• Tractorcade photo by Jeff Tinsley, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Negative Number: 79-1700-29.
    Tractorcade 1979
     
     
    Protest Turned Rescue Mission
    In February 1979, thousands of farmers came to Washington on tractors to demonstrate for agriculture policy reform. They snarled traffic for weeks but then came to the rescue when an unexpected blizzard buried the city under two feet of snow.
  • Brumidi's Apotheosis of Washington. (Photo source: Architect of the Capitol)
    Art History
     
     
    Michelangelo of the Capitol
    19th-Century Italian-American artist Constantino Brumidi's frescoes and murals can be seen throughout the U.S. Capitol.
  • John Fahey
     
     
    The DC Roots of American Primitive Guitar
    In 1959, John Fahey of Takoma Park created a new genre that inspired generations of musicians.
  • Alexander Robey Shepherd
     
     
    The Man Who Built the Nation's Capital
    Perhaps no person is more responsible for transforming Washington, D.C. than Alexander Shepherd, who served as the District's Governor under the short-lived Territorial Government system in the 1870s.
  • Frederick Douglass spent plenty of time in Washington before the Civil War, but didn't become a permanent resident until 1872. (Photo source: Library of Congress)
    African American History
     
     
    Frederick Douglass and D.C. Politics
    Frederick Douglass "had small faith" in his "aptitude as a politician" but he was pressed into service in local D.C. politics during the 1870s.

Remembering Kit Kamien

12/15/2020 in Maryland by Charlotte Muth
Kit Kamien at the recording studio (Source: Kit Kamien and the Backroom Players)

“I personally want to try and change the stereotype of what somebody in a wheelchair is like… I want to be judged not on my disabilities but on my abilities. I think people get frightened by the wheelchair… It’s a powerful visual symbol, but it’s not a symbol of defeat. It’s a tool I use to help me accomplish my goals. Just by climbing into the wheelchair, I don’t have to surrender my sexuality, my sensuality, my good sense of humor, or anything," said Kit Kamien, a Bethesda musician who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at the age of 26, to The Washington Post in 1987.

View of the Smithsonian Castle building

What's in a Name? The Smithsonian

12/7/2020 in DC by Katherine Brodt

He never traveled to the United States or took an interest in our politics. He wasn’t known for any philanthropic efforts. Though intellectually curious, he didn’t make any groundbreaking or well-known scientific discoveries—and didn’t patronize people who did. Yet, surprisingly, he left his estate to the United States, asking that we use it to promote scientific research and education. Of all people, how did an English scientist's name come to be such a staple of Washington culture?

Intent to Kill: A Real-Life Noir

12/1/2020 in DC by Charlotte Muth
Collage of Bricker shooting headlines (Source: created by Charlotte Muth)

While sifting through the virtual archives of some local publications, I came across an incident from 1947 that stood apart. Unlike most news, the event read like a Film Noir. This real-life tale was juicy enough to make headlines for days, suspenseful enough to make me wonder about motives, and hard-boiled enough to speak volumes to the disenchantment of the people involved. So, this article will look a little different from what we usually do at Boundary Stones. Rather than presenting the facts in a linear, scholarly manner, we have decided that this story shines best as a piece of narrative nonfiction. While every sentence is grounded in research, we held off on footnotes to let the story breathe, and took a few creative liberties to bring the characters to life. For variety, my dear reader, is the spice of life…

A contemporary engraving of the Garfield assassination (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

The Witnesses

11/23/2020 in DC by Charlotte Muth

What do a five-year-old boy, a woman working at a train station and an African American newspaperman have in common? Samuel J. Seymour, Sarah V. E. White and Samuel H. Hatton were little-known Washingtonian witnesses to some of the most influential murders in history: those of U.S. Presidents.

The Centuries-Long Saga of the ‘Oyster Wars’

11/18/2020 in Maryland, Virginia by Arielle Gordon
An Oyster War battle in 1884

The battle lasted about half an hour, and when the smoke cleared, Captain Frank Whitehurst lay dead in a pool of his own blood on the deck of the Albert Nickel, a Baltimore oyster schooner. While Whitehurst met a fate avoided by most, the so called “Oyster Wars” had been brewing for more than 100 years prior to that fateful night on the Severn River.

For nearly two centuries, Maryland and Virginia were engaged in conflict over one of the region’s valuable resources — oysters. Full of inconsistent enforcement and rampant law-breaking, it took the president’s signature to end the Oyster Wars.

The C&O Canal Owes a Lot to Black Workers of the CCC

11/13/2020 in DC, Maryland by Charlotte Muth
CCC Workers at Camp NP-2 in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. (Source: National Archives Catalog)

Today, you may know the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal best as a destination for outdoor activities, roaring waterfalls and historic lockhouses (which can be rented, thanks to the Canal Quarters Lockhouse Program!)  But, the C&O Canal has a history with more twists and turns than the route of the canal itself. One of the most interesting chapters in C&O history was from 1938-1942, when two all-Black Civilian Conservation Corps companies worked to refurbish the decaying canal.

Proof That Adams Morgan Was Never Fully "Demuralized"

11/4/2020 in DC by Charlotte Muth
"Un Pueblo Sin Murales Es Un Pueblo Desmuralizado" in 2014, after being restored the second time. (Source: Hola Cultura)

Three figures with wolfish grins gather around a table, red as blood. What’s on the table? Money and houses. It’s a game of Monopoly, but the people aren’t people and the game is strictly metaphorical. This image occupies the upper right quadrant of a mural located at 1817 Adams Mill Road NW in Adams Morgan. The name of the mural: “Un Pueblo Sin Murales Es Un Pueblo Desmuralizado,” which translates to the tongue-in-cheek tautology “A People Without Murals are a Demuralized People.” Now over forty years old, this mural is the largest, oldest and longest-standing Latinx mural in D.C.

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