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The Evening Star: The Rise and Fall of a Great Washington Newspaper is the story of the 129-year history of one of the preeminent newspapers in journalism history when city newspapers across the country were at the height of their power and influence. The Star was the most financially successful newspaper in the Capital and among the top ten in the country until its decline in the 1970s. The paper began in 1852 when the capital city was a backwater southern town. The Star’s success over the next century was due to its singular devotion to local news, its many respected journalists, and the historic times in which it was published. The book provides a unique perspective on more than a centu...
Men and women who serve in the armed forces are subject to a different legal code than those they protect. Throughout American history, some have--through action or failure to act or by circumstances--found themselves facing prosecution by the United States military. One measure of a nation's sense of justice is how it treats those who surrender some of their rights to defend the rights of fellow citizens. Beginning with the first court-martial (predating the nation itself) and continuing to the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the War on Terror, this book examines the proceedings of 15 courts-martial that raised such important legal questions as: When does advocacy become treason? Who bears ultimate responsibility when troops act illegally? What are the limits in protesting injustice? The defendants include such familiar names as Paul Revere and William Calley. The authors examine such overlooked cases as the Somers Mutiny, the trial of the San Patricios and the Port Chicago Mutiny. These trials demonstrate that guaranteeing military justice--especially in the midst of armed conflict--is both a challenge and a necessity in a free society.
Mount Pleasant--Samuel P. Brown must have thought the name perfect when he chose it for his country estate on a wooded hill overlooking Washington City. The name also suited the New Englanders who settled in the village that Brown founded near Fourteenth Street and Park Road just after the Civil War. Around 1900, the once-isolated village began its transformation into a fashionable suburb after the city extended Sixteenth Street through Mount Pleasant's heart, and a new streetcar line linked the area to downtown. Developers constructed elegant apartment buildings and spacious brick row houses on block after block, and successful businessmen built stately residences along Park Road. Change arrived again with the Great Depression and then World War II, as the suburb evolved into an urban, exclusively white, working-class enclave that eventually became mostly African American. In addition, a Latino presence was evident as early as the 1960s. By the 1980s, the neighborhood was known as the heart of D.C.'s Latino and counterculture communities. Today these communities are dispersing, however, in response to a booming real estate market in Washington, D.C.
Brookland is a neighborhood with strong connections to Howard and Catholic Universities, the Catholic Church, and Washington's black intelligentsia. Its rich past is well preserved in its architecture, historic sites, and social institutions. It is a thriving middle-class neighborhood and a place full of family stories. It is graced by beautiful institutional open spaces, woods, and large backyards. But above all, it is a place full of history. The Brooks Mansion, the Twelfth Street business corridor, the Franciscan monastery, Fort Bunker Hill, and the Ralph Bunche House--each site tells another story of Brookland.
Eastland Gardens, a little-known treasure in Northeast Washington, DC, is preserved and cherished by the generations who have called it home. Though development was initiated in 1928 by a white-owned real estate investment company, black families and individuals seeking a suburb in the city were able to purchase double lots for single-family houses and gardens. They relied on the expertise of African American builders and designers--sometimes the owners themselves--to create their dream homes. The good fortune of proximity to the Anacostia River, national parks, woods, and fields has enabled Eastland Gardens residents to enjoy garden havens around their individual homes and within the neighborhood and to lay the foundation for a service-rich community. Through their organizational zeal and activism, they have been able to reduce or eliminate the impact of city and federal changes to their nurturing enclave.
Cases in which all investigative leads appear to be exhausted are frustrating for both investigators and victims families. Cold cases can range from those only a few months old to others that go back for decades. Presenting profiles and actual case histories, Cold Case Research: Resources for Unidentified, Missing and Cold Homicide Cases illustrat
Bloomingdale was named for the beautiful spring flowers and elm, maple, crepe myrtle, and ginkgo trees in the area. A unique neighborhood, Bloomingdale was settled in 1877 to provide housing for blue-collar workers in Washington. Landowners had estates, commercial properties, and expansive orchards. The area was also a hub of transportation and home to one of two large flour mills in Washington. With the influx of workers and freed people, the need for housing became urgent, and developers reexamined the land they had set aside for industry and orchards. The city worked to improve roads and set up trolley lines, and additional residential housing was constructed by the end of the 1890s. The Army Corps of Engineers built the McMillan Park Reservoir and Washington City Tunnel between 1882 and 1902. The site of the reservoir was designated a historic landmark by the D.C. Historic Preservation Review in 1991. Images of America: Bloomingdale presents images collected from Washington-area libraries, historical societies, neighbors, and historians.
The Forest Hills neighborhood is set within a heavily treed, rolling landscape adjoining Rock Creek Park and was first home to the Piscataway Indian tribe and later to Civil War encampments. Threshing mills and large rural estates gradually gave way in the early 1900s to a residential community in close proximity to the National Bureau of Standards where many of the residents worked. Diplomats, politicians, and many prominent Washingtonians now inhabit many of the splendidly designed houses found in Forest Hills today. 0Images of America: Forest Hills includes nearly 200 vintage images that document the long and fascinating history of the community. Etchings, maps, and photographs combine to illustrate Native American settlers; architect-designed residences; and the homes of Presidents Truman and Johnson, infamous FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, and Post cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post. The book also highlights Connecticut Avenue, the neighborhood's main street; apartment buildings; and well-known artists and authors who have called Forest Hills home.
Ford's Theatre in downtown Washington, DC, is best known as the notorious scene of Pres. Abraham Lincoln's assassination on April 14, 1865. It is among the oldest and most visited sites of national tragedy in the United States. First constructed in 1833 as a Baptist church, the property was acquired by John T. Ford and converted into a theater in 1861. Presenting almost 500 performances before the assassination, Ford afterward sold the building to the federal government. A century later, the National Park Service reconstructed the theater, and Ford's Theatre Society began presenting live performances there in 1968. Since then, the two organizations have partnered to offer more than 650,000 annual visitors an array of quality programming about Lincoln's presidency and legacy. Today, patrons can explore the Tenth Street "campus," consisting of the theater, interactive museum galleries, the house where Lincoln died, and the Center for Education and Leadership.
Americans, especially Washingtonians, are very proud of our nation's capital, particularly the city's neighborhoods. Adams Morgan is one neighborhood that boasts the best of what America has to offer: thriving, multilayered diversity with a rich international flavor. Soon after the ruling of Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954, the John Q. Adams School, a white school, combined with the Thomas P. Morgan School, a black school, to create the diversity we know and cherish today. Americans, especially Washingtonians, are very proud of our nation's capital, particularly the city's neighborhoods. Adams Morgan is one neighborhood that boasts the best of what America has to offer: thriving, multilayered diversity with a rich international flavor. Soon after the ruling of Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954, the John Q. Adams School, a white school, combined with the Thomas P. Morgan School, a black school, to create the diversity we know and cherish today.