Designed in 1939 in the Stripped Classical style, this limestone-clad office building is twelve stories tall, and centrally located near the White House, between McPherson and Lafayette squares. The exterior of the structure is plain and lacks ornamentation—narrow parapets and repetitive square windows maintain the nearly uniform appearance of the building. The interior mirrors the simplicity and restraint of the exterior, with standardized office spaces and unadorned fixtures.
The Lafayette Building is significant as the one-time headquarters of the Federal Loan Agency and its central component, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC). During World War II, the RFC would provide intensive support to the Allied powers through constructing new industrial plants, protecting raw materials from Axis powers, and producing synthetic rubber for the war effort.
The office building is also significant for its association with Jesse Holman Jones—a powerful political figure in Washington heavily associated with the RFC. He conducted much of his government business from his office in the Lafayette Building.
Today, the building remains in use as a functional and recently renovated office space, as the home of the Export-Import Bank of the United States.
National Register: September 1, 2005
National Historic Landmark: September 1, 2005
Within Financial Historic District
]]>In 1898, the Spanish-American War exposed the U.S. military's weaknesses through uncoordinated Army units and internal issues of communication. Despite America's ultimate victory, Secretary of War Elihu Root and President Theodore Roosevelt called for a complete reorganization of military education. Thus, the idea for a "national war college" was born.
Congress officially approved funding for the Army War College in 1904, and by the 1910s the school had evolved into a model of military education. Built in 1907 on the site of the former Washington Arsenal (DC's main armory from 1790 through the War of 1812), the college is a captivating example of Neo-Classical Architecture. The building was designed by the renowned architectural firm McKim, Mead & White. The school relied on analysis of previous global conflicts, and the implementation of "war games" to teach tactical strategy. The Army War College also played a role in drafting national defense legislation prior to America's entry into World War I.
Despite the college's initial success, Congress disbanded the institution at the onset of World War II--yet the institution was re-established as the National War College in 1946. The name change was intended to indicate the "national" intelligence at the school, as individuals from the State Department and Central Intelligence Agency had been recruited as students and faculty. The National War College continues to operate as a military education institution, with the mission to "educate future leaders of the Armed Forces, Department of State, and other civilian agencies for high-level policy, command and staff responsibilities by conducting a senior-level course of study in national security strategy."
The college was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1972. It is inaccessible to the public, as it is located on an active military base, Fort McNair.
DC Register: November 8, 1964 (Joint Committee on Landmarks)
National Register: November 28, 1972
National Historic Landmark: November 28, 1972
]]>This cross-gabled Queen Anne frame house at 1256 Kearny Street NE was built for prosperous Irish immigrants James T. and Hannah Ward. The house was probably completed in 1893, and the couple remained there until selling the property in 1918 to bookkeeper William E. and Mary Berres Gordon. The next occupants, from 1922 to 1937, were an African American couple, Lucy Diggs Slowe (1885-1937) and Mary Powell Burrill (1881-1946). The women met a decade earlier, when both were teaching high school English. In 1918, they moved in together, establishing a domestic partnership that would continue until Slowe’s death.
Mary Burrill had been one of the first African American graduates of Emerson University and then taught at Armstrong Manual High School in DC. For four years, she directed the Washington Conservatory of Music’s School of Expression, where she taught elocution, public speaking, and drama. She did most of her teaching career at her alma mater, the M Street High School (which became Dunbar High School), until her retirement in 1944. There, she taught English, history, speech and drama, and directed plays and musical productions, influencing generations of young minds, several of whom became educators and writers. On her own time, she was a playwright, publishing two one-act plays, and she regularly attended Georgia Douglass Johnson’s “S Street Salon,” a weekly gathering of Black writers.
Likewise, Lucy Slowe’s career is one of remarkable achievements. She was second in her class at the Baltimore Colored High School, and its first female graduate to enroll at Howard University, where she graduated as valedictorian. While at Howard, she was one of the nine founding members of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, the first sorority for African American women. Slowe began teaching English at her alma mater, the Baltimore Colored High School, and during summers earned her Master of Arts at Columbia University. After obtaining the degree, she moved to Washington to teach at Armstrong. Impressed with her abilities, the school board tasked her with planning DC’s first junior high school for African Americans in Shaw. She served as its principal.
In 1922, Slowe accepted the position of Dean of Women at Howard University, the first African American woman to hold such an office and teaching simultaneously. Broadening her view beyond Howard, she founded and served as president of the National Association of University Women, then established the Association of Advisors to Women in Colored Schools and the Association of Deans of Women and Advisors to Girls in Negro Schools, and finally, assisted civic leader Mary McLeod Bethune in the creation of the National Council of Negro Women, where she served as the secretary. She was also active in the Young Women’s Christian Association and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.
