Soul of the City Starts With a Trip to the Frederick Douglass Home National Historic Site

Students Marvel at the Gap Between Past and Present

The 2011 Soul of the City program is well underway and several of the students have begun to react to their experiences in their personal journals. Here are some of the students' thoughts from last week's events.

Mishayia Valle on visiting the Frederick Douglass House Historic Site...

I was amazed that most of his stuff was from 150 years ago and was still there, his canes and glasses. all the doors were still in the place. A lot of the dishes were still in the china cabinet, etc. I learned that Frederick Douglass had five kids, but the baby died of pneumonia and brain fluids. Fredrick Douglass' first wife, was named Anne after she passed away he married their white servant Helene Pitts.

Daja Alston reflects on the differences between a present-day home and Frederick Douglass' 19th Century home...

Frederick Douglass' house is like no houses now. Years ago Frederick’s house did not have any bathrooms and the husband and wife couldn’t sleep in the same bedroom when they had company. His house also did not have a refrigerator. Nowadays we have all the things they didn’t have long ago. We have bathroom, refrigerators, etc. Fredrick’s house did not have a kitchen when he first moved in the house, so when he moved in the house he built another room for space to build a kitchen in.

Aarionna Powell on Douglass' second marriage to Helene Pitts...

Back in his time it was very different than the time that I am living today. A lot of things has changed over the years. Now we have bathrooms, washing machines, dryers, and ironing boards and irons that you plug up to the wall to get hot. We now have air conditioners and heat instead of making fire for  heat. In his time him and his wife had to sleep in separate rooms; in my time if you are married, you can sleep int the same room as your mate. I would feel as though he was replacing my mother with a wealthy white woman if my father decided to remarry another woman. I wouldn’t want him to remarry another woman. 

The Soul of the City adventure continues this week with a trip to the U Street corridor where the students will participate in performing and digital arts workshops!