History of Washington, D.C.

Aerial photo of Washington, D.C.

The history of Washington, D.C. is tied intrinsically to its role as the capital of the United States.

Early settlement

The Piscataway Indians, a branch of the Algonquin, settled in the region in the early 17th century. European settlers began arriving in the following decades, pushing the natives west, as the Virginia Colony expanded from the south and the Province of Maryland from the east. While the central portion of the current capital city was largely uninhabitable wetlands, two business and port towns evolved nearby, on opposite sides of the Potomac River. The town of Georgetown, generally coterminous with the modern neighborhood of that name, was first settled in 1706, and continuously settled after 1751. The city of Alexandria, Virginia was established in 1749.

Founding

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Earliest survey of Washington

1888 German map of Washington, D.C.

After the conclusion of the American Revolutionary War in 1783, the new federal government of the United States met in New York City and Philadelphia. Rivalry among the states to be home to the new capital led the 1787 Constitutional Convention to empower Congress in Article I, Section 8 of the new constitution

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States...

that is, to establish a new federal district governed by Congress which was not part of any state.

A Southern site for the capital was agreed upon at a sit-down dinner between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. Jefferson agreed to support Hamilton's banking and federal bond plans that involved the Federal government assuming state debts, in exchange for the choice of a Southern locale for the capital.

The actual site of the District of Columbia on the Potomac River was chosen by President Washington, initially encompassing 100 square miles (259 km²). He selected a point just below the fall line—the farthest point upstream which oceangoing boats could navigate. It included the important port cities of Georgetown, Maryland and Alexandria, Virginia, and was a key point for transferring goods, particularly tobacco, between oceangoing ships and land or riverine transports. It also was just seven miles upstream from Mount Vernon, Washington's home and plantation. Washington may also have chosen the site for its natural scenery and its location near the center of the new country. He certainly believed that the Potomac had the potential to be a great navigable waterway, for he had founded the Potowmack Company in 1785 to make navigability-increasing improvements to the river.

The signing of the Residence Bill on July 16, 1790 established a site along the Potomac River as the District of Columbia (seat of government) of the United States. Land for the district was given to the federal government by the states of Virginia and Maryland. The pre-existing towns of Georgetown and Alexandria were included in the new district, with the remainder of the territory subdivided into Washington City and the County of Washington on the Maryland side of the Potomac (named after George Washington) and Alexandria County on the Virginia side.

Pursuant to an Act of Congress, President Washington appointed in 1791 three commissioners to supervise the planning, design and acquisition of property in the federal district and capital city. Later that year, the commissioners named the "City of Washington in the Territory of Columbia".

During 1791 and 1792 Major Andrew Ellicott, his brother, Joseph Ellicott and an African-American assistant, Benjamin Banneker(who took the place of George Ellicott), surveyed the borders of the Territory of Columbia with Virginia and Maryland, placing boundary stones at every mile point; many of these marker stones still stand.

The cornerstone of the White House – the first new constructed building of the new capital – was laid on October 13, 1792. That was the day after the first celebrations of Columbus Day, marking the 300th anniversary of the explorer's first voyage to the New World.

Plan of the City of Washington

Andrew Ellicott's plan of the City of Washington

Washington appointed Peter Charles L'Enfant to devise a plan for the new city. L'Enfant designed the city's first layout, a grid centered on the United States Capitol, crossed by diagonal avenues later named after the states of the union. The intersections of these avenues with the north-south and east-west streets were carved into grand circles and plazas which would later honor notable Americans. While surveying and construction were underway, both Congress and Presidents Washington and John Adams governed from other cities. In 1800, the seat of government was finally moved to the new city, and on February 27, 1801, the district was formally placed under the jurisdiction of Congress.

L'Enfant designed the grid only as far as Boundary Street (later Florida Avenue) at the base of the fall line. In 1792, President Washington dismissed L'Enfant from federal service. Popular legend says that L'Enfant was fired because, when a house had needed to be removed for one of his avenues, he had lured the reluctant owner out of the house and then blew it up with explosives. In addition, L'Enfant had numerous conflicts with the three commissioners that Washington had appointed to supervise the design, survey and development of the federal district and capital city.

Following L'Enfant's dismissal, Washington and the commissioners appointed surveyor Andrew Ellicott to complete the planning and design of the capital city. To L'Enfant's dismay, Ellicott soon revised the city's plan, straightening Massachusetts Avenue, eliminating several plazas and streets and giving names to the streets. Unlike L'Enfant, Ellicott was able to have his own plan engraved, published and distributed. As a result, Ellicott's plan became the basis for the captital city's future development.

The city's grid pattern consists of numbered streets north-south and lettered streets running east-west. Curiously, however, there is no "J Street." Popular legend has it that this was due to L'Enfant's personal dislike of John Jay. The real reason lies in the similarities of how the Roman letters "I" and "J" were written; it was believed the two would be confusing.

