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Living in Washington in the 1860s
On 7th Street in central Washington you could buy a watch, eat a meal and find a place to live. On the street level, businesses flourished, while on the upper floors, rooms were rented out to government employees who worked in nearby offices. A boarding house, unlike today's hotels, was simply sleeping rooms and residents shared public spaces -- privies (often behind the commercial spaces in the alleys), parlors and sometimes dining rooms adjoining kitchens where meals (or board) or provided for residents.
Long before today's apartment buildings, boarding houses were often the choice for single people, temporary residents, and poor families who could not afford their own houses. Many boarding houses are run by women; a respectable role if one had been widowed or orphaned. Most lived alongside the borders, but some more absentee landlords.
From 1850 to 1860 the population of the District of Columbia more than doubled, raising the cost of housing and supporting the need for boarding houses across the city. The Civil War brought to the city more government workers, military support staff, relief workers, freedmen and relatives in search of missing soldiers.
The Surratt boarding house on H Street, NW, between 1890 and 1910.
The Petersen boarding house on 10th Street, NW, circa 1900, which is famous as the house for President Abraham Lincoln died after being shot at nearby Ford's Theatre.
The recreated front parlor of the Peterson house, which shows the typical common area of an upscale boarding house in 1865. |