The pages for the Senate and House of Representatives in the 1920s were junior-high and high-school aged boys who ran messages for Congressmen. Both the Senate and the House pages had baseball teams which played each other, as well as local schools.…

This team made up of workers from various garages in the city had just won a baseball game against the Employee's recreation association team when their photo was taken. They were one of many teams who played baseball on the National Mall during…

This baseball game was probably a match between women who worked for various government offices related to World War I. An organization called the War Camp Community Service organized sports activities and teams for soldiers and for government…

The Philadelphia Athletics Baseball Club played the Washington Nationals Baseball Club on the Ellipse, just south of the White House, in a special game on August 28, 1865. Thousands of locals, including President Andrew Johnson and his family, paid…

In August 1865 the Washington Nationals Baseball Club invited the Philadelphia Athletics and the Brooklyn Atlantics to come and play in what was billed as a tournament. The Nationals constructed stands for spectators on their home turf just south of…

Walt Whitman regularly visited wounded soldiers recovering in hospitals during the Civil War in the Washington area. While consoling patients, Whitman also wrote down many observations during his hospital visits. This article publishes excerpts from…

Ten public tennis courts stood on the Mall between 3rd and 4th street by 1940 and remained until 1972, when they were removed to make way for the National Gallery of Art's east wing. Although these courts were free to use, they were very popular and…

This newspaper article describes the recreational activities which were free or low-cost in the area today known as East and West Potomac Park. In the 1920s, the part of Independence Avenue which stretches into West Potomac Park was called the…

This excerpt from a video about daily life in Washington, DC, shows people engaged in sports activities on and around the Mall. A section of West Potomac Park, near the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, has been used as a polo ground since the…

In the 1930s and 1940s, the National Park Service operated a bicycle rental service near the Tidal Basin Boat House. Starting in 1942, bicycles were rationed items, making it difficult to buy one. Washington residents and war office workers could…