DC History Center

DC Home Rule 50

Featuring contemporary images by emerging photographers, DC Home Rule 50 explores urgent themes of self-governance, full citizenship, free elections, and DC statehood. The pop-up exhibit is located in the West Gallery and placed in conversation with the main exhibit, THE BIG PICTURE.

DC Home Rule 50 is produced by NEWorks Productions in collaboration with the DC History Center. It is conceived and curated by Nolan Williams, Jr. and co-curated by teaching artists Iwan Bagus and Leena Jayaswal. The exhibit features works by emerging artists representing American University, the University of the District of Columbia, and Howard University, as well as archival images by DC photographer Lateef Mangum and collections from the DC History Center.

The Big Picture

Throughout DC’s 20th century, panoramic photographers recorded milestones, then sold prints to those pictured. Most of the images have been forgotten. Until now.

THE BIG PICTURE, on view in the West Gallery, reveals the Washington you remember and the one you never knew. Some images are blown up so large that you’ll feel like you’re a part of them. THE BIG PICTURE: context for today’s richly diverse DC, the familiar, the surprising, and the beautiful.

DC Hall of History

The North Gallery’s DC Hall of History exhibit introduces our collections. Documents, journals, maps, books, art, and ephemera that record our local history are at the heart of what we do. Divided into four themes—transportation, social life, business, and urban development—these pictures and artifacts remind us that DC history is America’s history.

This small but hard-working space includes a thought-provoking timeline of DC history and a map of our fellow local history repositories.

The Carnegie Library at Mt. Vernon Square

This exhibit in the building’s Guastavino-tile vaulted lower level tells the Carnegie Library’s story. Philanthropist Andrew Carnegie funded the Beaux-Arts gem as a gift to DC. The city’s main public library from 1903 to 1972, it went through a number of uses before reopening in 2019 as the meticulously restored home of the DC History Center and an Apple store.

A University for the People: The Carnegie Library on Mount Vernon Square

Explore the social and architectural history of the Carnegie Library, as well as its immigrant influence in this digital exhibit.

This digital exhibit was created by Rosie Cain, Katie Campbell, and Joy Pierce, Public History Graduate Program, American University, 2021.

Research Credits: Jane F. Levey and Matthew S. Sanders, with thanks for the work of EHT Traceries and Alison K. Hoagland