Over the 15 years of their occupancy on Kearny Street, Lucy Slowe and Mary Burrill hosted parties and intellectual gatherings attended by female Howard students and prominent writers and artists, including Jean Toomer and Georgia Douglas Johnson. According to Robert Malesky, “That Kearny Street home became a refuge for Howard’s female students, and Slowe regularly hosted get-togethers there to talk, counsel and encourage her young charges, often meeting beneath the trees in her back yard or gathered around an open fire in the living room. The women also received many other guests there, mostly educators such as Mary McLeod Bethune, but also politicians and activists from around the country.”
When Slowe passed away in 1937, condolences were sent to Burrill. The Chair of the Howard University Board of Trustees wrote a letter, to which Burrill replied, “Howard University had in its midst in the person of Lucy D. Slowe a great woman but its President and Board of Trustees could not see it.” Burrill donated Slowe’s papers to Morgan State University, instead of Howard University. In 1966, Morgan State then donated them to Howard. Just prior to her death, Slowe’s will listed Burrill as a joint tenant of the Kearny Street house (along with Slowe), and as the owner of most of the house’s furniture. About one month later, the will was amended, with Burrill now listed as a tenant in common, making her a shareholder (along with Slowe). When Slowe died in October 1937, Slowe’s share passed to Nellie Slowe Hawkes, her sister. In 1938, Hawkes transferred her half-ownership of the house to Burrill. In 1941, Burrill sold the house and in 1944 moved to New York City, where she passed away in 1946.
DC Inventory: April 30, 2020
National Register: October 5, 2020
National Historic Landmark: December 13, 2024
This is a stop on the DC's LGBTQ+ History Tour. For more information about DC's LGBTQ History, please see the Historic Context Statement for Washington’s LGBTQ Resources.
]]>The Sewall–Belmont House National Historic Site served as the headquarters for the National Woman's Party (NWP) for nearly 90 years, starting in 1929. Originally founded by Alice Paul and Lucy Burns to rally women to support the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, the NWP remained a major force in organizing women for political action, including for the passage of an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). This house served as the NWP's headquarters during a critical period for the organization, following its purchase by NWP benefactress and cofounder Alva Vanderbilt Belmont. The organization named their headquarters the Alva Belmont House in her honor. It was also declared the Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument in 2016.
The house was originally built in 1800, incorporating a two-story house from 1750. It burned in 1814 and was rebuilt in 1820. "Sewall" refers to Robert Sewall, the man for whom the house was originally built between 1799 and 1800.
DC Inventory: November 8, 1964 (Joint Committee on Landmarks)
National Register: June 16, 1972
Natonal Register (Additional Documentation): September 5, 2025
National Historic Site: May 30, 1974
National Historic Landmark: May 30, 1974
National Monument: April 12, 2016
]]>Mary Church Terrell (1863-1954) earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at Oberlin College during the 1880s and taught in Ohio and Washington, DC. Following the completion of her graduate degree, Mary Church traveled and studied languages abroad. In 1890, she returned to DC, where she taught at M Street High School. In October 1891, she married fellow teacher Robert H. Terrell (1857-1925). He was an attorney and the second African American to serve as a justice of the peace in Washington, DC.
Mary Church Terrell is a figure of national historic significance. She was the president of the National Association of Colored Women and, later, a member of the National American Suffrage Association. In 1895 she became the first Black woman in America to be appointed to a school board. Terrell served two terms on the DC School Board, from 1895 to 1901 and again from 1906 to 1911. Her terms were defined by work towards quality education, fair hiring practices, and more adequate appropriations for schools. It was during this period that Mary Church Terrell lived in the 1892 house.
She also led the successful fight to integrate DC restaurants. After she and her colleagues were refused service at Thompson Restaurant, she filed a lawsuit against the eatery. While waiting for the case to move forward, she engaged in boycotts and sit-ins targeting other segregated restaurants in the city. Her lawsuit resulted in a 1953 Supreme Court decision that found the practice of segregating DC’s eating places to be unconstitutional.
In their time living in DC, the Terrells’ purchase of their home was instrumental in integrating LeDroit Park. Today, the house is a National Historic Landmark, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and a contributing structure to the LeDroit Park Historic District.
Despite sporadic attempts at restoration, the Terrell House remained vacant and in a deteriorated state. In 1999, it was listed on DC Preservation League's Most Endangered Places list. In 2023, Howard University, with assistance from the National Park Service, completed a rehabilitation project, which included the restoration of exterior and interior architectural features. The project was funded in-part by the Historic Preservation Fund's African American Civil Rights Grant Program. The restored home will house visiting Howard University scholars.
DC Inventory: May 21, 1975
National Register: May 15, 1975
National Historic Landmark: May 15, 1975
Within LeDroit Park Historic District
This site is included in the Women's Suffrage in Washington DC tour for its role as the home of suffragist leader Mary Church Terrell, president of the National Association of Colored Women.
