Sketched in 1904 and later published in Women's Home Companion, this drawing demonstrates grand neoclassical plans to expand the Department of Agriculture. The Department had long since outgrown the original 1868 construction, one of the oldest on…

In 1882, Congress approved the creation of a statue to honor John Marshall, fourth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The statue was sculpted by artist William Wetmore Story, whose father had served on the Supreme Court with Marshall. It was…

By 1870, after two years on the National Mall, the Department of Agriculture combined the functions of an office building, a research center, library, and museum. In this stereoscopic view of the mall, visitors chat in from of large iron and glass…

During the 1800s, the massive red brick Department of Agriculture, designed by Adolf Cluss, housed laboratories, agricultural specimens, seeds, plants, animals, geological artifacts, an extensive library, and a museum. Visitors came to see exhibits…

Pennsylvania farmer and dairyman, Isaac Newton served as the first United States Commissioner of Agriculture. Under Newton, the agency focused on research and education, disseminating information to farmers throughout the nation. Newton advocated for…

When President Lincoln created the Department of Agriculture in 1862, the agency consisted of only four scientists and agriculturists. By 1867, their numbers grew to 70 employees, indicating the rapid growth of the scope and influence of what is now…

This political cartoon was printed in New York in 1885. Complaining about all of the monuments being erected to honor our nation's history in the wake of the turmoil of the Civil War, the captions proclaims "No more of those hideous monuments!"…

David Burnes, one of the original nineteen proprietors of land that created the District of Columbia, lived in this humble cottage overlooking today's Constitution Avenue. Burnes owned 700 acres encompassing the heart of downtown, including the…

This landscape painting of Washington, DC, looks out from the area that is Union Station today onto the early US Capitol building. George Washington built two row houses to the right of the Capitol. Although this is a highly romanticized view of the…

In 1848, 77 enslaved African Americans, including the Edmonson sisters, attempted to escape their bondage in Washington, DC, by fleeing north to freedom via the ship the Pearl. Unfortunately, unfavorable winds slowed their escape, the ship was…