Who Lived Here?

Houses in DC Live Many Lives. Research the History of Your Home or Another Intriguing Property.

The most important history lessons are deeply personal, and invoke an emotional response. This explains the popularity of documentary film, with its flair for the dramatic, and genealogy with its immediate personal connections. It also explains why some people are so willing to passionately defend a community's architectural look and feel, and the unique intangible identities their neighborhoods develop through tradition and memory. 

On Saturday, February 18, the Humanities Council, in partnership with the DC Public Library, the DC Historic Preservation Office, and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, will host a House History Day during which DC residents will learn how to research the past lives of their homes. House history research is powerful because it provides that personal connection to the past that few other types of historical research can; it allows anyone to forge a strong sense of connection with their neighborhood and their community whether they have called DC home for years, or just moved in last month. 

Next month's workshop will feature hands on instruction from expert archivists and historians; researchers will have time to practice their new skills as well, and are encouraged to bring along as much information about their house's history as they can. 

Sessions include: DC Maps, Historic Building Permit Database, Photo Archives, Microfilm, and DC Digital Museum/Neighborhood Context. The day will consist of two identical workshops in which participants will rotate to each of the sessions. The morning workshop lasts from 10am-12pm and the afternoon workshop from 1pm-3pm.  Lunch will be served between the morning and afternoon workshops. 

To register please visit http://dchousehistory.eventbrite.com. 

Please register for only one of the two workshops. House History Day is free, but we ask that you only register if you are sure you will be able to attend. The workshops are very popular and space is extremely limited. For more information please email info[at]wdchumanities[dot]org.

38th DC Historical Studies Conference Kicks Off this Weekend

Annual Letitia Woods Brown Lecture on the Civil War in Washington

The 38th Annual DC Historical Studies Conference kicks off this weekend with the Letitia Woods Brown Lecture, and a fascinating plenary discussion about a Digital History of the Civil War in Washington, DC. The Brown lecture is titled "Lincoln's Citadel: The Civil War in Washington, DC," and will be delivered by Professor Kenneth J. Winkle of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The Civil War is not the only topic of discussion during the 150th Anniversary of the conflict, but it certainly is a major theme throughout the two-day conference schedule. 

The sesquicentennial of the Metropolitan Police Department will be highlighted in a panel discussion featuring department historian Lieutenant Nicholas T. Breul, with Martin Murray, and Sandra Schmidt and moderated by Bill Brown. A session on political collections in DC's archives will be moderated by Yvonne Carrigan, Head of Special Collections and Archives at George Mason University's Fenwick Library. The panel will include librarians and archivists from other area Universities as well as the DC Public Library Washingtoniana Division. Professionally guided history tours will be offered of Lafayette Square and major sites of Prohibition-Era Washington. 

Recent recipients of the Humanities Council and the DC Historic Preservation Office's DC Community Heritage Project Grant will form a panel exploring neighborhood history. Another DCCHP grantee, John Eaton Elementary School, will demonstrate their student-produced, web-based history project. Their session is rounded out by Lucinda Janke, Kesh Ladduwahetty, who produced a Humanities Council funded online exhibit on the Franklin School last year, and Kimberly Springle, Director of the Sumner School Museum and Archives and Humanities Council Board member. It is great to see so much of the great work produced by these dedicated local historians and scholars represented at the conference.

This overview by no means covers all of the sessions offered at this year's conference. With so many great speakers and new ideas, there is bound to be something of interest to just about anyone. Check the conference's blog for more details on the schedule and how to register for sessions.

You are Guaranteed to Learn Something New About DC!

DC Community Heritage Project Grantees to Showcase Projects Dec. 8

Join us at John Eaton Elementary school in Cleveland Park as this year's DC Community Heritage Project grantees showcase their efforts to research, interpret, and publicize the history of their communities. You are guaranteed to learn something new about Washington, DC!

The DC Community Heritage Project, a partnership between the Humanities Council of Washington, DC and the DC Historic Preservation Office, began in 2005 as a way to connect neighborhoods with history at a grassroots level. Each year, the program offers informative symposia on best practices in constructing a community history project, and a grant cycle to support local history organizations.

The event is open to the public and completely free. Please RSVP by visiting http://dcchp.eventbrite.com/ , calling 202-387-8391, or emailing grants@wdchumanities.org.