19th century

Economic development

The District of Columbia relied on Congress for support for capital improvements and economic development initiatives. However, Congress lacked loyalty to the city's residents and was reluctant to provide support.

War of 1812

During the War of 1812, President James Madison and the fledgling U.S. government were forced to flee the District. The expedition was carried out between August 19 and August 29, 1814, and was well organized and vigorously executed. On the 24th, the American militia, which had collected at Bladensburg, Maryland, to protect the capital, retreated from the Capital City before it could be destroyed.

On August 24, 1814, British forces burnt the capital during the most notably destructive raid of the war. British forces burned the most important public buildings, including the Presidential Mansion, the U.S. Capitol, the Arsenal, the Navy Yard, the Treasury Building, the War Office, and the bridge across the Potomac.

The British, however, spared the Marine Barracks at 8th and I streets, SE. It is said they spared the Barracks out of respect for the Marines who fought at the Battle of Bladensburg.

Retrocession

Main article: Retrocession (District of Columbia)

Almost immediately after the "Federal City" was laid out north of the Potomac, some residents south of the Potomac in Alexandria County, D.C. began petitioning to be returned to Virginia's jurisdiction. Over time, a larger movement grew to separate Alexandria from the District for several reasons:

• Alexandria was an important port and market in the Atlantic slave trade. There was increasing talk of abolition of slavery in the national capital, and Alexandria's economy would suffer greatly if slavery were outlawed.
• There was an active abolition movement in Virginia, and the pro-slavery forces held a slim majority in the Virginia General Assembly. (Eighteen years later, in the American Civil War, the most anti-slavery counties would secede from Virginia to form West Virginia.) If Alexandria and Alexandria County were retroceded to Virginia, they would provide two new pro-slavery representatives.
• Alexandria's economy had stagnated as competition with the port of Georgetown, D.C. had begun to favor the north side of the Potomac. The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal was already helping Georgetown take more business from Alexandria, and the canal was still being extended.
• Alexandria's residents had lost representation and the right to vote at any level of government.

After a referendum, voters petitioned Congress and Virginia to return the area to Virginia. By an act of Congress on July 9, 1846, and with the approval of the Virginia General Assembly, the area south of the Potomac (39 square miles [101 km²]) was returned, or "retroceded," to Virginia effective in 1847.

The retroceded land was then known as Alexandria County, Virginia, and now includes a portion of the independent city of Alexandria and all of Arlington County, the successor to Alexandria County. A large portion of the retroceded land near the river was an estate of George Washington Parke Custis. It would be passed on to his daughter and her husband, Robert E. Lee, and would eventually become Arlington National Cemetery.

See also: Alexandria County, D.C.

Civil War era

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President Lincoln insisted that construction of the U.S. Capitol continue during the Civil War.

Washington remained a small city of a few thousand residents, virtually deserted during the torrid summertime, until the outbreak of the U.S. Civil War in 1861. President Abraham Lincoln created the Army of the Potomac to defend the federal capital, and thousands of soldiers came to the area. The significant expansion of the federal government to administer the war—and its legacies, such as veterans' pensions—led to notable growth in the city's population.

Slavery was abolished throughout the District on April 16, 1862 — eight months before Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation — with the passage of the Compensated Emancipation Act.

Throughout the war, the city was defended by a ring of military forts that mostly deterred the Confederate army from attacking. One notable exception was the Battle of Fort Stevens in July 1864 in which Union soldiers repelled troops under the command of Confederate General Jubal A. Early. This battle was the only time that a U.S. president came under enemy fire during wartime when Lincoln visited the fort to observe the fighting.

On April 14, 1865, just days after the end of the war, Lincoln was shot in Ford's Theater by John Wilkes Booth during the play Our American Cousin. The next morning, at 7:22 AM, President Lincoln died in the house across the street, the first American president to be murdered. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton said, "Now he belongs to the ages."

Post-Civil War era

Newspaper Row on Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C., 1874.

Just before the war, developers began creating suburbs inside the District but outside of the city of Washington, in the unsettled land of Washington County. This sectioning of the District made it increasingly hard to administer as a single entity. In 1871, Congress created a single legislature for the entire District, with representatives from Georgetown, Washington City, and Washington County. When this too had proved unruly, Congress passed the DC Organic Act of 1878 , which merged Georgetown and Washington County into Washington City — making the city's boundaries identical with those of the District of Columbia.

The District was also given a territorial government in 1871. Its second governor, Alexander Robey Shepherd, however, gained an unfortunate reputation as an extravagant boss. His ambition was to make Washington a city of opulence and luxury, which he pursued by paving streets and sidewalks, installing street lights, and introducing electrical systems. He succeeded in many of these endeavors, but led the city to bankruptcy in the process. His excesses led Congress to abolish his office in favor of direct rule; Congressional governance of the District would continue for a century.

