished children went to orphanages or the poorhouse, but energetic boys could eke out a living as independent contractors for the Washington's many daily papers. Newsboys had been numerous for decades before they began to show up in photographs as the movement against child labor progressed in the 1910s and 20s.

Now gone from the streets, newsboys live on as a band, a movie flop, and a musical stage tour.

What's in a Name

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 25 Aug 2015 13:24:00 GMT

Washingtonopolis, TC: Commissioners of the new federal city considered calling it Washingtonopolis, before they settled on the City of Washington, in the Territory of Columbia in 1791. Today's District of Columbia came into existence in 1871, when the separate cities of Georgetown and Washington, and the rest of the remaining 100 square miles, united under one government. In spite of this, Washington and DC can still seem like different places.

A new moniker gaining popularity acknowledges that the metropolitan area includes neighboring states: DMV.

Historic Parking Lots

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 24 Aug 2015 13:38:22 GMT

When the Park and Shop strip mall opened on Connecticut Avenue in 1930, it was a first in the city, and among the first in the nation. It received historic status in 1986, enlarging notions of preservation. Then shopping centers nearby, in Maryland and Virginia, were deemed worth saving. Increasingly, preservationists consider parking lots themselves, once scorned as blight, as worthy of becoming history.

If parking lots can be history, then gas stations can be art. At least these twenty-six.

Open Rebellion

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 23 Aug 2015 13:30:00 GMT

Is August 23, 1775 the day the Revolutionary War really began, when King George III declared the colonies to be in open rebellion? Although military skirmishes had begun that spring, and in June the Continental Congress began issuing currency to finance the war, it took months more for the British to begin to take the threat seriously. By October, the king still thought "a smart blow" would cause the rebels to submit.

If he had been right, Benedict Arnold would today be hailed a hero.

The Godfather of Go-Go

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 22 Aug 2015 13:30:00 GMT

Chuck Brown, the Godfather of Go-Go music, was born on August 22 in 1936. Go-Go is one of the rare legacies of Washington, DC that has nothing to do with politics. Politics got its due in 2001, when Chuck Brown met George W. Bush at the White House. He got to Paint the White House Black before Obama got there.

Public art murals in the street art style, aka legal graffiti, may become another cultural legacy of DC.

Consolation Prize

(Monumental Washington) — Fri, 21 Aug 2015 17:04:21 GMT

The vice presidency used to go to whoever came in second place in the election for president. That changed after Aaron Burr, running to be Thomas Jefferson's deputy, almost won the top job. Few vice presidents who never got the top job are remembered, except as scoundrels. But every Vice President, even Spiro T. Agnew, the only VP to resign in disgrace, is honored with a bust in the US Senate.

Better than a bucket of warm spit.

King of Creatures

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 20 Aug 2015 15:12:37 GMT

The beasts flanking the entrance to the former Acacia Insurance Building (now occupied by the Jones Day law firm) combine the head and wings of an eagle with the body of a lion - the king of each species combining to make a king of all creatures: the Griffin, or Gryphon. An ancient symbol of power still used in the 20th century, the griffin is a guardian above all.

Go with Alice and the Gryphon to hear the Mock Turtle's tale:

Related MW photographs:

Acacia Griffin

Griffin Girl

Copper Griffin

Wilson and Whiskey

(Monumental Washington) — Wed, 19 Aug 2015 14:10:48 GMT

Woodrow Wilson, running for President in 1912, used a slogan associated with a whiskey brand as a campaign song. A bold choice, as forces in favor of alcohol prohibition continued gaining strength, leading to the nationwide ban during Wilson's second term. Wilson's wine collection suggests he was on the side of the wets, but in 1917, he signed a law making the District dry more than two years before the rest of the country. The effect was the opposite of its intent: the number of speakeasies grew to more than 10 times the number of legal saloons that had existed before.

Food played a bigger role in the 1912 election than drink - the fat man, incumbent President Taft, lost.

