The Washington Aqueduct 1852 1992

The modern United States Capitol is a triumph of both engineering and design. From its 9-million-pound cast-iron dome to the dazzling opulence of the President's Room and the Senate corridors, the Capitol is one of the most renowned buildings in the world. But the history of the U.S. Capitol is also the history of America's most tumultuous years. As the new Capitol rose above Washington's skyline, battles over slavery and secession ripped the country apart. Ground was broken just months after Congress adopted the compromise of 1850, which was supposed to settle the "slavery question" for all time. The statue Freedom was placed atop the Capitol's new dome in 1863, five months after the Battle of Gettysburg. In Freedom's Cap, the award-winning journalist Guy Gugliotta recounts the history and broader meaning of the Capitol building through the lives of the three men most responsible for its construction. We owe the building's scale and magnificence to none other than Jefferson Davis, who remained the Capitol's staunchest advocate up until the week he left Washington to become president of the Confederacy. Davis's protégé and the Capitol's lead engineer, Captain Montgomery C. Meigs, became quartermaster general of the Union Army and never forgave Davis for his betrayal of the nation. The Capitol's brilliant architect and Meigs's longtime rival, Thomas U. Walter, defended slavery at the beginning of the war but eventually turned fiercely against the South. In impeccable detail, Gugliotta captures the clash of personalities behind the building of the Capitol and the unique engineering, architectural, design, and political challenges the three men collectively overcame to create the iconic seat of American government.

With The Row House in Washington, DC, the architectural historian and preservationist Alison Hoagland turns the lucid prose style and keen analytical skill that characterize all her scholarship to the subject of the Washington row house. Row houses have long been an important component of the housing stock of many major American cities, predominantly sheltering the middle classes comprising clerks, tradespeople, and artisans. In Washington, with its plethora of government workers, they are the dominant typology of the historical city. Hoagland identifies six principal row house types—two-room, L-shaped, three-room, English-basement, quadrant, and kitchen-forward—and documents their wide-ranging impact, as sources of income and statements of attainment as well as domiciles for nuclear families or boarders, homeowners or renters, long tenancy or short stays. Through restrictive covenants on some house sales, they also illustrate the pervasive racism that has haunted the city. This topical study demonstrates at once the distinctive character of the Washington row house and the many similarities it shares with row houses in other mid-Atlantic cities. In a broader sense, it also shows how urban dwellers responded to a challenging concatenation of spatial, regulatory, financial, and demographic limitations, providing a historical model for new, innovative designs. Publication of this volume was assisted by a grant from Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund.

“The lively story of the Civil War’s most unlikely—and most uncelebrated—genius” (The Wall Street Journal)—General Montgomery C. Meigs, who built the Union Army and was judged by Abraham Lincoln, William Seward, and Edwin Stanton to be the indispensable architect of the Union victory. Born to a well-to-do, connected family in 1816, Montgomery C. Meigs graduated from West Point as an engineer. He helped build America’s forts and served under Lt. Robert E. Lee to make navigation improvements on the Mississippi River. As a young man, he designed the Washington aqueducts in a city where people were dying from contaminated water. He built the spectacular wings and the massive dome of the brand new US Capitol. Introduced to President Lincoln by Secretary of State William Seward, Meigs became Lincoln’s Quartermaster, in charge of supplies. It was during the Civil War that Meigs became a national hero. He commanded Ulysses S. Grant’s base of supplies that made Union victories, including Gettysburg, possible. He sustained Sherman’s army in Georgia, and the March to the Sea. After the war, Meigs built Arlington Cemetery (on land that had been Robert E. Lee’s home). Civil War historian James McPherson calls Meigs “the unsung hero of northern victory,” and Robert O’Harrow Jr.’s biography of the victorious general who was never on the battlefield tells the full dramatic story of this fierce, strong, honest, loyal, forward-thinking figure. “An excellent biography…O’Harrow’s thorough, masterfully crafted, and impeccable researched biography is destined to become the authoritative volume on Meigs” (The Civil War Monitor).

Washington, DC, gleams with stately columns and neoclassical temples, a pulsing hub of political power and prowess. But for decades it was one of the worst excuses for a capital city the world had ever seen. Before America became a world power in the twentieth century, Washington City was an eyesore at best and a disgrace at worst. Unfilled swamps, filthy canals, and rutted horse trails littered its landscape. Political bosses hired hooligans and thugs to conduct the nation's affairs. Legendary madams entertained clients from all stations of society and politicians of every party. The police served and protected with the aid of bribes and protection money. Beneath pestilential air, the city’s muddy roads led to a stumpy, half-finished obelisk to Washington here, a domeless Capitol Building there. Lining the streets stood boarding houses, tanneries, and slums. Deadly horse races gouged dusty streets, and opposing factions of volunteer firefighters battled one another like violent gangs rather than life-saving heroes. The city’s turbulent history set a precedent for the dishonesty, corruption, and mismanagement that have led generations to look suspiciously on the various sin--both real and imagined--of Washington politicians. Empire of Mud unearths and untangles the roots of our capital’s story and explores how the city was tainted from the outset, nearly stifled from becoming the proud citadel of the republic that George Washington and Pierre L'Enfant envisioned more than two centuries ago.