Oscar W. Underwood House
Senator Oscar W. Underwood resided in this mansard-roofed 19th-century rowhouse from 1914 to 1925.
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Built around the 1870s, the Oscar W. Underwood House stands amid similar houses that retain the ambiance of residential living in Washington in the early 20th century.
A strong driving force behind the Underwood-Simmons Tariff of 1913, Alabaman Oscar Underwood was elected to Congress in 1896 and was vaulted into national prominence after the 1910 elections when Democrats regained control of the Congress and made him House Majority Leader. As a result, Underwood became a leading contender for the 1912 Democratic Presidential nomination, the first resident of the South to be seriously considered for that high office since the Civil War. He did not get a majority of the votes at the convention, but he went on to serve in the U.S. Senate in 1914 and prove invaluable to the Wilson administration.
After Underwood left the building, the National Law Center inhabited it and years later, the Art Department of George Washington University took over the space.
DC Inventory: March 3, 1979
National Register and National Historic Landmark: December 8, 1976