One Sculptor, Two Scandals

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 17:25:51 GMT

Nudity in public was shocking in 1923 Washington, even when covered in shiny gold, as sculptor Carl Paul Jennewein discovered when he revealed his memorial to local lawyer Joseph Darlington. Eighty years later another Jennewein nude was in the news. The prolific sculptor had created many artistic elements for the Department of Justice building, including two massive figures for the Great Hall representing Law and Justice. Justice had her chest on view until 2002, when Attorney General Ashcroft had her covered up. His action brought more publicity - including a poem - than an earlier Attorney General denouncing pornography with the bared breast behind him.

Justice normally wears a blindfold, but not to prevent her from seeing these other Washington nudes.

Related MW photographs:

Darling of Darlington

Lincoln's Frienemy

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 16:00:32 GMT

General George McClellan has a magnificent military monument in Washington, despite the fact that Lincoln fired him during the Civil War. Republicans believed McClellan had lost for the Union opportunities to win quickly. Was McClellan an ineffective warrior, or did his disdain for Lincoln and his policies play a part? In 1864, McClellan opposed Lincoln as the Democratic nominee for president, and was defeated once more.

Nearby, toast the veterans who commissioned McClellan's statue with a Suffering Bastard cocktail, invented during a different war.

Related MW photographs:

McClellan's Mount

Still A Bargain

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 16 Aug 2015 16:53:25 GMT

In 1868, the US wrote Russia a check for $7.2 million to buy Alaska. The territory was called Seward's Icebox, after the Secretary of State who negotiated the deal, and he was ridiculed for nearly 30 years. What was decried as folly turned to fortune when gold was found and oil only increased the land's value. But what kind of deal was it? Seward got the land for about 2 cents an acre. If Seward bought the land today and spent the same money, $126 million in 2015 dollars, Alaska would cost just over 33 cents an acre. Of course, using different measurements gives a different answer.

Or with $126 million you could have gotten L’homme au doigt (Pointing Man). But you'd need an extra $15 million in fees.

Hot in Washington

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 15 Aug 2015 16:52:26 GMT

A cold root beer on a hot day in Washington. That was the idea that started a global business. In 1927, J.W. Marriott opened a A&W stand. He then added spicy food, brought drive-in dining to the east coast, and created the first Big Mac-like burger for a restaurant of his own. His Hot Shoppes were a local institution for decades. None remain, but you can still have a Mighty Mo at this Marriott hotel.

This September 2nd in Pearl Harbor, another Mighty Mo celebrates the last day of WWII when the Japanese surrendered aboard the ship.

Three Tafts in Town

(Monumental Washington) — Fri, 14 Aug 2015 16:47:49 GMT

William Howard Taft, who was a Cabinet member, President, and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, gets an existing bridge named after him. His son gets a 100-foot bell tower with a 10-foot statue on choice ground. Historical significance has less to do with who gets memorialized, and how, than who are friends, or enemies, and how much money you have. Is anything off limit to politics?

Not baseball. But maybe the Nationals new mascot can bring some magic back from 1924, when the President threw the first pitch and the home team took it all.

Related MW photographs:

Taft's Time

Dear Departed

War Bird

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 13 Aug 2015 13:46:42 GMT

Although it's not true he championed the turkey as national bird, Ben Franklin liked the turkey more than the bald eagle. He objected mainly to the eagle's habit of stealing food, and thought the turkey would make a better warrior. Tell that to Old Abe, a bald eagle who battled alongside Wisconsin troops 37 times during three years service in the Civil War. Ben was half right: Old Abe did steal food, and on occasion, got drunk.

Old Abe liked beer, but only his enemies called him the Yankee Buzzard.

The Tip Top

(Monumental Washington) — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 16:29:26 GMT

in 1884, a precious metal, aluminum, topped the Washington Monument. At the time an ounce of aluminum cost as much as silver, and there was only one place to get it in the US. The use of that rare metal helped spark the aluminum industry. A cheap method of extraction soon brought plummeting prices and ultimately, the use of aluminum in patio furniture.

