interior courts are of Maryland granite and white enamelled bricks.
There are numerous sculptural adornments without, and there is
elaborate interior decoration with paintings, sculpture, coloured
marbles and gilding.[1]
Two squares north of the Senate office-building
is the Union Railway Station (1908; 343 by 760 ft.; cost,
$4,000,000), designed by Daniel Hudson Burnham, consisting of a
main building of white granite (from Bethel, Vermont) and two
wings, and facing a beautiful plaza. On Pennsylvania Avenue,
nearly midway between the Capitol and the White House, is the
nine-storey Post Office (1899; with a tower 300 ft. high), housing
the United States Post Office Department and the City Post Office.
A few squares north-west of it are the General Land Office, the
headquarters of the Department of the Interior (commonly called
the Patent Office), with Doric portico; the Pension Office, in which
the Inauguration Ball is held on the evening of each president's
taking office; the Government Printing Office (twelve storeys—one
of the few tall office-buildings in the city); the City Hall, or District
Court House; and the District Building (1908), another building of
the local government. On the heights north of Georgetown is the
United States Naval Observatory, one of the best-equipped institutions
of the kind; from it Washington time is telegraphed daily to
all parts of the United States. Near Rock Creek, west of Georgetown,
is the Signal Office and headquarters of the United States
Weather Bureau. In the Mall are the building of the Department
of Agriculture, the Smithsonian Institution (q.v.), the National
Museum (1910), the Army Medical Museum and the Bureau of
Fisheries, and here a building for the Department of Justice is to
be erected. Facing the Mall on the south is the home of the Bureau
of Engraving and Printing, in which the United States paper money
and postage stamps are made. Not far from the White House is the
Corcoran Gallery of Art (1894–1897; architect, Ernest Flagg), of
white Georgia marble in a Neo-Grecian style, housing a collection
of paintings (especially American portraits) and statuary; the
gallery was founded and endowed in 1869 by William Wilson
Corcoran (1798–1888) “for the perpetual establishment and encouragement
of the Fine Arts.” The Public Library, a gift of Andrew
Carnegie, is a white marble building in the Mount Vernon Square,
at the intersection of Massachusetts and New York avenues. A
prominent building, erected with money given mainly by Mr
Carnegie, is that of the Pan-American Union (formerly Bureau of
American Republics). The old Ford's Theatre, in which President
Lincoln was assassinated, is on Tenth Street N.W. between E and
F. The house in which Lincoln died is on the opposite side of the
street, and contains relics of Lincoln collected by O. H. Oldroyd.
Monuments.—Foremost among the city's many monuments is that erected to the memory of George Washington. It is a plain obelisk of white Maryland marble, 55 ft. square at the base and 555 ft. in height; it was begun in 1848, but the work was abandoned in 1855–1877, but was completed in 1884 at a cost of $1,300,000.[2] Among statues of Washington are the half-nude seated figure (1843) by Greenough in the Smithsonian Institution, and an equestrian statue (1860) of Washington at the Battle of Princeton by Clark Mills in Washington Circle. Among the other prominent statues are: the equestrian statue (1908) of General Philip Sheridan in Sheridan Circle, by Gutzon Borglum; an equestrian statue of General Sherman near the Treasury Building, by Carl Rohl-Smith; a statue of Frederick the Great (by T. Uphues; presented to the United States by Emperor William II. of Germany) in front of the Army War College at the mouth of the Anacostia river; a statue of General Nathanael Greene (by H. K. Brown) in Stanton Square; statues of General Winfield Scott in Scott Square (by H. K. Brown) and in the grounds of the Soldiers' Home (by Launt Thompson); a statue of Rear-Admiral S. F. Du Pont in Dupont Circle (by Launt Thompson); of Rear-Admiral D. G. Farragut (by Vinnie Ream Hoxie); an equestrian statue of General George H. Thomas (by J. Q. A. Ward), erected by the Society of the Army of the Cumberland; one of General George B. McClellan, by Frederick Macmonnies; and statues of Lincoln,[3] by Scott Flannery and (in Lincoln Park) by Thomas Ball, of Joseph Henry (by W. W. Story) in the grounds of the Smithsonian Institution, of John Marshall (by Story) on the west terrace of the Capitol, of General Andrew Jackson (by Clark Mills) and, in Lafayette Square, of the Marquis de Lafayette (by Falguière and Mercié), of the Comte de Rochambeau (by F. Hamar) and of Baron von Steuben (1910). In Pennsylvania Avenue, at the foot of Capitol Hill, is a Monument of Peace (by Franklin Simmons) in memory of officers, seamen and marines of the U.S. Navy killed in the Civil War.
