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This Week in 19th Amendment History: The Night of Terror

November 14, 1917

Celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment with stories about the people and events that led to the passage of women’s suffrage in the United States.

Just over 100 years ago this week, on November 14, 1917, a group of suffragists underwent a horrifying night of torture and abuse that would come to be known as the “Night of Terror.”

33 women protesters were taken to the Occoquan Workhouse in Fairfax County and subjected to brutal treatment by the prison’s guards in retaliation for the women’s ongoing peaceful protest for the right to vote.

Some of the picket line on Nov. 10, 1917. Left to right: Mrs. Catherine Martinette, Eagle Grove, Iowa. Mrs. William Kent, Kentfield, California. Miss Mary Bartlett Dixon, Easton, Md. Mrs. C.T. Robertson, Salt Lake City, Utah. Miss Cora Week, New York City. Miss Amy Ju[e]ngling, Buffalo, N.Y. Miss Ha. Harris & Ewing, Washington, D.C. (Photographer). Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The arrest and imprisonment of the women was the culmination of months of organized protest. In response to the reelection of Woodrow Wilson, members of the National Woman’s Party (sometimes referred to as the “Silent Sentinels”) picketed for months outside of the White House. Bolstered by banners, signs, and a consistent physical presence, they called for the president to back a federal amendment granting women the right to vote (by 1917, nine U.S. states had extended voting rights to women).

The protests – carried out on a rotating basis to ensure a constant presence at the White House - had gone smoothly following their start after Wilson’s reelection. Wilson had even invited protesters inside the White House for coffee, although the invitation was declined.

But the mood changed after the U.S. entry into World War I, on April 6, 1917. The heightened patriotic fervor made criticism of the government more and more fraught, and members of the suffrage movement suffered for their outspoken and visible criticism of the president.

Policewoman arrests Florence Youmans of Minnesota and Annie Arniel (center) of Delaware for refusing to give up their banners. June 1917. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Helena Hill Weed, of Norwalk, CT, serving 3 day sentence in D.C. prison for carrying banner "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." July 6-8, 1917. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

In June 1917, members of the ongoing picket began to get arrested. By October, police issued an ultimatum: if the picket continued, protesters could face sentences of up to six months in prison. Many of the arrested protesters were charged with “obstructing traffic” or given fines.

Hunger strikes emerged in the jails and workhouses where protesters were held, leading to force-feeding and other violent practices carried out by prison staff. In response to this, leader Alice Paul marched from the National Woman’s Party headquarters to the White House with a banner reading: “The time has come to conquer or submit for there is but one choice - we have made it” - the same slogan President Wilson used on posters encouraging Americans to buy war bonds.

The day after the police announce that future pickets would be given limit of 6 mos. in prison, Alice Paul led picket line with banner reading "The time has come to conquer or submit for there is but one choice - we have made it." October 20, 1917, Harris & Ewing, Washington, D.C. (Photographer). Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Ten months into the ongoing picketing efforts, on November 13, 1917, 33 women were arrested around the White House. By the next day, they arrived at the Occoquan Workhouse, where, demanding to be recognized as political prisoners, they refused to put on prison uniforms or participate in the mandated work shifts.

Cell blocks at Occoquan [Workhouse], ca. 1917, Harris & Ewing, Washington, D.C. (Photographer). Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The prison guards responded with violence. On orders from Occoquan Superintendent W.H. Whittaker, guards physically assaulted the women and threw them into dark and filthy cells.

One suffragist, Dora Lewis, was violently thrown down, hitting her head on an iron bed. Alice Cosu, who witnessed this, suffered a heart attack and did not receive medical treatment until the next day.  Organizer Lucy Burns was chained with her hands over her head to the bars in her cell and forced to stand for the entirety of the night.  Fellow protester Julia Emory assumed the same position for the night in solidarity.

One of the protesters, Doris Stevens, wrote an account of the “Night of Terror” entitled “Jailed for Freedom,” which chronicled the events of their imprisonment. She included excerpts of Lucy Burn’s accounts, which were recorded clandestinely during her imprisonment on scraps of paper and smuggled out of the workhouse.

 

Miss [Lucy] Burns in Occoquan Workhouse, November 1917, Harris & Ewing, Washington, D.C. (Photographer). Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Burns writes: “(Whittaker) refused to hear our demand for political rights. Seized by guards from behind, flung off my feet, and shot out of the room. All of us were seized by men guards and dragged to cells in men’s part.”

During their time in Occoquan, many arrestees resorted to hunger strikes. In response to this, the guards force-fed the women raw eggs and milk, causing them to become ill.  At one point, marines from the nearby Quantico Station were brought in to support the Occoquan guards.  By the time the women were released, many were too weak to walk on their own.