Check out all the great projects that will be on display this year...

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Preserving LeDroit Park: An Historical Community in Washington, DC

This documentary film, produced by Ronald Smokey Stevens, explores the history of the LeDroit Park neighborhood from its beginnings as an exclusive, all-white subdivision through its transformation into the bastion of Washington's black middle class. The film highlights eminent residents of LeDroit Park who made significant contributions to DC and the nation.

Panel Exhibition on the Reopening of Peirce Mill

The iconic Peirce Mill is located in Rock Creek Park between the Cleveland Park and Mt. Pleasant neighborhoods in northwest Washington. For years, the site has served as physical link between Washington's urban present and agrarian past. To help reacquaint Washingtonians with this historic landmark after a 12 year $3 million renovation, Friends of Peirce Mill has produced four large exhibit panels which will be moved to display sites throughout the city.

Washington Color School Project

The Washington Color School is an art movement centered on a loose association of painters active in the DC area active since the 1960s. The project participants seek to create an online archive of interviews and other materials relevant to the history of the Washington Color School. The organization also held an illustrated talk by eminent art critic Paul Richard who has witnessed the growth and change of the DC art community since the rise of the Color School. 

Exterior and Interior Graphic Panels and Video about Historic Adas Israel Synagogue

The Historic Adas Israel Synagogue is the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington's most unique and valuable artifact. In 1969, the Society even moved the entire building to its present location to save it from demolition. Despite its importance to the cultural and architectural history of Washington, DC, it has featured no interpretive interior displays before now. As the culmination of a series of DC Community Heritage Project Grants, the Society has produced an indoor panel and an outdoor panel to help bring the history of the Adas Israel Synagogue to life.

Ivy City Neighborhood and Oral History Project Film

The DC Community Heritage Project has supported Empower DC for the past several years in their efforts to document and disseminate the history of the Ivy City neighborhood. The results have been outstanding and include: over 20 oral history interviews; research and collection of historic photos and memorabilia; an hour-long radio-quality documentary about the community; and a full color, 30 page publication based on the oral histories. Taking their project to the next logical step, Empower DC has created a documentary film to further tell the story of Ivy City.

John Eaton Elementary School Centennial Website

Cleveland Park's John Eaton Elementary School has been a fixture in the community for 100 years, and a group of ambitious fourth graders have taken it upon themselves to research their school's past and document it on the internet. The students have been to the Sumner School to learn research skills, the National Building Museum to learn museum skills, and the Library of Congress to learn how to conduct oral history interviews. The results will be posted on a specially redesigned centennial version of the school's website.

My DC Neighborhood in 1955

The Essential Theatre company produced and documented a panel discussion to coincide with their production of, "A Rose Among Thorns," a tribute to Rosa Parks. The panel was filled by DC residents who lived in various neighborhoods during Parks' iconic demonstration on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955. The panelists discussed their feelings on the event, and how it began to change their neighborhoods as the Civil Rights Movement shifted to center stage in America's socio-political consciousness.

The Museum of the Caribbean Diaspora: A Digital Repository

This ambitious project, headed by Roger Caruth and The Institute of Caribbean Studies, seeks to digitally document the history and culture of the Washington, DC Caribbean Diaspora making artifacts such as oral histories, photographs, and primary source documents available online as a database and as curated exhibits. The project makes use of the George Mason University Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media's open-source Omeka museum collections software. 

DC Authors' Houses: a Web Exhibit

This project is where literary history and architectural history meet. The team representing a coalition of four DC humanities non-profits have researched and photographed the historic homes of some of Washington, DC's most eminent writers including: Frederick Douglass, Zora Neale Hurston, and Sinclair Lewis. The fruits of this labor will be available to the public in the form of a professionally designed, easy-to-use web exhibit which will allow the group to continue adding new research well beyond the end of their current grant.

Voices on Fourteenth Street: Columbia Heights in the Sixties

Scholar Bell Clement and her sponsoring organization, Public Communications, Inc., have launched an oral history project to document work done by members of the Columbia Heights community to redefine their neighborhood and the terms of its governance for themselves. The project is part of a larger effort to explore American urban policy and changes in the conception of the American city during the 1960s. Five narrators were chosen through contacts with neighborhood and religious organizations, and Clement prepared a synthesis of the interviews interpreted with archival research. 

