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Talk about moving around a lot! In the late 1700s, the United States government shifted from Philadelphia to New York. Then it moved to Princeton, New Jersey.
Congress couldn’t agree on a permanent home for the new nation’s government. Southerners wanted the capital in the South. Northerners wanted it in the North. One night, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia and Alexander Hamilton of New York made a deal. If the federal government would pay the North’s huge Revolutionary War debts, the new capital would be in the South. In return, the North would not raise major objections to slavery.
Maryland and Virginia each gave up some land along the Potomac River for the new capital, which wouldn’t be part of either state. Congress named the area the District of Columbia, in honor of Christopher Columbus. But people called it Washington, in honor of the country’s first president. Today, the city is Washington, District of Columbia, or D.C. for short.
Washington is a busy international city with tourists visiting from all over the world. It’s also home to over 600,000 citizens. Come take a tour of Washington, D.C.—past and present.
◀ Because it’s the nation’s capital, Washington is an international city with many embassies. An embassy is the home of an ambassador, or government representative, of a foreign country. The Canadian Embassy is shown here.
▲ When the federal government moved to Washington in 1800, most of the federal buildings weren’t finished. And there were almost no houses. Senators and congressmen lived in boardinghouses and above bars. Sometimes they had to sleep two to a bed. Corn grew along Pennsylvania Avenue. Cows and pigs wandered along the unpaved roads. From 1800 to 1810, there was only one policeman patrolling the streets.
By 1960, Washington was the first major U.S. city to have a majority of African Americans living there. Over the years, Washington’s government has changed. But Congress has always kept control over the city. Today, Washingtonians elect their own mayor. But they have only a nonvoting representative in Congress. Many city officials and residents want Washington to become a state. That way it could have voting representatives in Congress. ▶