Kate Heffelfinger after her release from Occoquan Prison, ca. 1917. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The imprisoned suffragists were returned to D.C. after a November 23 ruling determined that, since they were arrested in D.C., it was illegal to incarcerate them in Virginia.  By November 28, they were out on bail, and by March of the following year, all of their arrests had been declared unconstitutional.

In early January 1918, President Wilson expressed his support for the voting rights amendment, which passed in the House but failed in Senate.  It would take until 1920 before the amendment was formally incorporated into the U.S. Constitution. The “Night of Terror” remains a pivotal point in the struggle for suffrage, a true show of the solidarity of the protesters and the lengths to which they would go for their cause – and the lengths their opposition would go to hamper their efforts.

Research sources used in this piece:

Read about Gertrude Crocker, Arlington's own Silent Sentinel suffragette, also jailed multiple time in 1917.

Learn more in these books available at the Library:

2020 marks the centennial of women’s suffrage in the United States. Learn how Arlington County is commemorating this milestone of civil rights on the Arlington County website.

Arlington Theatre ‘N’ Bowling

On August 15, 1940, one of Arlington’s premier cinemas – the Arlington Theatre – opened its doors.

Architect’s conception of the Arlington Recreation Center, which included the Arlington Theatre. From special coverage of the building’s opening in The Sun, August 16, 1940.

Located at the intersection of Columbia Pike and South Fillmore Street, the Art Deco style building was a cinematic façade fit for its wide variety of movie screenings and could seat over 600 moviegoers at a time.

Part of a boom in cinema construction around the county, the Arlington Theatre joined the Wilson, Ashton, and Buckingham Theatres – all of which were part of the Neighborhood Theatres franchise. The Arlington Theatre was designed by architect Fred Bishop, who also designed Richmond’s iconic Byrd Theater and the Beacon Theatre in Hopewell.

The Arlington Theatre was a part of a larger building called the Arlington Recreation Center, which included commercial storefronts, a pharmacy, and a 24-lane bowling alley on the second and third floors. The bowling alley featured “modern, high speed” Brunswick Balke alleys and acoustical soundproofing. Bowlers could also treat themselves to the Center’s soda fountain and sandwich bar, or have orders delivered straight to their lanes.

Ad for the Bowling Center at Arlington Theatre

The Arlington Theatre drew major media attention for its inaugural night. Its opening was covered in a special section of the August 16, 1940, edition of The Sun, where it was featured alongside pieces on the broader growth and development around the Columbia Pike area. A reporter described the theatre:

“Modern in every respect, housed in a fireproof building and equipped with the famous Carrier air conditioning system, which also cools and refreshes the bowling alleys and the pharmacy. Large, spring-bottom seat(s), amply spaced, assure comfort for theatre patrons, while the lobby, lounges, and restrooms are furnished and decorated in modern and attractive styles.”

The theatre’s first film showing was a 6:30 p.m. screening of the 1940 film “My Favorite Wife,” the “delightfully delirious comedy” (according to the theatre’s advertisement) starring Cary Grant and Irene Dunne. Part of the popular screwball comedy genre of the era and adapted from the Alfred Lord Tennyson poem, “Enoch Arden,” the film garnered a successful opening night, with one reviewer describing it as “fast-paced, delightful comedy entertainment.”

The film played for two additional showings during opening week, screening in full on Friday, August 16 and Saturday, August 17. All screenings were accompanied by a screening of the “Information Please” program, a radio quiz show in which audience members would ask experts questions. The panel show was so popular that RKO-Pathé Pictures released filmed versions of the radio program that were released as 10-minute-long clips to accompany feature film screenings. The “guest guesser” for this particular broadcast was the 1940 Republican presidential nominee Wendell Willkie.

The Arlington Theatre also became a popular location for numerous community events, and in 1940 hosted then First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt for a charity Christmas Party held by the Kiwanis Club. During World War II, the theater was a place to buy bonds and defense stamps to support the troops. The Arlington Theatre and the other Neighborhood Theatres in the area would host themed screenings, including designating September 1942 as “Salute to our Heroes” month, with ads for showtimes also including the call, “Come on, moviegoers! Buy war stamps here!”

The Arlington Cinema ‘N’ Drafthouse in 2004

In 1985, the building transitioned to its modern iteration as the Arlington Cinema ‘N’ Drafthouse, which still operates today. It stands as one of the last operational cinema buildings from the heyday of the 1930s and 1940s construction and includes the Arlington Theatre’s original theater behind its movie screen with lighting, storage, and a green room. The Cinema seats up to 275 guests and features both movie screenings and live entertainment.

Read The Sun’s coverage of the Arlington Theatre’s 1940 opening in the Community Archives.

Learn more about local cinema history in “Movie Theaters of Washington DC,” by Robert K. Headley, available at the Library.

