AI anxiety isn’t new. In 1949, an MIT professor turned down a corporate contract because he feared machines would replace human judgment. A year later, Washington had its own “electronic brain” on Connecticut Avenue. We’ve been having this argument for 75 years.
Take a look back at what Washington D.C. alleys used to look like when they were filled with tenement housing. Learn more about this piece of history here!
Uncovering the Johnson Family of Humbolt, Kansas: We dug up a rare U.S. Census record from 1900 showing the family of 12-year-old Walter Johnson, who would eventually become one of the greatest pitchers in the history of baseball. See the full page here!
Discover the residents of the Mayflower Hotel in 1940 with this collection of U.S. Census records from the same year. Click on each image to see a larger version and read through the names
Captain Jeremiah Dare lived at 1340 Corcoran Street NW in the 1890s. Next door at 1339 lived Senator Eugene Hale’s secretary.
A 1912 photograph shows five newspaper boys at the US Capitol. We dug through census records to trace what became of these first-generation American kids.
Get to know the life and times of Walter Spangenberg, a Washingtonian and Naval Aviator during WWII. Read about his journey from Wilson High School to the Korean War and beyond. Plus, see photos from the Library of Congress!
The District’s peacetime population exploded as government grew and workers – men and women – flocked to new jobs. It was 1940. Census employees hit the streets in April. They determined that D.C. had grown rapidly.
Learn the wild story of William F. Matteson, a real estate dealer in Washington D.C. who filed a divorce and two suits against his wife’s lovers for the alleged alienation of her affections. Find out the results of the tumultuous legal battle and the drama that unfolded.
