This row house is notable for its significance as the headquarters of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) and as the DC residence of Mary McLeod Bethune (1875-1955), educator and civil rights leader. The row house transitioned from a single-family home for the upper-middle class in the late-nineteenth century to a boarding house and shop in the early twentieth century. The house was the headquarters of the NCNW from the 1940s to the 1960s. Comprised of fifteen rooms, one kitchen, and two bathrooms, the Council House served as the headquarters for NCNW, Mary McLeod Bethune’s residence until 1949, and guest accommodations for out-of-town visitors.
In January 1966, a fire damaged the Council House. While the building’s core remained intact, extensive water and smoke damage forced the NCNW to relocate. For nearly eleven years, the house lay dormant. It was not until 1975, when the Council House was listed in the DC Inventory of Historic Sites, that the NCNW successfully raised funds needed to renovate and restore both the main and carriage houses. In the fall of 1977, the Bethune Historical Development Project began, and in November 1979, the home reopened to the public as a museum and archives for the collection, preservation, and interpretation of Black women’s history. Today, the headquarters still function as a museum and archive, administered by the National Park Service. Each transition exemplifies the shifting nature of the Logan Circle area. During the past century, this neighborhood changed from an affluent, nearly all-white community to an enclave of the Black elite, and finally, to a racially diverse district. Bethune’s association with the house made it a center of activity in the 1940s as a meeting place for the NCNW and prominent figures, including Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary Church Terrell.
DC Inventory: May 9, 1975
National Register: October 15, 1982
National Historic Site: December 11, 1991
Within Logan Circle and Greater Fourteenth Street Historic Districts
This site is included on the Women's Suffrage in Washington DC for its connection to the National Council of Negro Women and their efforts to make voting more accessible to Black women.
]]>The site, which contains Lincoln Cottage (President Lincoln and Soldiers’ Home National Monument), was built as a private country residence known as Corn Rigs between 1842 and 1843. Subsequently, the site has served as a retreat for at least four U.S. presidents and a retirement home for generations of American veterans since the United States government purchased it in 1851. The property has enjoyed a number of different names: Corn Rigs, the Military Asylum, the Soldiers' Home, Anderson Cottage, and now the President Lincoln and Soldiers' Home National Monument, also known as President Lincoln's Cottage. Each name marks an important era in the history of the site.
The four oldest buildings and their immediate grounds comprise the United States Military Asylum as originally developed, and as it existed as the Soldier’s Home during Lincoln’s residency. The three buildings constructed for the asylum were designed by Lieutenant Barton Stone Alexander in a Romanesque Revival style.
DC Inventory: March 3, 1979
National Register: February 11, 1974
National Historic Landmark: November 7, 1973
This National Historic Site is within the Armed Forces Retirement Home Historic District.
]]>Contained within the irregular bounds of the Pennsylvania Avenue National Historic Site is a rich selection of building types and styles, statues, memorials, and parks. Additionally, the area features many prominent elements that date from Pierre Charles L'Enfant's 1891 plan for the City of Washington, as amplified in 1901-02 by the McMillan Commission.
The National Historic Site provides the urban setting for such naturally recognized features as the Treasury Building, the buildings of Federal Triangle, Ford's Theater, the Old Patent Office, and the buildings centered around Judiciary Square. It is also home to many lesser-known but historically significant residential and commercial buildings, statues, and memorials, as well as numerous parks and landscape features. It includes approximately 160 contributing buildings that date from about 1791 to 1930.
DC Inventory: June 19, 1973 (Joint Committee on Landmarks)
National Register and National Historic Site: October 15, 1966 (amended October 12, 2007)
]]>Ford's Theatre is best known as the site of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865 by John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer and actor. Originally named Ford's New Theatre, Ford's was built by Baltimore theater entrepreneur John T. Ford on the site of the First Baptist Church. Built in 1833, the church had been abandoned in 1859, and Ford had converted the building into Ford's Atheneum in 1862, but the Atheneum had burned later that year.
Construction on the structure that still stands today began in 1863 with James J. Gifford serving as the builder and architect. It was modeled after the design of Baltimore's Holliday Street Theatre. Following Lincoln's assassination in 1865, Ford briefly retained the notion of continuing to use the building as a theatre, but outcry from the American public forced him to abandon the idea. The still-unfinished building was seized in July of 1865 by order of the Secretary of War, and its interior was torn out in August of 1865.
The building was subsequently converted into a three-story office building housing the Army Medical Museum and Surgeon General. Rather than being recognized for its historical significance, the building was used for a variety of government purposes over the course of several decades. In 1893, a section of the interior collapsed, killing 22 people, and alterations to the building, including the facade, followed in 1894.
After many years of serving as storage space, Ford's Theatre was transferred to the ownership of the National Park Service in 1931, and in 1967, the building was restored to its 1865 appearance. Currently, the building continues to stage plays and operate as a theatre, in addition to hosting the Lincoln Museum and Library.
The National Historic Site also encompasses the Petersen House, located across the street, where Lincoln died the morning after he had been shot at Ford's Theatre. Purchased by the U.S. government in 1895, the Petersen House was also transferred to the National Park Service in 1931 and has since been restored to reflect its appearance at the time of Lincoln's death. It is open to the public as a historic house museum.
The National Historic Site is within the Pennsylvania Avenue National Historic Site.
DC Inventory: November 8, 1964 (Joint Committee on Landmarks)
DC Designation: June 19, 1973
National Register and National Historic Site: October 15, 1966 (documented January 21, 1982)
Lincoln Museum and Library (DC Inventory: November 8, 1964)
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