In 1957, there were 46,206 registered voters in Arlington County, and there were 37 election precincts.

25 years before, when the first County Board members were elected under the current County Manager system of government on November 3rd, 1931, only 6,700 people voted in 11 districts around the county.

How did Arlingtonians vote in the 1950s? Voting machines! The photograph above shows county employees moving voting machines in August, 1956. The Public Buildings Division of the Department of Public Service had 32 employees during the 1956/1957 financial year. Besides caring for all county buildings, except public schools, the unit handled the maintenance, set up and storage for all 110 of the county’s voting machines.

The information here can be found in the 1956/1957 Arlington County Annual Report. These reports, found in the Virginia Room, give statistics and descriptions of all departments of the county government from the 1940s into the 1980s. They provide a wonderful snapshot of Arlington County for any given year.

What About You?

Do you remember elections in Arlington? What was it like to vote? Let us know what you remember!

Oral History Excerpt with Tally Bowman

Speaking of a neighborhood woman who was a member of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union who gave “interesting” Halloween parties:

“She used to give Halloween parties to all the children in the neighborhood and show them these movies on people drunk…they were silent movies. And these men [in the films] would get their paychecks and go to a saloon, you know, and then go out…and our kids had never seen anything like that and…this was trying to teach them not to do this sort of thing I guess. And it was a couple of Halloweens before we found out. She had lots of cookies and lots of punch, that’s the only thing [the kids] would talk about . . .

“Then one year a friend of Mrs. Bowman’s said to her, ‘Well, you know what happened at our house last night?’ Bill, her oldest boy…about seven years old…her husband was late coming home…he was a lawyer in the government and he had real high job over there. She said, ‘Well, I wonder what happened to Daddy?’ And he said, ‘Well, maybe he stopped by the saloon and got some beers.’ And she said, ‘Where did you get that from?’ So on questioning him and feeding him some ice cream and cake, she found out that he found it out over there at the Halloween party!

“When the neighbor who had been giving the ‘parties’ was confronted she thought what happened was great, but she quit giving the parties because she refused to give up showing the movies, and her ‘secret’ was out! Everyone, however, according to Mrs. Bowman, had a good laugh over it!”

The quote above is from our oral history collection, which you can find in the library catalog. Oral history tapes and transcripts are available in the Virginia Room.

What About You?

What kind of Halloween parties did you attend in Arlington? What was trick-or-treating like? Let us know what you remember!

Clarendon in the 1940s

In 1900 when Clarendon was established as a village, it consisted of 25 acres intersected by Wilson Boulevard and bounded by Jackson Street on the west and Highland and Herndon Streets on the east.

An electric trolley line furnished transportation, and the Clarendon Citizens Association organized a firefighting force in 1909.

By the 1940’s, when this photograph was taken, Clarendon was Arlington’s “downtown” area, the place to shop, with not only Yeatman’s Hardware, pictured in the upper right, but also a Sears, J.C. Penney’s and Woolworth’s in the main Wilson Boulevard corridor. This photograph is where Wilson Boulevard merges with N. Hartford and N. Highland Streets.

What About You?

What was Clarendon like in the 1940s and 1950s? How has it changed over the years? Let us know what you remember!

In the first PTA Bulletin (September 1953), the staff was described as follows:

77 members hold BA’s
33 members hold MA’s
2 members hold PhD’s

Average number of years experience in the profession: 6

The goal for the first PTA night was 1,000 members and those who wished to join were asked to “bring pencils, as well as the correct amount of money for dues – $1 for each family or 75 cents for an individual parent or teacher.”

The Virginia Room holds an almost complete run of Wakefield High School yearbooks, and the Community Archives holds PTA and school records, including student-created posters for the 1970-71 school year. The Virginia Room is also the official repository for the Arlington County School Board records.

Alumni and friends will be on hand for the Virginia Room’s “Arlington Reunion” program Friday, September 29, at 10 a.m. in the Central Library auditorium to share their memories of Wakefield. If you have stories to share come join us for the program!

What About You?

Did you go to Wakefield High School? Let us know what you remember!

Herman J. Obermayer, former owner of the Northern Virginia Sun and first openly Jewish member of the Washington Golf and Country Club in the twentieth century:

“I joined in ’77 so a year or so earlier I was contacted by two friends of mine who were prominent in the community who I knew who said would I like to become a member, that they thought it was about time to have a Jewish member and I could afford it and I was prominent and blah, blah.

“I said yes if there would not be a fight. It didn’t mean that much. . . But if they wanted me I thought it would add a dimension to my life and I’d be glad to if I wasn’t going to be in a fight.

“Within a month or two they contacted me and said there wouldn’t be. These friends of mine who shepherded me through reported that there was a single member of the board who was opposed to having a Jewish member and that most of the leaders felt very positively that it was time for Washington Golf and Country Club to have Jewish members and if I was willing to be a member they would like to have me.

“I had the particularly gratifying experience of having seven or eight sponsoring letters from people when they heard this was coming up wanted to get involved in supporting us. I’d like to believe it was because we were so charming but I really believe its because they really thought it was time for Washington Golf and Country Club not to be known as a place that excluded Jews. And we have now belonged 26 or 27 years and I have never had a single question about anything. In the meantime I indicated that I hoped I wouldn’t be a token, that they would take in other Jews. I didn’t make any conditions. Within a very few years they took in several.”

The image above was taken from a Franklin Survey map book of Arlington, published in 1935. The quote above is from our oral history collection, which you can find in the library catalog. Survey and plat map books, and oral history tapes and transcripts are available in the Virginia Room.

What About You?
What do you remember about Washington Golf and Country Club? What are your experiences with the Jewish community in Arlington? Let us know what you remember!

In 1908, Orville Wright arrived in Arlington to show his “flying machine” to military officers at Fort Myer.

The army had requested bids for a plane that could hold two men and fly for at least one hour for observation and reconnaissance purposes. Orville and his brother Wilbur built the machine and Orville brought it to Fort Myer for a demonstration. Orville made several flights in the first two weeks of September, setting new endurance records and impressing his audience, which included interested members of the public. However, on his last flight on the 17th, the plane crashed. Wright was injured and Lt. Thomas E. Selfridge was killed. The Selfridge Gate of Arlington National Cemetery now stands near the crash site.

Despite the crash, the US Army was interested in Wright’s machine. The brothers made improvements to the plane when it was repaired, and did a new round of flights at Fort Myer during the summer of 1909. The new machine was bought by the Army and called Signal Corps Airplane No. 1.

Silent film footage of a 1908 flight have been recently found at Fort Myer. The Virginia Room holds maps and reports documenting Fort Myer at the start of the 20th century.

What About You?

Were you or a family member stationed at Fort Meyer? Did you ever attend one of their public events? Let us know what you remember!