Historic Woodlawn Cemetery Records Conversion Project

Tyrone General has worked tirelessly to preserve and popularize the history of Woodlawn Historic Cemetery, and last year he received a DC Community Heritage Project grant to create several large interpretive banners to spread the story of the cemetery and the historic figures buried there. This year, in response to increased inquiries from genealogists and other researchers, General has initiated an effort to digitize the cemetery's detailed yet unwieldy paper archives.

The African-American Pioneer Muslimahs in Washington, DC

During the middle of the 20th century many African-American women in Washington, DC withstood challenges from their families and communities as they converted to a religion then seen as quite foreign and unusual. These women banded together and created a strong community of their own as they worked to create a new way of life for their children. This project documented the stories of some of the oldest Muslimahs in DC for a video set to premiere soon at a public screening.

The Anacostia Heritage Ride

The Anacostia Bicyclist Association developed this dynamic tour of select neighborhoods on the African American Heritage Trail to demonstrate cycling’s ability to contribute to the popularization of DC’s rich history and culture. Riders were provided with bicycles, water, snacks, and a companion guide developed by the ABA to help bring the heritage of Old Anacostia, Hillsdale, and the Waterfront neighborhoods to life.

Fotocraft Camera Club: More than Seven Decades of Photography in the Nation’s Capital

The Fotocraft Camera Club began at the 12th Street YMCA in 1937, and quickly established itself as the District’s premiere photography organization for African Americans. When the 12th Street YMCA closed its doors in 1982, Fotocraft persevered, moving to the 19th Street Baptist Church where members continue to meet twice per month. To celebrate their club’s storied past, Fotocraft initiated this oral history project to preserve the memories of its long-time members which will be interpreted in the context of the history of Washington, DC, and of the iconic 12th Street YMCA. 

Uncovering a Piece of Capitol Hill History through stories of the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop

The Capitol Hill Arts Workshop has provided classes, performances, lectures, and exhibits to the Washington, DC community for nearly 40 years. This year, they inaugurated an oral history project to preserve the memories of the individuals whose lives they’ve touched. As the interviews are completed, Project Director Peter DiMuro will analyze them and create an interpretive brochure.

Third Annual Historic Church Tour of Deanwood

This architectural and cultural tour of Deanwood’s churches aims to engage and educate audiences about the heritage of some of the most iconic buildings in the neighborhood. Though the history of these buildings is not widely known outside of Deanwood, the memories and stories they represent are an important part of the city’s past. Deanwood Heights Mainstreets publishes a spectacular booklet that highlights and interprets each of the tour stops. 

Living Images in My World: A History Beneath Us - Forgotten Sacred Ground Across the River Creek

Last Summer, "I Saw! The Experience of Learning in DC Project" took students from the Columbia Heights Youth on a journey through time, combining historic research with material culture and anthropological studies. The students visited The Mt. Zion Church Female Union Band Cemetery, and conducted research at libraries and archives throughout the city in an attempt to reconstruct the lives of six African Americans who cannot be found in their history textbooks. The students then produced a blog, a documentary film, and a booklet with a full bibliography.

What's In a Name: Profiles of the Trailblazers, History and Heritage of District of Columbia Public and Public Charter Schools

This project is a continuation of Women of the Dove's efforts to document the history of DC's Public and Public Charter schools. The organization has produced a booklet, and a CD highlighting their research on 86 schools, and this most recent grant has allowed them to document an additional 75 schools.

DC Community Heritage Project at the 38th Annual DC Historic Studies Conference

Patricia Hallman,Javier Barker, and Graylin Presbury to Represent 3 Past Grantee Organizations

The Cover Page from the
Fairlawn Citizens Association's
DCCHP Publication

This year's DC Historical Studies Conference will feature a panel discussion with three of our past DC Community Heritage Project Grantees. On Saturday, November 5, from 3:15-5PM, representatives from the Capitol View Civic Association, the Eastland Gardens Flower Club, and the Fairlawn Citizens Association will discuss their projects, and provide guidance to others who may wish to replicate their success. 

The DC Community Heritage Project is a partnership between the Humanities Council, the DC Historic Preservation Office, and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. The program is designed to provide DC community organizations with the tools and funding necessary to document and preserve the history of their neighborhoods. 