To learn more about Arlington's history, visit the Center for Local History on the first floor of the Central Library.

Do you have a question about this story, or a personal experience to share? 

Use this form to send a message to the Center for Local History.

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Rediscover Haunted Arlington

Four stories to keep you up at night this October...

The Spirits at Overlee

Have you met the ghost of Margaret Febrey?

Febrey-Kincheloe House, from Poolside, 1997

In 2012 construction workers at the Overlee Community Center pool site reported that they were not alone - they would often see a little girl in Victorian clothing climbing through the debris and walking the site.

The construction site was on the grounds of a former historic mansion, known most recently as the Febrey-Kincheloe House, which stood for more than a century. Ernest Febrey constructed the grand home in the 1890s, where he raised his daughter, Margaret.

The Kincheloe family eventually bought the house from the Febrey family. When Mr. Kincheloe suddenly died, Mrs. Kincheloe converted the house into a rest home for Washington dignitaries called the Crestwood Sanitarium in 1947. In 1957 the house was converted into a community center clubhouse, and a pool was installed for the neighbors to enjoy. For many years clubhouse caretakers reported hearing music and laughing late into the night, but when they would investigate the noises, the sounds immediately ceased. The caretakers attributed the unseen source of the noises to the home's time as a sanitarium.

Young Margaret died in January of 1913 of a tubercular infection of the spine called Pott’s disease, and rumors are that the Febrey family abandoned the home soon after she passed away. But unlike the unseen clubhouse spirits, Margaret is not shy. Not only has she been seen around the property often, many people have reported speaking to her. Before the sale of the Febrey-Kincheloe House, contractors and realtors spoke of seeing a strangely dressed girl in the house standing by the basement stairs, and demolition workers spoke to her when they were razing the house in 2012. She’s been seen poolside and swimmers have reported speaking to a girl in a grey Victorian dress.

Children, if you meet Margaret at the pool, don’t be afraid. It’s said she likes to make friends with the children she meets.

Old Post Chapel

Fort Myer, now Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, has always had a storied history...

Old Post Chapel and New Gate at the Arlington National Cemetery

In 1864 the United States government began converting what had been the Lee Family’s estate into a burial ground for Union Army dead, housing for freed slaves and land for various military purposes. In 1861 Fort Ramsey, later renamed Fort Cass, was built on part of the land. However, after the end of the Civil War, it was abandoned.

In 1862 the Army built Fort Whipple a short distance southeast of Fort Cass. Its fortifications likewise were abandoned after the war ended, but its grounds were converted into the Signal School of Instruction for Army and Navy Officers in 1869. In 1881 it was renamed Fort Myer after Brigadier General Albert J. Myer, who had led the Signal School until his death in 1880.

In 1908 Fort Myer was the site of the first aviation fatality during one of Orville Wright’s first exhibition flights. And it was the location of the “Three Sisters” radio towers, which were the first to broadcast a voice across the United States and eventually over the Atlantic.

The Old Post Chapel, the only chapel on the grounds of the former Fort Whipple, holds the most claims of paranormal presences.

The Old Post Chapel was commissioned by Major George Patton Jr. in 1933 when he toured the chapels on the grounds of the Walter Reed Hospital. Patton told Post Commander Colonel Kenyon Joyce that the new chapel should combine the functions of a principal chapel with those of a mortuary chapel in one building.

Workers broke ground in February 1934, and the chapel was officially dedicated on April 21, 1935, where it was known for its attractive spire and intricate stained-glass windows. The chapel serves as a place of worship for the community, a wedding chapel, and a place of final honors for those laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery. Many fallen service members have lain in wait in the Old Post Chapel for their final trip, and it has allowed family members to grieve in private.

So it is unsurprising that many active duty service members have reported hearing disembodied voices and footsteps in the chapel when they have been alone.

Locked doors have unlocked themselves and opened on their own. K9 units patrolling with service people will refuse to go into the building, and balk at the door, especially at night. And visitors describe a young grief-stricken woman dressed in white who waits for her sweetheart; rumors are that she threw herself from the bell tower, which remains locked to this day.

Wakefield High School

Phantom of the Theater

Wakefield High School in 1996

Who knows where the Wakefield High School ghost has chosen to perform since the school theater it used to haunt was demolished in 2013...

Students and staff said that if you sat very quietly in the balcony seats of the theater, you might see and hear things you could not explain. The piano would begin to play even though no one was sitting at the keyboard. The lights would operate even though no one was in the lighting booth. And the light fixtures themselves would turn to impossible angles, sometimes coming to rest on the person in the balcony or the lone audience member.

Who was the ghost? Rumors say a crew member fell from the catwalk and died in the early 1960s, and was sometimes seen high up on the catwalk, once again reliving his last moments.

