Emma O'Neill-Dietel

Emma O’Neill-Dietel was raised on local history in Philadelphia, and grew up visiting museums and historical sites up and down the East Coast. She first moved to DC in 2019 for an internship at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, and the city captured her heart immediately. Emma is a writer, musician, and artist constantly in search of creative methods to tell history’s stories. She has a particular interest in disability history, queer history, and the history of fashion and music. She is a recent graduate of Smith College, where she studied world literatures, Spanish, and archives studies. When not writing for Boundary Stones, Emma teaches creative writing at Writopia Lab.

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In an imposing brick building at 235 2nd Street, NE on Capitol Hill, time stands still. It is home to over 70 young people living, working, and learning in Washington. This is Thompson-Markward Hall, a boarding house that has been a home for young women in Washington since 1833. But its residents haven’t always been elite graduate students or ladder-climbing interns. Women’s work in Washington has changed dramatically since the 1800s, but Thompson-Markward Hall has remained a necessity.

Activist Hugo Deffner came to Washington in 1957 to accept an award for his work in promoting accessible architecture. However, he discovered a city entirely inaccessible to wheelchair users and other disabled people. Over the following decades, a combination of tireless activism and legislation transformed Washington into one of the most accessible cities in America.

In June 1981, Black Deaf leaders gathered in Washington to sew the seeds of an organization that would have a profound impact on the Black Deaf community. After centuries of exclusion in both Black and Deaf spaces, organizers came together to make a space of their own. With goals to educate, empower, and strengthen the community, this conference led a call for Black inclusion and leadership in Deaf organizations locally and nationally.

Ford’s Theatre is remembered today as the site of a national tragedy that changed the course of American history, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. However, just 28 years later, a second tragedy occurred there that claimed 22 lives and injured many more.