This lecture is part of two series:
When Washington was built, the streets in the Northeast quadrant were laid out in the grid system designed by Pierre L’Enfant, with Florida Avenue (then known as Boundary Street) forming the northern border of the city. However, nearly all of the land remained undeveloped in the early 19th century, used as farmland to cultivate fruits and vegetables for the more developed sections of the city.
In the 1830s, the B&O Railroad constructed its Washington Branch, which entered the city at roughly 9th and Boundary Streets and proceeded through the neighborhood to the downtown area. Its presence gradually led Northeast to evolve into a working-class neighborhood: wood and coal yards appeared to serve the railroad and its terminals, with houses subsequently built for the employees of the railroad industries. Sites covered in the series include those with historic connections to the railroad and public markets, as well as education and social change, a president, and a neighborhood once known as Swampoodle.
Featured Topic: Sewall-Belmont House
The Sewall-Belmont House is one of the oldest residential properties on Capitol Hill and has been a center of political life in Washington for more than 200 years. Purchased by the National Woman’s Party in 1929, it has evolved into a museum and center focused on the history of suffrage, feminist education, and social change. Its library holds more than 2,000 books, magazines, and reference works, including early women’s magazines and suffrage journals, written by and about women from 1880 to the present.
Speaker Robyn Muncy is a professor of history at the University of Maryland and writes on reform movements and women’s suffrage.