Arlington Hall

Who was that woman?

Arlington Hall Girls off for Sight-Seeing Trip - Washington, D.C.

The stately building near the intersection of Arlington Boulevard and South George Mason Drive may no longer be home to military codebreakers, but it's still a place of mystery.

In 1927 Dr. William Martin founded the Arlington Hall Junior College for Women. The rolling 100-acre campus included an award-winning riding club, and the stately Arlington Hall itself was home to many enviable social events including dinners, teas, balls, and formal dances.

In 1942 the Arlington Hall Junior College for Women quietly became the secret headquarters for the Signal Intelligence Service, a department dedicated to breaking German and Russian codes. Unbeknownst to the men and women working to end the war, the KGB had already infiltrated the center, spying via a long-time analyst who had defected to the U.S.S.R. After the Signal Intelligence Service expanded and transferred its headquarters, the building began its third life as a research center, and then as a satellite office for the State Department in 1989.

The building still holds its secrets - not only the unexploded Civil War-era rifle shell found sitting precariously under the hall during an excavation in 2008, but the unexplained noises that occupants hear in the quietest hours.

It is said that if you are downstairs when it is silent, and you know you are alone, you will hear footsteps above you, walking across the hard floor and then stepping onto the carpet and continuing their journey. If you go upstairs to investigate, you’ll see a young woman in a floral dress walking into and out of the women’s powder room on the way to a party. She stops to check her make-up in the mirror before she turns and vanishes...

"Preservation Today: Rediscovering Arlington" is a partnership between the Arlington Public Library and the Arlington County Historic Preservation Program.

Preservation Today: Rediscovering Arlington
Stories from Arlington’s Historic Preservation Program

Arlington’s heritage is a diverse fabric, where people, places, and moments are knitted together into the physical and social landscape of the County.

Arlington County’s Historic Preservation Program is dedicated to protecting this heritage and inspiring placemaking by uncovering and recognizing all these elements in Arlington’s history.

To learn more about historic sites in Arlington, visit the Arlington County Historic Preservation Program.

This Week in 19th Amendment History: National Woman’s Rights Convention

October 23, 1850

Celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment with stories about the people and events that led to the passage of women’s suffrage in the United States.

On October 23, 1850, the first National Woman’s Rights Convention began in Worcester, Massachusetts. Amidst the ringing fervor of the mid-19th-century clarion call for expanding women’s rights – with the right to vote as its central tenet – this day would emerge as a significant step in solidifying the goals and action plan of the women’s suffrage movement in the United States.

Lucy Stone, one of the Convention’s lead organizers and a speaker at the event.

Held over two days in Worcester, Massachusetts, the 1850 Woman’s Rights Convention was planned by members of the Anti-Slavery Society, among them Lucy Stone, Abby Kelley Foster, Paulina Wright Davis and Harriot Kezia Hunt.

Davis – a New York suffrage advocate who helped petition for the passage of the Married Women’s Property Act of 1848 – would later be elected president of the convention during the event’s proceedings.

More than 1,000 delegates from 11 states gathered in Worcester’s Brinley Hall for numerous speeches on topics ranging from the right to vote, owning property, and women’s admittance to the fields of higher education, medicine, and the ministry.

Brinley Hall, Worcester, MA, where the National Woman’s Convention was held in 1850 and 1851. Photo from the Massachusetts State Library.

Among the convention’s attendees were Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, and Sojourner Truth. Truth and many other prominent suffragists, including Ernestine Rose, Antoinette Brown and Lucretia Mott, delivered speeches over the course of the convention.

The press was largely derisive in its reporting on the convention. The New York Herald, for instance, attacked the speakers’ appearances and portrayed the attendees' demands as ridiculous, framing the convention in their headlines as an “Awful combination of socialism, abolitionism and infidelity. The Pantalettes striking for the Pantaloons. Bible and Constitution Repudiated.”

In a satirical take, the newspaper reported that the Woman’s Rights Convention organizers aimed to:

  1. abolish the Bible
  2. abolish the constitution and the laws of the land
  3. reorganize society upon a social platform of perfect equality in all things, of sexes and colors
  4. establish the most free and miscellaneous amalgamation of sexes and colors
  5. elect Abby Kelley Foster President of the United States and Lucretia Mott Commander-in-chief-of the Army
  6. cut throats ad libitum
  7. abolish the gallows

In some ways, this condescending portrayal helped expand the notoriety and message of the convention. The convention’s proceedings were recorded and sold after the event as pamphlets, gaining international readers and recognition.

Womans convention 1

The Proceedings of the Woman’s Rights Convention, held at Worcester, October 23d & 24th, 1850. Boston: Prentiss & Sawyer, 1851. Source: NAWSA Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (014.00.00)

The British writer and women’s rights advocate Harriet Taylor Mill was significantly inspired by the events of the convention, referencing the organizer’s work in her 1851 piece “The Enfranchisement of Women.”