In 1859, only a king could afford an aluminum helmet. Today it's cheap enough to tip your own top with a tinfoil hat.

Homeless in History

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 11 Aug 2015 13:22:10 GMT

Franklin Square, near Washington's city center, was not part of L'Enfant's original plan. The swampy site became valuable when its springs began to supply water to the White House; the square was later purchased by the federal government. Now a favorite spot for the city's homeless, it is soon to be improved. Franklin School, a historic building facing the park, was recently a homeless shelter and is now empty, but plans for its renovation are still up in the air.

Alexander Graham Bell sent phone signals through the air on the roof of Franklin School in 1880, an achievement that would have to wait over a hundred years to become practical. Bell called his invention the photophone, although it's doubtful he foresaw the rise of the phone camera.

The First Conspiracy Theory

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 10 Aug 2015 16:31:24 GMT

Andrew Jackson, despite enormous popularity, inspired vehement opposition, so much so that a new party sprang up. There were many reasons to deplore Jackson, but the Whigs were mainly concerned with Jackson's rejection of a national bank. When Richard Lawrence shot twice at Jackson in the first assassination attempt on a president, many thought the Whigs put him up to it. Soon it emerged that poor Richard thought he was Richard the Third. He was judged insane and spent the rest of his life in an asylum.

Neither of Lawrence's bullets hit Jackson, but Jackson already had a bullet lodged in his chest from an earlier duel. Jackson killed the man who had insulted him. Today Jackson is still celebrated and reviled, but not for being a poltroon.

The Reds and the Blues

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 09 Aug 2015 14:17:11 GMT

In the 20th century, if you were Red, you were an anathema to the right. Red was the color of communism, the fear of which spiked in two different decades, the 1920s and the 1950s. Blue was identified with the Republican party, and indeed is thought to be conservative among colors. In 1976, the first election map on television had blue Republicans. Republicans went red when the contested election of 2000 prompted the networks to adopt a uniform color code. Some Republicans are trying to bring blue back, and others want to start a blue branch for disillusioned Democrats.

Both men and women like blue more than red. Whatever the color, people prefer it be called a fancy name.

Political Animals

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 08 Aug 2015 17:19:11 GMT

Neither Democrats nor Republicans initially chose their animal symbol. Andrew Jackson, when called a jackass during his 1828 campaign, turned the slur into a selling point. Donkey imagery first appeared with Jackson in an 1837 cartoon. Cartoons also helped make the elephant into a Republican symbol. During the Civil War, the elephant became associated with Union victories, and therefore Lincoln's party. Civil War soldiers on both sides would talk of having "seen the elephant," been in battle for the first time. In 1862, Lincoln turned down the King of Siam's offer of elephants, but the King did not intend to send them into battle.

A camel did get involved in the war on the Confederate side.

Heads of the World

(Monumental Washington) — Fri, 07 Aug 2015 13:04:57 GMT

The Beaux Arts - the beautiful arts - found their grandest expression in the ornate Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress. The exterior alone contains a profusion of detail that shows not only the highest art but also the latest knowledge of the time. The building is ringed with 33 heads, one from each race, as determined by ethnologist Otis T. Mason of the Smithsonian. Blonde and Brunette Europeans are different races in this accounting. The American Indian and the Japanese are also represented by two heads each.

Today's geneticists say differences between human population groups are insignificant. Not only was whiteness invented, the definition changed. In 1899, Irish were not yet white.

A Gay Place

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 06 Aug 2015 17:11:46 GMT

The fiction series, A Gay Place, has nothing to do with homosexuality - it is a critically acclaimed tale of Texas politics that some say uses Lyndon Johnson and his wife Lady Bird as models. Another novel of politics, a blockbuster and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, deals with the homosexual blackmail of a senator inspired by the real life suicide of Senator Lester Hunt in 1954. Hunt's son had been caught soliciting a police officer in Lafayette Square. According the the authors of the 1951 expose, Washington Confidential, the square across from the White House was the place in town for homosexual trysts.

