BGuthrie Photos: DC Heritage Trails: Civil War to Civil Rights: Downtown Heritage Trail

DC Heritage Trails: Civil War to Civil Rights: Downtown Heritage Trail:

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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1. TRCWCR_140228_01.JPG: Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail The Civil War (1861 - 1865) transformed Washington, DC from a muddy backwater to a center of national power. Ever since, the city has been at the heart of the continuing struggle to realize fully the ideas for which the war was fought. The 25 signs that mark this trail follow the footsteps of Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, Clara Barton, Frederick Douglass, and others, famous and humble, who shaped a nation and its capital city while living and working in historic downtown DC. Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail is an Official Washington, DC Walking Trail. The self-guided tour consists of three distinct loops: West, Center, and East. Each one-mile loop offers about an hour of gentle exercise. A free booklet capturing the trail's highlights is available at local businesses and institutions along the way. To download the free Civil War to Civil Rights Audio Tour, and learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CuturalTourismDC.org.
2. TRCWCR_140228_15.JPG: Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail .3 Clara Barton, Angel of the Battlefield at Home "I have paid the rent of a room in Washington ... retaining it merely as a shelter to which I might return when my strength should fail me under exposure and labor at the field." -- Clara Barton, December 1863. In November 1997, Richard Lyons peered into the dark clutter in the attic of 437 Seventh Street, inspecting the building in preparation for its planned demolition. His eyes settled on a sign, "Missing Soldiers Office, Clara Barton, 3rd Story, Room 9." He had stumbled upon, and saved, the home and office of the Civil War nurse and Red Cross founder, known as the Angel of the Battlefield. It was a time capsule. Room 9 was still stenciled on the door; 19th-century wallpaper hung from the walls in shreds. It was from the spot where you now stand that Barton began her work on the Civil War battlefield in 1862, leaving for the front lines at Antietam atop a supply wagon loaded with donated food and medical supplies. She worked as a copyist in the Patent Office at Ninth and F Streets from 1861 to 1865. As a woman, she could not serve in the Union Army, so she devoted herself to feeding , nursing and comforting thousands of Union wounded in the nation's most costly war, a conflict that took more than 600,000 American lives. After the war, at her own initiative and expense, Barton made her Seventh Street home a headquarters for the search for missing soldiers. She was eventually paid a flat fee of $15,000 by the government for her efforts. Thus she was the first woman to run a federal office. She received more than 63,000 letters of inquiry and wrote 41,855 replies, in the end identifying about 22,000 of 62,000 missing soldiers. Plans are being made to open this building and Clara Barton's rooms to the public. Above: Clara Barton as she looked during the Civil War [and image of sign discovered by Richard Lyons in 1997]. (Library of Congress). "Through the weary years of the war Clara Barton stayed at her post." ([Drawing by] W.M. Allison. Library of Congress.) Below: Seventh and O Streets in 1863 when Clara Barton's office was just a few steps up the street off the left side of the picture. (Library of Congress.)
3. TRCWCR_140228_18.JPG: Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail e.4 Sitting in Judgment This imposing, Greek Revival style structure was designed by George Hadfield as Washington's first City Hall/Courthouse. Throughout its history, the building has housed the local and federal courts for DC, presided over by judges appointed by the U.S. president with the consent of the U.S. Senate. In 1874 Congress took over city operations, ending home rule. DC lost the right to elect a mayor and city council. The courts and municipal offices remained in the mayor-less City Hall. For nearly a century, until limited home rule was restored, three commissioners appointed by the U.S. president ran the city. As part of steps to return home rule to the city in 1970, Congress reorganized DC's judicial system. It removed local cases from federal jurisdiction and created the Superior Court of the District of Columbia to hear everything from traffic violations to criminal matters. The Superior Court's Family Division moved into the Old City Hall/Courthouse. An expanded DC Court of Appeals became the District's court of last resort. In 1999 the worn-out courthouse closed to await rehabilitation. Ten years later, after extensive renovation, the building re-opened as the DC Court of Appeals. Some of the most noteworthy trials in our city's history have taken place here. In 1867 John Surratt faced trial for conspiring with John Wilkes Booth to kill President Lincoln. Surratt was acquitted after testifying that, when the assassination occurred, he was in New York on a Confederate spying mission. Charles Guiteau fared worse. In 1882, despite evidence of insanity, Guiteau was convicted of mortally wounding President James Garfield. He received the death penalty.
4. TRCWCR_140228_23.JPG: The scene at the Baltimore and Potomac train station on the Mall where Charles Guiteau morally wounded President James Garfield, 1881.
5. TRCWCR_140228_28.JPG: Acquitted Lincoln conspirator John Surratt, photographed in the uniform of the Papal guard.
6. TRCWCR_140228_34.JPG: In the foreground of this post-Civil War photo of Old City Hall is a platform for the boarding a horse-drawn carriage. The street was still unpaved.