]]>Built in 1824 for Dr. Joseph Lovell, the first Surgeon General of the United States who organized the Army Corps of Engineers, the Blair House serves as the official guest house of the President of the United States. The house was subsequently purchased in 1836 by Francis Preston Blair, Sr., a member of Andrew Jackson's "Kitchen Cabinet" and co-publisher of the Globe, the influential mouthpiece of the administration. Moving for a time in the 1840s to a country house in Maryland, the Blairs rented out the property to a succession of notable tenants, including the first Secretary of the Interior, Thomas Ewing, whose daughter married William Tecumseh Sherman at the house in 1850.
In 1852, the Blairs moved back to the residence and constructed a house next door for Elizabeth Preston Blair, the only daughter of Francis Preston Blair. The two houses began to be used as one, almost as they are today. Montgomery Blair, son of Francis Preston Blair, resided in the house as well and was a trusted advisor to President Lincoln before and during the Civil War. Montgomery Blair was Postmaster General from 1861 to 1864, advised Lincoln on important matters such as the reinforcing of Fort Sumter, and was instrumental in holding Maryland out of the Confederacy. At a conference at the Blair House in 1861, it was decided that Admiral Farragut would command the assault on New Orleans.
After the Civil War, the Blair family's influence began to fade, but the prominence of the family continued to be recognized in Washington society. The house once again took on national significance upon becoming the temporary residence of President Truman from 1948 to 1952, while the White House was under renovation. In recent years, Blair House has served as the residence of many visiting foreign dignitaries, including Queen Elizabeth II, Nikita Khrushchev, Aung Sang Suu Kyi, and many others.
DC Inventory: November 8, 1964 (Joint Committee on Landmarks)
National Register: October 15, 1966
National Historic Landmark: October 29, 1937
]]>The Mountjoy Bayly House (also known as the Bayly House, Hiram W. Johnson House, Chaplains Memorial Building, and Parkington) was built in 1822 for the second Sergeant at Arms of the Senate, General Mountjoy Bayly. A combination of Federal and Second Empire architecture, the house is among the earliest residences still standing in the Capitol Hill Historic District.
Since Bayly's time, the house has seen several notable tenants. From 1929 until 1947, it was the residence of Senator Hiram Johnson, former governor of California and a founder of the Progressive Party. In more recent decades, the building has served as the home of various nonprofits and other organizations, including the national DC office of the American Civil Liberties Union. The building is currently owned by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
DC Inventory: November 8, 1964 (Joint Committee on Landmarks)
National Register: July 20, 1973
National Historic Landmark: December 8, 1976
]]>Designed by Cluss & Schulze and built to house the international exhibits left over from the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition of 1876, the Smithsonian Institution's Arts and Industries Building reflects the three principal requirements of buildings constructed to house world's fairs and other 19th-century expositions: to enclose a very large area; to present a tasteful, dramatic, and pleasing exterior; and to employ inexpensive construction technology.
DC Inventory: November 8, 1964 (Joint Committee on Landmarks)
National Register: November 11, 1971
National Historic Landmark: November 11, 1971
]]>The Main Gate serves as the entrance to the Marine Barracks Historic District. The US Marine Corps Barracks and Commandant’s House comprise the nation’s oldest continually active Marine Corps installation. Situated in southeast Washington, the post includes the Marine Corps Commandant's House, a range of barracks, a band hall, a row of five officer’s quarters, and a modern service building. These structures form a quadrangle that encloses a rectangular parade ground. Except for the Commandant’s House, which faces north, all the buildings face the parade ground.
DC Inventory: November 8, 1964 (Joint Committee on Landmarks)
National Register: December 27, 1972
National Historic Landmark: May 11, 1976
]]>Thomas Beall constructed this grand Federal style house, typical of Northeast seacoast mansions, as an investment in about 1794. From 1916 to 1920, it was the residence of Newton D. Baker, considered by some historians to be among the most distinguished Secretaries of War in U.S. history. As President Woodrow Wilson's Secretary of War from 1916 to 1921, Baker presided over America's mass mobilization of men and material in World War I.
In addition to his Cabinet duties, Baker, says his biographer Elting E. Morison, served as "one of Wilson's most trusted confidants and as much of an advisor as Wilson ever permitted anyone to be." A strong supporter of the President in the unsuccessful fight for the League of Nations, Baker, according to historian Daniel R. Beaver, "became a keeper of the Wilsonian conscience in foreign affairs in the twenties."
DC Inventory: November 8, 1964 (Joint Committee on Landmarks)
National Register: December 8, 1976
National Historic Landmark: December 8, 1976
Within Georgetown Historic District
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