The 1850 convention would be the first of many national events that would occur annually from this point forward for about a decade, setting a precedent for national suffrage organizing.

The twelfth and final Woman’s Rights Convention would be held in 1869 in Washington, D.C. This would be the last meeting of an organized suffrage front: later in 1869, the movement would split into two groups, divided by the issue of suffrage for other disenfranchised populations.

Under the leadership of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, the National Woman Suffrage Association directly opposed the 14th and 15th Amendments that would have allowed for African-American men to vote. Lucy Stone and others would go on to form the American Woman Suffrage Association, which supported the 15th Amendment. The suffrage movement would not see widespread unification again until 1890 with the establishment of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, bringing together Stanton, Anthony, Stone, Howe and other suffrage leaders, including Alice Paul and Mary Church Terrell. The group would hold its first convention in 1890 in Washington, D.C.

The 1850 National Woman’s Suffrage Convention represents a historic moment in the suffrage cause, on both scale and in terms of what resulted from the meeting. Although large suffrage conventions had been held in the past – most notably, the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention in New York -- this was the first time a convention of its sort was held on a national level.

This event set an organizing precedent within the suffrage movement for decades to come.

Learn more in “Women’s Suffrage in America: An Eyewitness History” by Elizabeth Frost-Knappman and Kathryn Cullen-DuPont, available at the Library.

2020 marks the centennial of women’s suffrage in the United States. Click here to learn how Arlington County is commemorating this milestone of civil rights.

This Week in 19th Amendment History: Agatha Tiegel Hanson

October 17, 1959

Celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment with stories about the people and events that led to the passage of women’s suffrage in the United States.

“Woman should be free as the air to learn what she will and to devote her life to whatever vocation seems good to her.”

On October 17, 1959, Agatha Tiegel Hanson, the first female graduate (and valedictorian) of Gallaudet University and an early champion of both deaf and women’s rights, passed away at age 86.

Video of Agatha Tiegel Hanson, reminiscing [about her college experiences] with unnamed younger people. From the Gallaudet Archives. No transcript, undated.

Hanson was born in 1873 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She became deaf and lost her eyesight in one eye at the age of 7 due to spinal meningitis. In 1888, at only 15 years old, Hanson enrolled at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., which remains to this day the world’s only university designed to be barrier-free for deaf and hard of hearing students. Gallaudet had only provisionally accepted a small group of female students by that time, and none of them had completed the requirements for a degree.

In 1888, when Hanson entered Gallaudet, women were permanently allowed enrollment to the university. Enrollment, however, came with limitations. Because of the dearth of facilities for women, all female students were required to live in House One, an on-campus residence that also served as the president’s home.

Women could only participate in campus extracurriculars by invitation, and were not allowed to participate in debates with male students. Female students were also not permitted to leave the campus alone, and could only attend classes, extracurriculars, and meetings of the campus’s male-led literary societies with a chaperone.

In response to these various barriers placed on women at the university, Hanson organized a women’s debate group that would meet in their residence at House One. Due to the success of this endeavor, by 1889 the university president lifted the ban on women’s activities.

Hanson and a fellow student, May Martin, established O.W.L.S., a secret society for women. The group would meet to debate, discuss poetry and literature, and establish bonds of sisterhood – filling in the social gaps left in their male majority campus. In January of 1892, the group held its first meeting, and Hanson was elected its first president. The group, now known as the Phi Kappa Zeta sorority, still has an active chapter on the Gallaudet campus.

National Deaf Life Museum, at Chapel Hall, Gallaudet University, 2019. From 2015-2017 the Museum presented Deaf HERstory, which will become part of their virtual exhibition in the near future. Photo courtesy of Michelle Fernandez.

Hanson graduated from Gallaudet in 1893 as the university’s first woman to receive a Bachelor of Arts degree, and first female valedictorian. Upon graduation, Hanson delivered the commencement speech, entitled “The Intellect of Women,” in which she railed against the structural inequalities that stood between women and success:

"That such repression and restraint upon mental action are artificial has been demonstrated in all ages by women whose independence has bust every fetter and won them recognition in the fields of sciences, theology, literature, politics, and art. It is impossible to estimate the immensity of the influence that woman's mind has exerted on the history of the world, an influence silently wielded and never obtruded, but of a potency inferior to no other. If, during these ages of wrong custom, of false sentiment, she has often retained much of her greatness of intellect and soul, she will better do justice to her inborn powers when she has room and light in which to grow."

Following her graduation from Gallaudet, Hanson went on to teach at the Minnesota School for the Deaf. She later relocated to the Pacific Northwest, where she became involved in the Puget Sound Association of the Deaf, the Episcopal Church’s deaf mission, and the Washington State Association of the Deaf.

