Introducing . . . our city’s history and the DC History Center!
First, the North Gallery’s DC Hall of History engages visitors with a 40-foot panoramic timeline of DC’s history. This introduction to the major moments in our collective past yields surprising facts and makes important connections. We use it both for the casual visitor and for school groups on field trips.
Then, complementing the timeline are four thematic displays. Each is based on a subject that is especially well documented in the Kiplinger Research Library of the DC History Center.
FROM HERE TO THERE
Learn about the transportation innovations that eventually made modern life possible, from a city-spanning canal to DC’s Metro subway system. We introduce William H. “Pop” Saunders, whose long career at Metro, beginning with a Capital Transit laborer job, was capped with the honor of driving the first ceremonial Metro train on opening day in 1975.
DOWNTIME D.C.
Working Washingtonians have always enjoyed their off-hours, from roller skating to miniature golf to formal dances. The city’s social clubs, fraternal organizations, and after-hours destinations are made visible here. They remind us, too, how segregation has defined nearly every aspect of life here in this highly southern city.
CHANGE IS THE ONE CONSTANT
Learn about the dramatic efforts to build and remake the city, especially the urban renewal efforts of the 1950s-1970s. Often these bold changes, which regularly ignored the desires of residents, have been the result of the city’s lack of statehood, where congressional overseers who were not elected by Washingtonians make decisions affecting their lives. The Kiplinger Research Library holds documentation of Southwest DC as the Redevelopment Land Agency prepared to knock it down and start over.
HOMETOWN BUSINESS
Some aspects of our city are no different than you’d find elsewhere around the country. Drawing on the Kiplinger Research Library’s Hechinger and Woodward & Lothrop papers, businesses—and the battles against segregation and for social justice—are highlighted.