The Beginning
The DC History Center was established in 1894 as the Columbia Historical Society by 36 men and women. According to its constitution, the organization was dedicated to the “collection, preservation, and diffusion of knowledge respecting the history and topography of the District of Columbia and national history and biography.” The private, White-only group of journalists, government scientists and scholars, local business leaders, and old DC families aimed to collect “the scattered and rapidly disappearing records of events and individuals prominent in the history of the city and District” in the context of national events.
As in other American cities, the original Historical Society served primarily as a forum for members to present historical research papers, often on their own families or the development of the city. These papers were then published in the Records of the Columbia Historical Society. The members also amassed manuscripts and other documents. Housing those growing collections soon became a chronic challenge. For more than 50 years, the Historical Society made do with rented and donated rooms for offices, a library, and storage. Talented volunteers served as librarians and curators.
A Mid-Century Upgrade
In 1954 the Central Public Library, which had been storing the collections, needed to reclaim its storage space. The Historical Society’s Board appealed to the membership for a home. In 1955, Amelia Keyser Heurich, widow of prominent Washington brewer Christian Heurich, generously responded by donating the family’s four-story mansion near Dupont Circle for the use of the Historical Society. For the first time, the Columbia Historical Society had its own headquarters.
With the support of the Heurich heirs, the Historical Society preserved and interpreted the house as a museum and conducted its private programs and events. (Today it is the Heurich House Museum, open to the public.) By the mid-1960s, though, social changes in the city and the nation led to a transition from private operations to the public organization that is today’s DC History Center.
From Private to Public
In 1977 an individual looking to join the Historical Society no longer had to apply or submit to a vote of approval by the members. In the mid-1980s, the Columbia Historical Society began presenting public programs, exhibits, and educational activities. The membership began to reflect the reality that, since 1957, DC was a majority Black city. In the late 1980s, the Columbia Historical Society diversified its Board, volunteers, and staff. In 1989 the Columbia Historical Society changed its name to the Historical Society of Washington, D.C. The Records of the Columbia Historical Society, which had transitioned from members’ reminiscences to the work of professional historians, also changed its name, becoming Washington History magazine.
The City Museum
In 1999, the DC Government granted the Historical Society a 99-year lease for the historic Carnegie Library at Mount Vernon Square. That year the U.S. Congress granted $2,000,000 toward a $20 million renovation, for the purpose of creating a City Museum. While that project opened and closed in a single year, since 2003, the organization has remained in the building.
The Carnegie Library is Restored
In 2019, after two years of restoration work by Foster+Partners in partnership with Apple and Events DC, the Carnegie Library reopened. Today the DC History Center, home to the Kiplinger Research Library, our programs, exhibits, and offices, shares the building with an Apple store. Ninety percent of the collections are stored on-site.
Today’s DC History Center continues to evolve, while holding firmly to its roots as an educational and research institution focused uniquely on the history of local Washington, DC. With a renewed commitment to meeting the needs of our community, our mission is to “deepen understanding of our city’s past to connect, empower, and inspire.”
Since 2020 the Historical Society of Washington, D.C. remains the organization’s legal name, but we do business as DC History Center.