Hanson was also a prolific writer, contributing to “The Silent Worker” – a national newspaper serving the deaf community – as well as publishing a book of poetry entitled “Overflow Verses.” She also later served as an editor at the Seattle Observer, a newspaper for the deaf.

Learn more about the disability rights movement in “A Disability History of the United States” by Kim E. Nielsen, available at the Library..

2020 marks the centennial of women’s suffrage in the United States. Learn how Arlington County is commemorating this milestone of civil rights on the Arlington County website.

Oral History: Presidential Sightings

Interview with Captain Carl Porter

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Oral histories are used to understand historical events, actors, and movements from the point of view of real people’s personal experiences.

Carl Washburn Porter, a retired Navy captain and veteran of both world wars, lived in Arlington for most of his life.

Porter’s father worked in construction in the area during the early 20th century and Carl worked alongside his father during the summers, often using a horse-drawn wagon to bring construction supplies to job sites throughout the county.

Carl Porter as Boy Scout, c. 1909. Porter was a member of Troop #1, one of the first Boy Scout troops organized in the United States.

On more than one occasion during his childhood, Porter saw some famous faces in his travels around the area. Porter and his father even met President Wilson when their car broke down on Lee Highway! Porter shares that story, and other tales of Presidential sightings, in the following audio clip:

Narrator: Captain Carl Porter
Interviewer: Arthur W. True
Date: March 5, 1975

CP: While I am speaking of this, I also remember another time that my dad was going up Lee Highway (above Cherrydale) and we had a flat tire; and this was not uncommon in those days. And Dad had pulled over to the far side of the road and just started to work on the car, when another car pulled up behind. Someone got out and walked over, and it was – again, it was President Wilson, who was probably on his way up to the Golf Club – and stopped and asked if they could be of any help in fixing the tire. It shows how times have changed.

While I am mentioning this, I also recall that Theodore Roosevelt (a number of years before that), when he was President, he used to walk around the area between the White House and the Ellipse and Lafayette Park; and I remember seeing him standing out on the street in from of the old Boy’s YMCA on G Street, between 17th and 18th Street, with derby hat, frock coat, and pince-nez glasses. I remember his sons, approximately the same age as my brother and me – they attended Friends School in Washington – but they were, of course, just the same as any other boys: they liked to play baseball and whatnot; and when they went into the White House, they wouldn’t hesitate to barge in the front door and yell, “Ma, where is my baseball glove?” or something like that – any more than youngsters do that we are familiar with, or as we did ourselves.

Porter died in 1989, at age 92. You can find his oral history interview in its entirety in the Center for Local History - VA 975.5295 A7243oh ser.2 no.23.

Photo: Carl Porter, Boy Scout Troop #1, c. 1909.

The goal of the Arlington Voices project is to showcase the Center for Local History’s oral history collection in a publicly accessible and shareable way.

The Arlington Public Library began collecting oral histories of long-time residents in the 1970s, and since then the scope of the collection has expanded to capture the diverse voices of Arlington’s community. In 2016, staff members and volunteers recorded many additional hours of interviews, building the collection to 575 catalogued oral histories.

To browse our list of narrators indexed by interview subject, check out our community archive. To read a full transcript of an interview, visit the Center for Local History located at Central Library.

Arlington’s Water System

Do you know where your water comes from? 

By the 1920s, while a few Arlington communities were serviced by privately-owned water companies (including Aurora Hills and Cherrydale) most of the County’s 16,040 residents got their water from individual shallow wells, which were inconvenient and susceptible to pollution.

Arlington County Water Department Float for the Water Carnival, November 1927

In 1922, the State of Virginia passed legislation to permit the establishment of sanitary districts within the County for the purpose of constructing water and sewer systems.

The Arlington County Board of Supervisors contracted engineer Asa E. Phillips to investigate options for a County-wide water system in 1926. Phillips and the County Board proposed a number of solutions to County residents. Eventually residents decided that instead of building its own water filtration plant Arlington County would request water from Washington, D.C., which had recently finished construction on the Dalecarlia Water Plant.

After Congress passed two authorizing acts – the first to allow the sale of the federal water supply to Arlington County, and the second to connect the federal water system to the Arlington County water system – and the Virginia General Assembly authorized bonds for the construction and operation of the water supply, construction began on the water main that would connect Dalecarlia to Lyonhurst Station in North Arlington, one of the highest points in the County. Lyonhurst Station was equipped with a pump station, a 260,000-
gallon water tower, and a 1.5- million gallon reservoir.