This is Lafayette Square from the roof of the White House in 1950:

President's Palace

(Monumental Washington) — Wed, 05 Aug 2015 16:49:33 GMT

Although few changes to the White House are visible on the outside, every administration puts its stamp on the house. It has been almost completely redone in three different eras. Rebuilt after the British burned it in 1814, it became known as the White House, although it had always been painted white. Teddy Roosevelt formally adopted the name in 1901. The next year he thoroughly remodeled and updated the structure and added the West Wing. In 1948, the house was gutted when Truman replaced weak wooden beams with steel to prevent its collapse, and built a bowling alley.

A few revisions were less popular: Eisenhower added Muzak in 1953, and Carter added solar panels. In 2014, a congressman prevented the renovation of the bowling alley.

The President's Day

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 04 Aug 2015 15:55:19 GMT

What is Obama going to get for his birthday today? The White House receives gifts all year. Presidents can keep whatever they get from US citizens, but must declare it and pay taxes on it. Unless your gift is a federal holiday: Washington got February 22 until President Johnson signed a bill creating President's Day on the third Monday of that month. Before the Uniform Holidays Bill went into effect in 1971, many school kids had two holidays that short month. But Lincoln's birthday on February 12th was never a federal holiday, and President's Day is still just for Washington. States and businesses can make their own decisions about what days are holidays. Even federal holidays technically only apply to federal workers.

A holiday gift: in 24 states, Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, is a holiday.

The Broken Diamond

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 03 Aug 2015 15:54:46 GMT

The District of Columbia is not a state and isn't allowed to act like one. DC has no vote on matters before Congress. Although the Home Rule Act of 1973 allows a local government to handle District affairs, it is still overseen by those elected to represent other states. DC voters do have a say in who gets to be President, but that took until 1961 with a Constitutional amendment.

Virginia didn't ratify the amendment, although in 1846 Congress returned to Virginia a large piece of the district. Lincoln called it unwise and others thought the gift unconstitutional and unsuccessfully tried to take it back. The District diamond still has the blues.

A Couple of Hookers

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 02 Aug 2015 17:11:51 GMT

Civil War General Joseph Hooker, whose headquarters were once described as combination bar and brothel, lent his name to a tawdry neighborhood near the White House where prostitution flourished in the teeming wartime city. Inside a neighborhood called Murder Bay, the area known as Hooker's Division is now full of the imposing government buildings of the Federal Triangle, south of Pennsylvania Avenue stretching towards Capitol Hill.

The largest whorehouse at the time was closer to the Capitol building on the other side of the mall. Mary Ann Hall ran a first class bawdy house, and was also known for kindness - the proverbial hooker with a heart of gold.

Tingey's Ghost

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 01 Aug 2015 16:24:47 GMT

The Navy Yard area is one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city, beginning about the same time the Federal government officially moved to Washington in 1800. Benjamin Latrobe, an architect of the Capitol building, also designed the main gate to the Navy Yard, and a house for its first Commandant, Captain Thomas Tingey. He oversaw the Navy Yard's birth and early growth and then burned it down to foil the British during the invasion of 1814. He then rebuilt it. In 1829, Tingey died in the quarters built for him. He has been seen since then peering out the windows or roaming with a brass spyglass.

Has old Tingey spied the amazing transformation of Tingey Street in this century?

Back to Front

(Monumental Washington) — Fri, 31 Jul 2015 22:45:39 GMT

Does the Capitol building have its back to the Federal City? The so-called East Front IS the front. The Freedom statue at the top of the dome faces east. Washington laid the cornerstone at the southeast. All the presidents until 1980 were inaugurated on the east plaza. But the west side faces major monuments and, with its pool and view, commands The Hill. But that great vista didn't exist until after 1901. When Washington and L'Enfant sited the Capitol, they may have envisioned the Capitol facing a city largely spread out to the east.

The first $50 bill with the Capitol on the obverse showed the east front. Since 1997 the bill has shown the west front.

