Washington, DC
Washington, D.C., D.C. in full District of Columbia, city and capital of the United States of America. It is coextensive with the District of Columbia (the city is often referred to as simply D.C.) and is located on the northern shore of the Potomac River at the river’s navigation head—that is, the transshipment point between waterway and land transport. The state of Maryland borders the District of Columbia to the north, east, and west, and the state of Virginia borders the District on the southern shore of the Potomac River.
In 1790 the U.S. Congress established a 100-square-mile (260-square-km) territory to serve as the permanent seat of the federal government. (The territory was later named the District of Columbia, within which the city of Washington was built.) The location for the new territory was centralized among the Eastern Seaboard states and was about 90 miles (145 km) inland from the Atlantic Ocean on land ceded by Maryland and Virginia. In the mid-19th century the land south of the Potomac River that had been ceded by Virginia was returned to the state, reducing the District to its present-day size.
After the American Civil War (1861–65), the city of Washington expanded beyond its originally planned boundaries and became legally indistinguishable from the District of Columbia. Washington, D.C., remains a territory, not a state, and since 1974 it has been governed by a locally elected mayor and city council over which Congress retains the power of veto. The Washington metropolitan area covers nearly 4,000 square miles (10,360 square km) and encompasses 10 counties, 5 in Maryland (Montgomery, Prince George’s, Frederick, Charles, and Calvert) and 5 in Virginia (Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, Stafford, and Prince William). Area District, 68 square miles (176 square km). Pop. (2000) 572,059; Washington-Arlington-Alexandria Metro Division, 3,727,565; Washington-Arlington-Alexandria Metro Area, 4,796,183; (2010) 601,723; Washington-Arlington-Alexandria Metro Division, 4,377,088; Washington-Arlington-Alexandria Metro Area, 5,582,170.
People of Washington, D.C.
Washington has always been an ethnically diverse city. In 1800 one community consisted of mostly affluent descendants of Europeans; they held various religious beliefs and political views but generally shared an optimism in the potential for self-government and a desire to participate in it. Another early community was made up of labourers—some educated or skilled, others uneducated or unskilled—who physically built the country’s capital; most of these labourers were free Blacks, slaves, and immigrants. Because Washington boasted no major industries, these early immigrants were mainly skilled workers and entrepreneurs from Scotland and Ireland. By the mid- to late 19th century, additional immigrants from Germany, Italy, eastern Europe, Greece, and China had established ethnic enclaves within Washington.
Prior to the American Civil War, Washington’s Black population was part free and part slave. In 1800 about one-third of the population was Black, about one-fifth of which was free. By 1860 more than four-fifths of the Black population was free. The city’s African American population more than doubled between the start of the Civil War (1861) and the end of Reconstruction (1877), when tens of thousands of freed Blacks poured into the city. By 1900 Washington had the largest African American urban population in the United States, and a number of prominent Black leaders and educators lived there. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, large numbers of rural poor African Americans moved from the South to settle in Washington. By the 1970s nearly three-fourths of the capital city’s population was African American. Although this proportion shrank over the next few decades, African Americans continued to constitute the majority of D.C.’s population into the early 2000s.
At the beginning of the 21st century, Washington remains a somewhat racially and economically divided city. The majority of European Americans live in Northwest D.C., while Southeast D.C. chiefly consists of a poor African American population. More than half of the city’s inhabitants are African American, about two-fifths are of European descent, and the remainder are mainly of Hispanic or Asian origin. In contrast to the city’s demographic breakdown, in the surrounding metropolitan area European Americans constitute nearly two-thirds of the population, African Americans make up less than one-fourth, and the remainder of the population is of multiethnic heritage. The immigrant population in the city and suburbs includes some of the country’s largest Ethiopian, Central American, and Korean communities.
Throughout the 20th century, population growth in Washington was cyclical, increasing during wartime and economic downturns as people arrived in search of jobs or assistance from the federal government. During the last decades of the 20th century, the size of the District’s population stabilized while the suburbs experienced unprecedented growth. At the beginning of the 21st century, the city’s population was young, with the average age in the mid-30s. Moreover, nearly one-fifth of the city’s residents were between ages 25 and 34.
History of Washington, D.C.
The creation of Washington
Washington was established as the capital of the United States as the result of a compromise following seven years of negotiation by members of the U.S. Congress as they tried to define the concept of a “federal enclave.” On July 17, 1790, Congress passed the Residence Act, which created a permanent seat for the federal government. George Washington, the country’s first president (1789–97), carefully chose the site, which is on the Potomac River’s navigation head (to accommodate oceangoing ships), and near two well-established colonial port cities, George Town (now Georgetown, a section of the city of Washington) and Alexandria, Va. This location bridged the Northern and Southern states, but Washington called it “the gateway to the interior” because he hoped it would also serve to economically bind the Western territories to the Eastern Seaboard—the Tidewater and the Piedmont regions—and thereby secure the allegiance of the frontier to the new country.