City Beautiful movement

In the early 1880s, the Washington Canal was filled in. Originally an expansion of Tiber Creek, the Canal connected the Capitol with the Potomac, running along the north side of the Mall where Constitution Avenue is today. However, as the nation transitioned over to railroads for its transport, the Canal had become nothing more than a stagnant sewer, and so it was removed. Some reminders of the Canal still exist. There are two lock buildings along the Mall, near 19th Street and Constitution. There is also a road named Canal Street that runs south from the Capitol building to the Anacostia River (although the northernmost section of the street was renamed Washington Avenue).

The Washington Monument, after four decades of construction, finally opened in 1888 — the tallest building in the world at that time. Plans were laid to further develop the monumental aspects of the city, with work contributed by such noted figures as Frederick Law Olmsted and Daniel Burnham. However, development of the Lincoln Memorial and other structures on the National Mall did not get underway until the early 20th century.

One of the most important Washington architects of this period was the German immigrant Adolf Cluss. From the 1860s to the 1890s, he constructed over 80 public and private buildings throughout the city, including the National Museum, the Agriculture Department, Sumner and Franklin schools.

20th century

President Herbert Hoover ordered the United States Army on July 28, 1932, to forcibly evict the "Bonus Army" of World War I veterans that gathered in Washington, D.C., to secure promised veterans' benefits early. U.S. troops dispersed the last of the "Bonus Army" the next day.

A shooting at the U.S. Capitol occurred in 1954 when four Puerto Rican nationalists fired into the floor of the House of Representatives. Five representatives were wounded; one severely.

Civil rights

Until the 1950s, District of Columbia public schools had always been racially segregated. When the city's Board of Education began building the John Phillip Sousa Junior High, a group of parents from the Anacostia neighborhood petitioned to have the school admit both black and white students, but when it was constructed the Board declared that only whites would be allowed there. The parents sued in a case that was decided in the landmark Supreme Court case Bolling v. Sharpe. Partly due to the District's unique status under the Constitution, the court decided unanimously that all of D.C.'s public schools had to be integrated. In the wake of this and the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education, the Eisenhower administration decided to make D.C. schools the first to integrate as an example to the rest of the nation.

Civil Rights marchers at the Lincoln Memorial, August 28, 1963.

On August 28, 1963, Washington took center stage in the American Civil Rights Movement, with the March on Washington and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s famed I Have A Dream speech at the Lincoln Memorial. Following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968, Washington was devastated by the riots that broke out in the U Street neighborhood and spread to other neighborhoods, including Columbia Heights. The civil unrest drove not only whites, but middle-class blacks out of the city core, and caused many businesses to leave the downtown and inner city areas. Marks of riots scarred some neighborhoods into the late 1990s.

Electoral college votes

The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified on March 29, 1961, gave the people of Washington, D.C. the right to choose electors for president and vice president of the United States. The amendment states that the District shall be treated as though it were a state for all purposes relevant to the election of the president and vice president; and, specifically, that it shall have as many electors to which it would be entitled if it were a state, except that it cannot have more electors than the least populous state. However, the least number of electors any state can have is three, so the least number of representatives the District can have is three.

If the District were a state, it would currently be represented in Congress by two senators and one Member of Congress, for a total Congressional representation of 3 - thus, the District is entitled to 3 electoral votes, which is the least number of electoral votes any state can have. There have been other times in history, however — and may be again — when the District of Columbia would have been entitled to 4 electors if it were a state; but so long as it is not a state, it can have no more electors than the number allocated to the least populous state. There are currently seven states that are only entitled to 3 electors, so that situation is not likely to change in the foreseeable future.

Home rule

In 1973, Congress passed the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, ceding some of its power over the city to a new, directly elected city council and mayor. Voters chose Walter Washington to become the first elected mayor of Washington, D.C. and the first black mayor of a major American city.

The first 4.6 miles (7.4 kilometers) of the Washington Metro subway system opened on March 27, 1976, following years of acrimonious battles with Congress over funding and highway construction.

In 1978, Congress sent the District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment to the states for ratification. This amendment would have granted the District representation in the House, Senate, and Electoral College as if it were a state. The proposed amendment had a seven-year limit for ratification, and only sixteen states ratified it before the time limit expired.

Marion Barry became the city's second elected mayor after defeating Walter Washington in the 1978 Democratic Party primary. During his third term, Barry was arrested for drug use in an FBI sting on January 18, 1990. He was acquitted of felony charges, but convicted on one misdemeanor count of cocaine possession for which he served a six-month jail term. On January 2, 1991 Sharon Pratt Kelly (elected as Sharon Pratt Dixon but married later that year) was sworn in as mayor, becoming the first black woman to lead a city of that size and importance in the United States.