7. TRCWCR_140228_38.JPG: Abolitionist and U.S. Marshall Frederick Douglass receives visitors in his City Hall office. He also served here as the appointed DC recorder of deeds.
8. TRCWCR_140228_44.JPG: Lott Flannery's Lincoln statue, originally atop a 35-foot pedestal, was paid for by DC residents and dedicated in 1868 as the nation's first public Lincoln memorial.
9. TRCWCR_140228_50.JPG: Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail The Civil War (1861 - 1865) transformed Washington, DC from a muddy backwater to a center of national power. Ever since, the city has been at the heart of the continuing struggle to realize fully the ideas for which the war was fought. The 25 signs that mark this trail follow the footsteps of Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, Clara Barton, Frederick Douglass, and others, famous and humble, who shaped a nation and its capital city while living and working in historic downtown DC. Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail is an Official Washington, DC Walking Trail. The self-guided tour consists of three distinct loops: West, Center, and East. Each one-mile loop offers about an hour of gentle exercise. A free booklet capturing the trail's highlights is available at local businesses and institutions along the way. To download the free Civil War to Civil Rights Audio Tour, and learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CuturalTourismDC.org.
10. TRCWCR_140228_57.JPG: Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail e.5 Building Out the Square The great depression (1929-1941) meant economic catastrophe for millions of Americans, but in Washington it meant a building boom as the Federal Government staffed up to the end the economic crisis. In 1931 alone Congress approved new government buildings and schools, street paving, bridges, and sewers Thousands found badly needed work. By this time, the Old City Hall/Courthouse had lost most of its DC government functions. The city's commissioners, police and fire chiefs, and engineers had moved to the 1908 District Building (now the John A. Wilson Building) on Pennsylvania Avenue. But as the city needed more offices, planners looked again at Judiciary Square. By 1943, the Judiciary Square courthouses and offices you can see from here were complete. Municipal architect Nathan C. Wyeth designed the 1941 Art Deco style Municipal Center across Indiana Avenue for the police and fire departments' headquarters and other agencies. For Judiciary Square, Wyeth designed three courthouses to harmonize with the Old City Hall; the Juvenile Court at 409 E. Street, and the Police and Municipal Courts framing today's National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial. One Judiciary Square, across Fourth Street, became DC's city hall between 1992 and 2001, while the District Building on Pennsylvania Avenue underwent renovation. In 2007, as part of Mayor Adrian Fenty's "Greening the District" program, the building received a green roof. The Francis Perkins U.S. Department of Labor building, ahead of you along D Street, honors President Franklin D. Roosevelt's secretary of labor, the first woman Cabinet member and the principal architect of the Social Security Acct and other worker protections.
11. TRCWCR_140228_67.JPG: Municipal Building under Construction
12. TRCWCR_140228_68.JPG: DC municipal architect Nathan Wyeth, center, explains the new Municipal Center's switchboard, 1941. At right, commissioners inspect the new Cosmetology Operators Examination Room.
13. TRCWCR_140228_71.JPG: Labor Secretary Francis Perkins, with Sen. Hugo Black, left, and Rep. William P. Connery, Jr., testified to Congress in favor of abolishing child labor, June 1937.
14. TRCWCR_140228_85.JPG: President Jimmy Carter renames the Department of Labor building to honor Frances Perkins, 1980.
15. TRCWCR_140228_89.JPG: These rowhouses once occupied the site of One Judiciary Square
16. TRCWCR_140228_96.JPG: The line at the Municipal Building to buy new automobile license plates, 1943.
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Directly Related Pages: Other pages with content (DC Heritage Trails: Civil War to Civil Rights: Downtown Heritage Trail) directly related to this one: [Display ALL photos on one page]:
- 2020_DC_Trails_CW2CR: DC Heritage Trails: Civil War to Civil Rights: Downtown Heritage Trail (23 photos from 2020)
- 2019_DC_Trails_CW2CR: DC Heritage Trails: Civil War to Civil Rights: Downtown Heritage Trail (126 photos from 2019)
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Same Subject: Click on this link to see coverage of items having the same subject: [Heritage Trails] [Neighborhoods]
2014 photos: Trips this year: three Civil War Trust conferences (Winchester, VA, Nashville, TN, and Atlanta, GA), Michigan to visit mom in the hospice before she died and then a return trip after she died, and my 9th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con trip (including Las Vegas, Reno, Carson City, Sacramento, Oakland, and Los Angeles). Ego strokes: Paul Dickson used one of my photos as the author photo in his book "Aphorisms: Words Wrought by Writers". Equipment this year: I mostly used my Fuji XS-1 camera but, depending on the event, I also used a Nikon D7000. Number of photos taken this year: just over 470,000.
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