On November 3, 1927, public water supply service began in Arlington. The County declared a special holiday and threw a Water Carnival in Lyon Village to celebrate.  The Water Carnival consisted of a parade with floats decorated by various county groups, a fire hydrant demonstration, dancing, fireworks, a barbeque and even a jousting tournament! In the water spirit of the event, many of the afternoon activities were rained out, but that did not dampen the celebration too much, as the evening programs continued.

Dalecarlia Water Treatment Plant, 2011

The distribution system in Arlington has significantly expanded and updated from the original 1927 system, and improvements to the system, initiated in 1953, have since made Lyonhurst Station obsolete.

Arlington County's water source is the Potomac River. The water is then treated and comes to us from the Dalecarlia Water Treatment Plant, run by the Washington Aqueduct.

Read more about the Arlington County Water & Utilities Department and the water system:

To learn more about Arlington's history, visit the Center for Local History on the first floor of the Central Library.

Do you have a question about this story, or a personal experience to share? 

Use this form to send a message to the Center for Local History.

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Do you have a question about this story, or a personal experience to share? Use this form to send a message to the Center for Local History.

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Oral History: H-B Woodlawn Beginnings

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Interview with Ray Anderson, H-B Woodlawn Principal

It’s back-to-school season, so we're sharing a segment from a recent oral history recorded with Ray Anderson, former principal of the H-B Woodlawn Secondary Program.

H-B, as it’s commonly known, started in 1971 and spent almost fifty years on Vacation Lane in Cherrydale. This year the H-B Woodlawn Secondary Program moved to an entirely new building in Rosslyn to accommodate the growing number of students who want to attend the school.

The photo caption from the 1996 H-B Woodlawn yearbook reads, "It provides a good place to experiment and grow. It is a place where being different is not only accepted, but is the norm."

We wish all Arlington students and teachers a good start to the school year!

1996 H.B. Woodlawn yearbook, page 1.

Narrator: Ray Anderson
Interviewer: Emily Curley
Date: January 23, 2019

RA: I decided I—conventional school was too conventional for me and I was lucky enough to write up an idea, after two years, for a separate school. And in fact, I have the memo I wrote with me and in January of 1971, I commented on the racial, economic and social diversity of Arlington [0:07:00] and conditions in the schools and particularly at Wakefield. I made some recommendations about Wakefield and the last half of my memo started, “I recommend a system of rigid and closely supervised discipline.” Wow. Okay? “Since many of our present students and faculty will find that such system inhibits the learning process for them, I further recommend the establishment of a new high school in Arlington.” And then I go on for a couple of pages on what that would be.

It got passed around in Arlington, people wrote me notes and stuff like that. By March of ’71—because this is all reflecting the times, right?—the school board was having a hearing because they had three elementary schools they were closing to open the new Glebe School and they were closing Woodlawn, Langston, and Lee. Lee is now an art center on Lee Highway. Langston is still in the school system and used for educational purposes and a community center as well. And Woodlawn is now the hospice.

So I went to the school board and I gave them this memo, which is entitled, “A Proposal for an Experimental Free High School to be Created by the Arlington County School Board.” And it’s three pages long. That was kind of interesting but I didn’t expect anything to happen.

You can find Ray Anderson's interview in its entirety in the Center for Local History - VA 975.5295 A7243oh ser.3 no.425. Photo: 1996 H.B. Woodlawn yearbook, page 1. Call number: VA/X371.805 H431y 1996. Cover photo: Community Archives, Arlington Structures and Places, 1996-2006, H.B. Woodlawn, 1996, Object 933.

You can learn more about the history of H-B Woodlawn, including the new building in Rosslyn, on the H-B Woodlawn Secondary School website.

On This Day in 19th Amendment History: Mary Church Terrell

September 23, 1863

Celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment with stories about the people and events that led to the passage of women’s suffrage in the United States.

On September 23, 1863, renowned civil rights activist Mary Church Terrell was born in Memphis, Tennessee. A tireless champion of women’s rights and racial justice, Terrell was especially active in the Washington, D.C. area, where she lived for much of her life.

Mary Church Terrell, photo taken between 1880 and 1900, printed later. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

Mary Church Terrell was born to two former slaves turned successful entrepreneurs. Her father, Robert Church, was known as the South’s first black millionaire.

Her privileged upbringing placed Terrell among the rising black middle and upper classes who used their position to fight racial discrimination. She was one of the first black women to earn a college degree, and her studies at Oberlin College exposed her to the growing suffrage movement in the United States.

In the wake of Plessy v. Ferguson, the 1896 Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine, black women from across the country gathered at a three-day convention in Washington, D.C. This convention resulted in the birth of the National Association of Colored Women, which consolidated several advocacy groups into one. Terrell was elected the first president of the group at the end of the convention, serving until 1901 and coining the group’s motto, “Lifting as we climb.” As president, she toured the country giving lectures, and wrote various essays that were published in papers across the nation including “Lynching from a Negro’s Point of View,” which ran in the North American Review in 1904. An accomplished educator, Terrell made history as the first black woman on the D.C. Board of Education from 1895-1911.