Marion Barry defeated Kelly in the 1994 primary and was once again elected mayor. He ended his fourth term politically weakened, however, as the city nearly became insolvent and lost much home rule authority to the Congressionally created D.C. Financial Control Board. The greatest shake-up during this period, however, did not affect Barry's power directly but concerned the D.C. Public Schools. In the autumn of 1996, the superintendent of schools and all members of the elected D.C. Board of Education were permanently relieved of responsibility. A retired U.S. Army general was brought in to serve as interim CEO of the public schools. Barry did not run for re-election again.

The next mayor, Anthony Williams, a Yale University-educated lawyer, had been appointed the city's chief financial officer by the control board. He was elected mayor in 1998 and, despite alleged mismanagement and fraud in his campaign which led to the removal of his name from the ballot, Williams won reelection in 2002 as a write-in candidate.

See also: List of mayors of Washington, D.C.

Air Florida crash

On January 13, 1982, Air Florida Flight 90 crashed into the 14th Street Bridge shortly after takeoff from Washington National Airport in nearby Arlington, Virginia, killing 78 and destroying a portion of the bridge. The rebuilt portion was named the Arland D. Williams Jr. Memorial Bridge in honor of a heroic victim of the disaster.

21st century

Terrorism and security

The Washington area was a main target of the September 11, 2001 attacks. One hijacked airplane was crashed into the Pentagon, located just across the Potomac River from Washington, killing 64 aboard the plane and 125 people on the ground. Hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania, intended to target either the White House or the U.S. Capitol.

Since September 11 2001, a number of high-profile incidents and security scares have occurred in Washington. In October 2001, anthrax attacks, involving anthrax-contaminated mail sent to numerous members of Congress, infected 31 staff members, and killed two U.S. Postal Service employees who handled the contaminated mail at the Brentwood sorting facility. During three weeks of October 2002, fear spread among residents of the Washington area, with the Beltway Sniper attacks. Ten apparently random victims were killed, with three others wounded before John Allen Muhammed and Lee Boyd Malvo were arrested on October 24, 2002. In 2003 and 2004, a serial arsonist set over 40 fires, mainly in the District and inner-Maryland suburbs, with one fire killing an elderly woman. In November 2003, the toxin ricin was found in the mailroom of the White House, and in February 2004, in the mailroom of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.

Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, security has been increased in Washington. Screening devices for biological agents, metal detectors, and vehicle barriers are now much more commonplace at office buildings as well as government buildings. After the 2004 Madrid train bombings, local authorities have decided to test explosives detectors on the vulnerable Washington Metro subway system. False alarms due to suspicious chemical or powder substances or suspected explosives have led to fairly frequent evacuations of buildings, Metro stations, and local post offices.

When U.S. forces in Pakistan raided a house suspected of being a terrorist hideout, they found information several years old about attacks on Washington, D.C., New York City, and Newark, New Jersey. It was directed to intelligence officials, and on August 1, 2004, the Secretary of Homeland Security put the city on Orange (High) Alert. A few days later, security checkpoints appeared in and around the Capitol Hill and Foggy Bottom neighborhoods, and fences were erected on monuments once freely accessible, such as the Capitol. Tours of the White House were limited to those arranged by members of Congress. Screening devices for biological agents, metal detectors, and vehicle barriers became much more commonplace at office buildings as well as government buildings and in transportation facilities. This ultra-tight security was referred to as "Fortress Washington"; many people objected to "Walling off Washington" based on information several years old. The vehicle inspections set up around the Capitol were removed in November 2004.

Voting rights

Washington is a solid Democratic Party stronghold. Washington's current delegate to Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton, and a majority of the city council are Democrats. In addition, every elected mayor in the modern era has been a Democrat. Since gaining three electoral votes in 1961, D.C. has never supported a Republican presidential candidate and its margins for Democrats are not only the largest of any state, but are also larger than any county. In 2004, John Kerry won the District's 3 electoral votes by a margin of 80 percentage points with 89.2% of the total vote.

External links

• Washington D.C. history discussion list on H-Net
• Washington DC History Project
• The Seat of Empire: a history of Washington, D.C. 1790 to 1861

District representation debate

• D.C. Vote An organization working for District representation in Congress
• Stand Up! for Democracy in DC Coalition - A continuation of the Free DC movement that support FULL democracy for the residents of Washington, DC - budget autonomy, legislative autonomy, full voting representation in both houses of Congress, local court and criminal justice system, etc. - through statehood or constitutional amendment.)
• Committee for the Capital City An organization supporting retrocession of D.C. to Maryland
• "Treat Washington, D.C. as Part of Maryland for Congressional Elections" argues for this particular approach for D.C. representation in Congress.
• A Separate and Unequal District of Columbia - Unifies the legal and historical; concludes "our Constitution will no longer tolerate an unrepresented District of Columbia"