Cemeteries.—On the opposite side of the Potomac, in Virginia, and adjoining Fort Myer, a military post (named in honour of General Albert James Myer (1827–1880), who introduced in 1870 a system of meteorological observations at army posts) with reservation of 186 acres, is Arlington, a National Cemetery (of 408.33 acres), in which lie buried 21,106 soldiers killed in the Civil War and in the war with Spain; among the distinguished officers buried here are General Philip Henry Sheridan, Admiral David Dixon Porter, General Joseph Wheeler and General Henry W. Lawton; there is a Spanish War Monument; the grounds are noted for their natural beauty, and on the brow of a hill commanding a magnificent view of the city is Arlington House (1802), the residence of George Washington Parke Custis (1781–1857), grandson of Martha Washington, and afterwards of General Robert E. Lee, Custis's son-in-law; the estate was seized by Federal troops early in the Civil War, and was bought by the United States in 1864; there was a military hospital here throughout the Civil War. Adjoining the grounds of the Soldiers' Home (3 m. N. of the Capitol) is a National Military Cemetery containing the graves of 7220 soldiers. On the bank of the Anacostia river, east of the Capitol, is the Congressional Cemetery containing the graves of many members of Congress. North of Georgetown is Oak Hill Cemetery, and in the vicinity of the Soldiers' Home are Rock Creek, Glenwood, Harmony, Prospect Hill and St Mary's Cemeteries. A crematorium was completed in 1909, and cremation instead of interment has since been urged by the District commissioners.
Charities, &c.—The National Soldiers' Home (1851), founded by General Winfield Scott, comprises five buildings, with accommodations for 800 retired or disabled soldiers, and 512 acres of beautiful grounds. The charitable and correctional institutions of the District of Columbia are the following government institutions, under the control of the United States or of the District of Columbia: Freedmen's Hospital (1862), United States Naval Hospital (1866), an Insane Asylum on the S. side of the Anacostia river, the District of Columbia Industrial Home School (1872), a Municipal Lodging House (1892), a Soldiers' and Sailors' Temporary Home (1888), Workhouse, Reform School for Boys, Reform School for Girls and Industrial Home School (1872). Among many private institutions are the Washington City Orphan Asylum (1815); Lutheran Eye, Ear and Throat Infirmary (1889); Episcopal Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital (1897); Providence Hospital (1861; Sisters of Charity); George Washington University Hospital (1898); Georgetown University Hospital (1898); Columbia Hospital for Women (1866); Children's Hospital (1871); Washington Hospital for Foundlings (1887); Children's Temporary Home (1899; for negroes); a German Orphan Asylum (1879); Washington Home for Incurables (1889); Home for the Aged (1871); the National Lutheran Home (1890); the Methodist Home (1890) and Baptist Home (1880). A “non-support law,” which went into effect in 1906, enacts that a man who refuses to provide for his family when able to do so shall be committed to the workhouse for hard labour, and that fifty cents a day shall be paid to his family. A Juvenile Court and a Board of Children's Guardians have extensive jurisdiction over dependent and delinquent children, and a general supervision of all charities and corrections is vested in a Board of Charities, consisting of five members appointed by the president of the United States.
Education.—Washington is one of the leading educational centres of the United States. The public school system, under the control of a Board of Education of six men and three women appointed by the supreme court judges of the District of Columbia, embraces kindergartens, primary schools, grammar schools, high schools, a business high school, manual training schools, normal schools and night schools. The schools are open nine months in the year, and all children between eight and fourteen years of age are required to attend some public, private or parochial school during these months unless excused because of some physical or mental disability. George Washington University, in the vicinity of the White House, is a non-sectarian institution (opened in 1821 under the auspices of the Baptist General Convention as “The Columbian College in the District of Columbia”; endowed by W. W. Corcoran in 1872, organized as the Columbian University in 1873, organized under its present name[4] in 1904), and comprises Columbian College of Arts
- ↑ A bronze fountain, “The Court of Neptune,” in front of the Library, is by Hinton Perry. Granite portrait busts of great authors occupy niches in windows near the entrance; these are by J. S. Hartley, Herbert Adams and F. W. Ruckstuhl. The allegorical figures over the entrance are by Bela L. Pratt. There are fine bronze doors by Olin Warner and Frederick Macmonnies. Among the mural paintings are series by John W. Alexander, Kenyon Cox, E. H. Blashfield, Henry Oliver Walker (b. 1843), Walter McEwen, Elihu Vedder, Charles Sprague Pearce (b. 1851), Edward Simmons (b. 1852), George Willoughby Maynard (b. 1843), Robert Reid (b. 1862), George R. Barse, Jr. (b. 1861), W. A. Mackay, F. W. Benson (b. 1862), Walter Shirlaw (b. 1838), Gari Melchers (b. 1860), W. De L. Dodge (b. 1867) and others.
- ↑ The site is said to have been chosen by Washington himself—Congress had planned a marble monument in 1783. In 1833 the Washington National Monument Society was formed and a popular subscription was taken. The obelisk was designed by Robert Mills, whose original plan included a “Pantheon” 100 ft. high with a colonnade and a colossal statue of Washington. After 1877 the work was carried on by an appropriation made by Congress. See Frederick L. Harvey, History of the Washington Monument and the National Monument Society (Washington, 1903).
- ↑ A Lincoln memorial is to be erected on the Mall W. of the Washington monument.
- ↑ The name was changed when the offer of the George Washington Memorial Association to build a $500,000 memorial building was accepted.