Terrell was an active member of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), through which she developed a lifelong association with Susan B. Anthony. At the 1898 NAWSA convention, Terrell specifically appealed to the organization to fight for the enfranchisement of black women. Between 1904 and the ratification of the 19th amendment in 1920, she was active in the suffrage cause as a lecturer, writer and organizer in Washington, D.C. and across the nation. In 1904, she was the first black woman to attend the International Congress of Women in Berlin, where she delivered her speech in German, French, and English. She was a founding member of the NAACP, signing onto its charter in 1909.

In 1913, the day before Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration, Terrell led the Delta Sigma Theta sorority of Howard University in a strike organized by NAWSA in support of women’s suffrage. Two presidential terms later, she was involved in the Republican Party’s organizational efforts, campaigning for Warren G. Harding in 1919. Harding won the 1920 election, the first in which (predominantly white) women could vote. While the fight for women’s suffrage was settled, many black women, particularly in the South, remained disenfranchised. It would be decades before the Voting Rights Act overturned discriminatory voter registration laws. Knowing the fight was not over, Terrell remained a dedicated activist for the rest of her life.

Mary Church Terrell, three-quarter length portrait, seated, facing front. Harris & Ewing, photographer, taken between 1920 and 1940. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

In 1950, long after the fight for suffrage had been won, Terrell again gained visibility as an activist, this time in the fight for racial justice. That January, 86-year-old Terrell entered Thompson’s Restaurant in Washington, D.C., which was still segregated. The restaurant refused to serve Terrell and her companions. This set off a 3-year court battle, ultimately resulting in a unanimous ruling in District of Columbia v. John R. Thompson Co., Inc., which formally desegregated Washington, D.C., restaurants.

Learn more about Mary Church Terrell in “Just Another Southern Town: Mary Church Terrell and the Struggle for Racial Justice in the Nation's Capital” by Joan Quigley, available at the Library.

2020 marks the centennial of women’s suffrage in the United States. Learn how Arlington County is commemorating this milestone of civil rights on the Arlington County website.

Hoover Airport

Arlington has had congested traffic conditions for almost 100 years...

Cars driving on Military Road as a small plane flies in to land at Hoover Airfield, mid-1930s

In 1925, Thomas Mitten, head of the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company, sought to begin daily passenger flights between Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. as part of the 150th celebration of the Declaration of Independence.

Finding no appropriate airfield in the District, Mitten selected a new site in Arlington to build an airfield, at the present-day site of the Pentagon. The land was just large enough for a single runway and a small hangar.

Plane flying over Military Road to land, 1935

On July 16, 1926, 150 years after the signing of the Declaration, the airfield was christened Hoover Field (after then-Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover) and started passenger and mail air services.

Herbert Hoover (4th from left), Secretary of Commerce, at the opening of Hoover Field with one of the three Fokker Planes of PRT Flights to Philadelphia Sesquicentennial Expo, July 16, 1926.

Hoover Field quickly became known as one of the most dangerous airfields in the country. Multiple problems plagued the field including a major road—Military Road— that ran along the east side of the field, poor visibility from the nearby landfill that burned trash, and a site that was too small to viably hold an airfield.

Hoover Airplane

Fokker F-VII Trimotor "Wilbur," operated by the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Air Service between Philadelphia, Washington, and Norfolk, VA for transportation of mail, freight, and passengers at Hoover Field, 1926.

In 1927 a second airfield named Washington Airport opened on land directly adjacent to Hoover Field. The two airfields operated jointly for a time and in 1933 they merged under the name Washington-Hoover Airport.

Washington-Hoover Airport did not yield better safety results than Hoover Field, as they had a reputation of having the poorest aviation ground facilities of any major city in the United States.

Military Road now ran between the two airfields, so airport management attempted to stop traffic on the road to allow planes to land and take off, but were fined by county officials for obstructing traffic. It took a congressional act to allow the airport to install traffic lights, but even with these lights, the road caused dangerous and confusing conditions for both pilots and drivers as seen in the first photograph.

Eventually Military Road was rerouted around the airport.

Washington-Hoover Airport remained open until 1941. With the opening of the much larger Washington National Airport (now known as Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport), Washington-Hoover was no longer needed. The land was purchased by the United States Department of War, and became part of The Pentagon’s grounds.

Hoover Airport (lower right) with Blimp Hangar and two plane hangars; Washington Airport (center lower left); Military Road bisects the two fields, mid-1930s.

To learn more about Arlington's history, visit the Center for Local History on the first floor of the Central Library.

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