The discussion will be moderated by Patsy Fletcher of the DC Historic Preservation Office. Check out the conference website for more information.

Freedom Riders On WETA and HCTV

New Documentary Airs Monday Night at 9PM

In 1961, a group of African American activists, with supporters of all races and ethnicities, boarded buses at the New York Avenue Greyhound station bound for the Deep South. The supreme court had recently declared discriminatory laws effecting interstate buses and depots unconstitutional, and this courageous group was determined to test the ruling. The Freedom Riders were taunted, beaten, and jailed; their buses disabled and set ablaze, but the determined voyagers succeeded in sending the message that the rule of law alone would not be enough to subdue an entrenched Jim Crow.

This Monday at 9pm, PBS will air an all new documentary film on the Freedom Riders. The WETA website features a history of the movement, excerpts from a Smithsonian panel discussion, updates from a group of students recreating the original bus route, and an interview with the film's creator.

PBS Freedom Rides Trailer

Local filmmaker Steven Nero has been working on a similar, but more DC-focused, documentary with funding from the Humanities Council for the last few years. The most recent edition debuted at the DC Community Heritage Project showcase last December, and has garnered significant attention on the Council's Youtube channel. Check out the film if you haven't already, and be sure to tune in on Monday for producer Stanley Nelson's take on this historic Civil Rights protest.

Nero's Greyhound Building and Freedom Riders Documentary

The DC Community Heritage Project is a partnership of the Humanities Council, the DC Office of Historic Preservation and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

Connecting Preservation to Community: Washington, D.C.’s Community Heritage Project

An Article By Bell Clement

Washington, D.C.’s Deanwood  is the sort of neighborhood often overlooked by preservationists and historians.  Tucked into a corner of the city between the Anacostia River and the District’s Maryland border, a far reach from the Capital’s monumental core., it is a quiet, residential community, built up by black, working-class Washingtonians in the early twentieth century.

Yet over the past five years, Deanwood has become a hub of preservation and local history activity.  Residents have published a book of community history, created a neighborhood heritage trail, and assisted in the landmarking of several neighborhood sites, with more projects to come.  How did this happen ?

Members of the Deanwood History Committee (left to right,
Barbara J. Moore, Alverna M. Miller, Deidre R. Gantt [standing],
Elaine King Bowman, and Kia Chatmon)  gather at the First Baptist Church
of Deanwood toreview material for their book, Washington, D.C.’s Deanwood.

“The first time we came together as the Deanwood History Committee was when the Historic Preservation Office asked us to help with a survey of neighborhood architecture,” says Kia Chatmon, a member of the Committee and its current chair.  “We saw pretty quickly that we needed to assemble a neighborhood history, if the architectural survey was to have any context.”

“One thing we’ve learned,” says Patsy Fletcher, Community Outreach Coordinator for D.C.’s Historic Preservation Office, and the staffer who asked Deanwood residents’ help with the survey , “is that there’s no way to interest residents in historic preservation until they‘re engaged with neighborhood history.”  

Washington, D.C.’s effort to nurture that kind of engagement has produced the D.C. Community Heritage Project.  Now entering its sixth year, the CHP is a collaborative of community historians supported by a partnership including the Humanities Council of Washington, D.C. (HCWDC), D.C’s. Historic Preservation Office (HPO), and the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Initiated in 2005, the CHP has assisted dozens of community heritage projects across the District’s eight wards. The CHP has supported the work of the Deanwood History Committee, and provided funding for Washington, D.C.’s Deanwood,  brought out Arcadia Publishing in 2008.

The CHP got its start as a response to the real estate frenzy that transformed Washington during the mid-2000’s. New money and new people were flooding old established D.C. neighborhoods.  “People loved that there was new investment in their neighborhood, of course.” says Fletcher, “The concern was, with all these new voices in the mix, a loss of a feeling of ownership on the part of long-term residents.”  The “last straw,” says Fletcher, were the moves to rename old neighborhoods.  In these “re-brandings”, old “Sursam Corda” became “NoMa” (“north of Massachusetts Avenue”).  Old “East of the River” became “River East.” Says Fletcher, “People just couldn’t take it.”

A small group, including Fletcher herself and academic historians involved in D.C. neighborhoods, came together to look for ways to respond.  They envisioned a framework that would support residents in telling their own stories of the communities in which they lived.  

