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Washington


  • Where Did the Indigenous Community Mothers Go?

    by Candace Wellman

    Indigenous community mothers seem to have been an uncomfortable truth for historians and other writers that did not fit with the Euro-American mythology they sought to build around “the first white woman” in town. The result was their now-conspicuous absence.



  • Sarah Jane Shoenfeld on Mapping segregation in D.C.

    For the past several years, Mapping Segregation in Washington DC has been documenting the historic role of real estate developers, citizens associations (white homeowner groups), and the courts in segregating the city.



  • Is local history too white?

    by Knute Berger

    If you travel around Washington state and visit local historical societies, you’ll notice that “history” tends to begin with the arrival of white settlers and extend to perhaps one or two generations back. 


  • Our First Unwashington President

    by Thomas Fleming

    A fresh review of Jefferson’s presidency shows that a guiding principle was to do the opposite of what Washington did.



  • Lincoln Memorial vandalized

    The Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. was vandalized overnight.According to NBCWashington, green paint was splattered inside the chamber of the memorial, on Lincoln and on the floor around it.The monument will be closed while National Park Service crews clean up the mess, The Associated Press reported.There's no word yet on who desecrated the monument or what their motive was for doing so....



  • May is Jewish American Heritage Month

    What do Bob Dylan, J.D Salinger, Harrison Ford, Jon Stewart, Barbara Walters, Barbara Hersey, and Leonard Nimoy all have in common, aside from being awesome? They're all Jewish Americans. May is Jewish American Heritage Month, and this year's theme is American Jews in entertainment.(With apologies to William Shatner, who was born in Canada, and judging by his acting he's probably not kosher anyway.) Jewish American Heritage Month was established by presidential decree in 2006, after lobbying efforts by the Jewish Museum of Florida, the South Florida Jewish community, Florida congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Pennsylvania senator Arlen Specter (Fittingly, Manischewitz is one of the major corporate sponsors.)



  • Bulgarian street-naming request in DC stirs broader debate over country’s role in Holocaust

    WASHINGTON — A request by the Bulgarian Embassy to name a Washington intersection after a favorite native son — a man credited with helping save the country’s Jewish population from deportation — has gotten tangled up in a broader debate about whether the nation is accurately accounting for the actions of its leaders during the Holocaust.A tense exchange between the embassy and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has played out behind the scenes as the D.C. Council prepares to consider honoring Dimitar Peshev this month. The debate underscores not only the complexities of Holocaust history but also the difficulty countries can face reconciling the heroic deeds of an individual during World War II with the record of a nation as a whole. It also comes as historians and Jewish organizations continue encouraging nations to take unvarnished stock of their actions in Nazi-era Europe....



  • Universities, theaters in 4 cities to join in creating new theatrical productions on Civil War

    WASHINGTON — Four major universities are joining theater companies in Boston, Baltimore, Washington and Atlanta in a project to commission new plays, music and dance compositions about the Civil War and its lasting legacy.The National Civil War Project announced Thursday in Washington will involve programming over the next two years to mark the 150th anniversary of the war between North and South. Beyond commissioning new works, organizers plan for university faculty to integrate the arts into their academic programs on campus....