Horseless Carriages

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 30 Jul 2015 13:05:17 GMT

In 1895 the Evening Star reported on the Motocycle race, a contest which began the race to develop the automobile. Nine years later came the first traffic fatality in the District, which was also a hit and run. This 1921 photo shows an early checkered cab at the White House. In the 20s, cars took over the town, some with flappers behind the wheel. Grace Wagner, a high school student, became a greaser. Another 40 years passed before Sally Halterman became the first woman licensed to ride a motorcycle in the District.

These ladies are enjoying a new fad, the food truck.

list

Capitalsaurus of DC

(Monumental Washington) — Wed, 29 Jul 2015 13:38:24 GMT

The Official Dinosaur Act of 1998 made the Capitalsaurus Washington DC's official dinosaur. The problem is no such dinosaur exists. There is a bone, dug up a hundred years earlier, which may be from some sort of dinosaur, but even the Smithsonian doesn't know what kind. But hey, this is Washington, just make a law! DC declared January 28, 2001 Capitalsaurus Day, making it an official symbol and naming a street after the beast. Oh, and "Them Dino Bones" is the official song.

Only six months to go, and we can also celebrate the birthday of the first man to deliberately look for human fossils, Eugene Dubois. If only we were as advanced as his Java Man.

Dark Day

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 28 Jul 2015 13:53:02 GMT

Thousands of hungry men descended on Washington in droves in the summer of 1932 to agitate for money they had been promised for service in World War I to be released early. In the depths of the depression, with nothing and nothing to lose, they occupied the city, squatting in vacant buildings and building shantytowns. On July 28, the US Army, led by Douglas McArthur, evicted the so-called Bonus Army. President Hoover had cited national security and later released a report that blamed the Bonus Army for a starting a riot that required troops and that also blamed them for the fires that burned the encampments.

On July 28, 1851, photographer Johann Julius Friedrich Berkowski captured the sun going dark in a total solar eclipse.

Unloved Monuments

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 27 Jul 2015 12:52:42 GMT

In DuPont Circle fountain once stood a sculpture of the man himself. Hated by family members, they paid for the replacement by noted sculptor Daniel Chester French, of Lincoln Memorial fame. Most unloved monuments just get moved around, and sometimes lost, even if they have artistic merit.

But sometimes love is just PR.

Related photos from MW:

Suffragette City

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 26 Jul 2015 13:09:03 GMT

In 1913, the Suffragettes came to Washington to demonstrate for the right to vote. Police stood by when the crowd, in town for Wilson's inauguration the next day, attacked the parade, so the Boy Scouts helped many of the injured. At least 100 of the 5000 marchers went to hospital. A movie coming in October 2015 deals with the struggle which took another seven years after 1913 headlines, 72 years after it began.

Suffragettes were early masters of branding, adopting the colors purple, white and green, which could be worn as jewelry.

Brutalist Washington

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 25 Jul 2015 16:57:33 GMT

The huge, menacing hulk of the FBI building, which dominates downtown DC may be replaced. Fans of this architectural style, called Brutalism, will find quite a few examples in this city, especially if getting around by Metro. But the style is more often hated than loved. Oddly, the Brutalist movement had its origins in idealism, but its effect is the projection of raw power.

Brutalist buildings flourished on college campuses in the era of Flower Power, and garnered a reputation as bulwarks against uppity students.

Capital Columns

(Monumental Washington) — Fri, 24 Jul 2015 13:50:53 GMT

Washington DC, with its profusion of neoclassical architecture, is itself a monument to the idealism of its founders. Not only the buildings, but government itself was designed with classical ideals in mind. The proportion and order of the classical style "transformed political struggles, military conquests, and the destruction of peoples into images of inevitability and harmony." Although classic ideas and forms faded in popularity after the Civil War, schoolchildren still learn the difference between the classical Doric, Ionic and Corinthian columns.

Another type of column became influential in the 20th century. Joe Alsop was also a pillar of Washington society.