The new federal territory was named District of Columbia to honour explorer Christopher Columbus, and the new federal city was named for George Washington. In 1790 French-born American engineer and designer Pierre Charles L’Enfant was chosen to plan the new capital city; meanwhile, surveyor Andrew Ellicott surveyed the 100-square-mile (260-square-km) territory with the assistance of Benjamin Banneker, a self-educated free Black man. The territory surveyed by Ellicott was ceded by Maryland, a slave state, and Virginia, the Southern state with the largest slave population, thus contributing to a significant Black presence in Washington.
Construction of the Capitol building, the presidential palace (now the White House), and several other government buildings was almost complete when Congress moved from Philadelphia to Washington in December 1800. There were, however, few finished dwellings and even fewer amenities in Washington at the time, making the first several years rather unpleasant for the new residents. In 1812 the United States declared war against Great Britain (see War of 1812), and two years later the British invaded the vulnerable capital city, setting fire to federal buildings. Structural damage was extensive, and the morale of the local citizens sank. By 1817, however, a newly reconstructed White House welcomed Pres. James Monroe (served 1817–25), and Congress reconvened in the newly built Capitol in 1819, after having spent five years in the temporary Old Brick Capitol Building, which had been erected on the site of the present-day Supreme Court Building.
Growth and change
Between 1830 and 1865 tremendous changes occurred in Washington, beginning with the arrival of Pres. Andrew Jackson (served 1829–37), who brought with him a retinue of new civil servants—beneficiaries of the “spoils system” who introduced democratizing social changes to the workplace and the community. Challenges were plentiful: the local economy was unstable; silt in the Potomac River restricted navigation; the construction of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal was delayed; and epidemics were common. When railroads reached the city in the 1830s, a flood of tourists came with them, as did a proliferation of congressional spouses, who forever changed Washington’s social scene. Major construction projects for three federal buildings located just blocks apart in Downtown Washington (the Department of the Treasury, the General Post Office, and the Patent Office [the last is now part of the Smithsonian Institution]) also began in the 1830s.
During the American Civil War, the city was never far from the front lines, if only because Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital, was so close. Following the assassination of Pres. Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre just days after the war’s end, Washington was plunged into a state of unprecedented desperation and despair.
In the years following the Civil War, the capital was slowly transformed into a showplace. Two factors contributed to this change. First, in 1871 self-government was granted for the first time to Washingtonians. Under the new territorial government, which lasted just three years, numerous city improvement projects were undertaken: modern schools and markets were erected, streets were paved, outdoor lighting was installed, sewers were built, and more than 50,000 trees were planted. The price for these improvements, however, was far more than Congress had anticipated. The new territorial government was short-lived, but Congress was required to complete the projects. Second, beginning in the 1880s, a number of newcomers arrived in Washington from across the country. Many of them were affluent intellectuals and lobbyists. This new “elite” made Washington their part-time home during the winter social season. Members of the old Washington society became known as “Cave Dwellers,” a local term for descendants of the original families of the area. They generally still keep within their own social circles.
Washington’s character improved significantly with the completion of the Washington Monument in 1884, the Library of Congress in 1897, and, beginning in the late 1890s, the proliferation of social organizations, private clubs, and formal societies for the arts. In 1901 the Senate Park Commission (also known as the McMillan Commission) offered comprehensive and resolute recommendations for revitalizing and beautifying Washington, advocating that no undertaking “be allowed to invade, to mutilate, or to mar the symmetry, simplicity, and dignity of the capital city.” The new plans were stunning, but years would pass before any of them could be realized.
Washington since 1900
The first half of the 20th century was an explosive time in the capital city—socially, economically, and culturally—and Washington began to gain worldwide attention. Grand homes for embassies were constructed on 16th Street, north of the White House, and later along Massachusetts Avenue, a strip that is now known as Embassy Row. Pres. Woodrow Wilson gave Washington a voice in world affairs through the country’s entry into World War I in 1917 and through his work to establish the League of Nations, an organization promoting international cooperation. After the war, civic pride and culture flooded the city. Art galleries, museums, concert halls, and the Lincoln Memorial were built. The Commission of Fine Arts was established to advise city planners on the appropriate design and placement of memorials and federal buildings. At the same time, however, run-down buildings were multiplying in Washington’s back alleys, and neglected neighborhoods only became worse during the Great Depression years of the 1930s. The New Deal programs of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt provided employment to thousands of workers in Washington, not only in existing government offices but also in the construction of new federal buildings, including the Supreme Court and the Federal Triangle buildings. Washington’s population surged to about 950,000 during World War II (1939–45). In 1941 a new airport was built, and less than two years later the Pentagon was completed, establishing the capital city as the military command centre of the country.
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