1870s

December 6, 1877 was a big day in local journalism as D.C.'s longest running local rag, The Washington Post, published its first issue. For three pennies readers got four pages of news. Sounds like a pretty good deal.

Understanding the history of local government in the District of Columbia is tricky business. The governance structure has changed several times since the city was founded in 1791 and, sometimes, these changes were quite dramatic... which brings us to the 1870s.

Here’s a fun piece of trivia: America’s most famous newspaper publisher, Joseph Pulitzer, than man who is often credited for rise of modern journalism, was married here in Washington on June 19, 1878.

On March 4, 1873, Ulysses S. Grant’s second inauguration turned into a frozen spectacle: a noon temperature of 16°F with 40 mph gusts produced wind chills down to −15° to −30°F, marching cadets were sent to hospitals, musicians couldn’t play because their breath froze in their instruments, canaries hung in the ballroom froze and fell onto the dancers, and even the champagne turned to ice.

Local historian Garrett Peck explores a forgotten 19th-century scandal that links the rusty red sandstone of the Smithsonian Castle to a web of insider stock deals, an illegal Freedman’s Bank loan, and the financial collapse that helped trigger the Panic of 1873.