Related MW photos:

The Doggiest of the Dog Days

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 23 Jul 2015 17:29:51 GMT

When the brightest star in the night, Sirius, the dog star, disappears when it moves too close to the sun, we are in the Dog Days of summer. Sirius is in Canis Major (the Big Dog) but there are other dog constellations. The dog days last for 20 days before and 20 days after the star comes closest to the sun - today, the 23rd of July. Twenty days to go!

What we can see in the night sky - using x-rays - is a massive black hole in a group of galaxies 105 million light years away:

An Early Photo Enthusiast

(Monumental Washington) — Wed, 22 Jul 2015 13:31:40 GMT

Photography was twenty years old in 1858 when Lincoln embraced the form. Two years later, Mathew Brady's 1860 photo helped make him President. A young girl saw the photo and wrote him suggesting he grow a beard, which he did. His notoriously homely looks became distinguished. The importance of the image in presidential politics was born.

Looking good isn't everything, though, as this handsome Civil War general later discovered.

The Washington Obelisk

(Monumental Washington) — Tue, 21 Jul 2015 13:38:13 GMT

The simple stone rising from the heart of Washington's monumental core began as a much more complicated design. A lack of funds, and a delay caused by the Civil War resulted in the streamlined object we see today. The obelisk is an ancient design, some say used to evoke the a ray of sun, and symbol of the male side of the procreative process.

“Never do anything complicated when something simple will serve as well. It's one of the most important secrets of living.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, The Black Obelisk

Summer in the City

(Monumental Washington) — Mon, 20 Jul 2015 13:50:06 GMT

In late July of 1952, military and civilian airport personnel saw a series of UFOS over Washington. The CIA had been monitoring sightings of unidentified flying objects since 1947, over concern they were of "foreign origin," as the cold war heated up. The Air Force also extensively investigated the UFO phenomenon. Both agencies were also concerned about public hysteria.

Meanwhile, life went on.

Good Housekeeping, June 1952

The Official and Unofficial Civil War

(Monumental Washington) — Sun, 19 Jul 2015 13:46:51 GMT

Eighteen monuments around Washington are officially designated as Civil War monuments. While most look like war monuments - a general on a horse - some, like Dupont Fountain, do not evoke war. The list was created before this bronze group commemorating the service of black soldiers was dedicated in 1997.

The ultimate collection of Civil War monuments is in the town of Gettysburg. A visit there is essential to anyone interested in US history.

Lincoln's Memorials

(Monumental Washington) — Sat, 18 Jul 2015 13:30:36 GMT

That vast and imposing temple to the savior of the union of the United States is the third memorial to President Lincoln in Washington. The first still stands downtown near DC's municipal buildings, but the second is a mile east of the Capitol building, where few tourists venture.

Yet another Lincoln, a bust by the sculptor of Mount Rushmore, Gutzon Borglum, resides in the Crypt of the United States Capitol building. On the floor of the crypt is a star that marks the exact center of Washington where it divides into four quadrants.

A Gift to the Nation

(Monumental Washington) — Fri, 17 Jul 2015 13:15:42 GMT

Carol M. Highsmith has made photographs in every state. What's more remarkable than the quality or breadth of her work is the fact that she donated her life's work to the Library of Congress and the archive is in the public domain, free from restrictions of any kind.

She started her photographic career at Washington DC's abandoned Willard Hotel in 1980. Hard to believe this high-end, historic hotel was once a ruin. Although the story that the word lobbyist was coined there is apparently a myth.

The Willard with President's FlagThe president's flag at the Willard Hotel on August 4, 1923 shows the president (Coolidge) is in residence. From the Library of Congress.

The Federal City Created

(Monumental Washington) — Thu, 16 Jul 2015 20:27:05 GMT

July 16 in 1790 was the day Washington the President created Washington the city. Washington, DC began with his signature on an act of Congress. Ten years later, when the federal government finally moved in, the town had only 14,103 residents, and almost a quarter of those were slaves.

July 16 is also notable for the start of the atomic age. It was the day of the very first atomic energy explosion, the Trinity Test blast. A new era, by any definition.