The group sought help from the Humanities Council, which now hosts the Project.  Says HCWDC Executive Director Joy Austin, “The Humanities Council’s mission is to provide the collaborative environment, skills-building, and funding needed to undergird the efforts of people here in the District to tell their stories.  The CHP effort fit right in to that.”  The synergy between the Humanities Council and HPO is an important factor in the Project’s success.  Says Fletcher, “Leadership at HPO saw clearly that to be successful in District neighborhoods, we would need a ‘softer, gentler’ approach to preservation.  Working in tandem with the Humanities Council and its deep community network allowed us to implement that.”

The central challenge facing the Project was to figure out how to generate a community-driven program. As a response to initiatives that seemed to impose community history “from the outside,” how was the CHP to be different ?  “We didn’t want to become the very thing we were criticizing,” says Fletcher “so at the start we asked community activists to tell us what their needs were, and what a heritage project might do to meet them.”

That first CHP convening occurred in June 2005, and “we got an earful,” says Executive Director Austin.  “We learned right away that if you bring community historians from across the city together, you set off a storm of cross-pollenation .  So we do citywide convenings twice a year, to keep practitioners in touch with each other.”  Another result is that as activists learn about projects in other neighborhoods they’d like to start in their own communities, they ask for help building the skills they need .  “So,” says Austin, “we host workshops throughout the year – trainings in newsletter and brochure production, videography, document preservation, and oral history.”

The Project also addresses funding.  Says Austin, “What we see demonstrated through the CHP is that small amounts of funding, if channeled directly to the grassroots, can make a powerful difference.  Lots of worthwhile community projects stall just short of completion for want of a bit of money.”  CHP grants – none more than $2,000 - make it possible for community projects to pay for digital scans of old newspapers, or photographic reproductions or oral history transcriptions.

As with other CHP-supported projects, some of the outcomes of the Deanwood History Committee’s work – its  publications or the recent landmarkings – are easy to identify.  Other effects are more difficult to trace, but equally important.  “We have produced a record of the history of the community here,” says Chatmon.  “Now, when people or businesses come to Deanwood, they know they aren’t dealing with a blank slate, but with a place that has a specific past, a specific heritage.”

A key lesson, underscored through the Project’s first five years, is that  sustaining community leadership in preservation initiatives is hard work.  Says Fletcher, “that ‘softer, gentler’ preservation we practice – it’s tough.  This effort has to be led by the people on the front lines of the projects.  That means constant work at keeping communication open, and  incorporating  new ideas as needs change.  This is not a ‘set it and forget it’ kind of effort.”

Hard work, but worth it.  Continues Fletcher, “As a preservationist, there is nothing like that moment when  somebody from a community history project - a neighborhood resident, not somebody with special preservation training – makes the connection between the neighborhood stories they’re assembling and a particular site: ‘So that’s why this building is here; that’s what it has meant over the years.  This is a treasure, and it’s a part of  this community !’  That’s the moment I love to see.”
- Bell Clement

Bell Clement is a graduate student at George Washington University’s Department of History.  She is a past recipient of Humanities Council of Washington, D.C. grant support in her research on the District’s Fourteenth Street corridor.


The Humanities Council is currently accepting proposals for 2011 DC Community Heritage Project Grants. Applicants are highly encouraged to attend a grants assistance workshop, though it is not required. All proposals are due May 6th by 5pm.

DC's 2011 Most Endangered Buildings List

DC Preservation League Seeks Nominations

The 3rd Church of Christ Scientist building at
16th and Eye St, NW made the list in 2008

The DC Preservation League is accepting nominations for its 2011 most endangered list. Since 1996, the Preservation League has annually compiled a list of culturally or architecturally significant buildings that are threatened by demolition, irresponsible redevelopment, or neglect. Last year's nominees included: Metropolitan AME Church at 1518 M. Street, NW; a collection of historic homes comprising parts of Historic Anacostia; and DC's historic fire houses. The Preservation League testifies before the DC Historic Preservation Review Board to encourage protection of the structures it identifies as significant.

If you are interested in preserving a piece of the built environment, nominating a structure for inclusion on the annual Most Endangered list is a good start. For more information visit the DC Preservation League website.