Collection The Decatur House Slave Quarters
In 1821-1822, Susan Decatur requested the construction of a service wing. The first floor featured a large kitchen, dining room,...
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Photo of Colonel Edward Creston Gleed, courtesy of Carolyn Weaver, second cousin to the author and daughter of Col. Gleed.
Courtesy of Carolyn WeaverCol. Gleed can be seen in the top left photo leaning on an airplane in 1945 in Italy when he was still a major.
Stephen E. HammondAbout this Gallery
Nancy Syphax was a member of a prominent Washington, D.C. family that was considered to be among the “Black Elite” during the nineteenth century.1 Unfortunately, Nancy did not share the same status as most of her family. Instead, she worked as an enslaved house servant in the President’s Neighborhood at Decatur House for John Gadsby from at least 1836 until his death in May 1844. Most of her other family members in the District of Columbia were freed by 1837 through the efforts of her father William Syphax—however both she and her brother Charles remained enslaved until 1862. Colonel Edward Creston Gleed was a great-grandchild of Nancy Syphax. He served in the United States Air Force during World War II as a Tuskegee Airman in the famed 332 Fighter Group. Click here to read the full article about Nancy Syphax.
In 1821-1822, Susan Decatur requested the construction of a service wing. The first floor featured a large kitchen, dining room,...
Built in 1818-1819, Decatur House was designed by the English architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe for Commodore Stephen Decatur and Susan...
In 1868, Elizabeth (Lizzy) Hobbs Keckly (also spelled Keckley) published her memoir Behind the Scenes or Thirty Years a Slave, and...
President William Henry Harrison’s famously brief month-long tenure at the White House makes it difficult to research the inner wo...
Without photographs, paintings, or other visual representations of the Decatur House Slave Quarters from the antebellum period, it is difficult...
Through research and analysis of written accounts, letters, newspapers, memoirs, census records, architecture, and oral histories, historians, museum professionals, and...
James Buchanan is often regarded as one of the worst presidents in United States history.1 Many historians contend that Buchanan’s...
On February 11, 1829, members of Congress convened to certify votes for President and Vice President of the United States as Andrew...
Although Michelle Obama was the first African-American first lady of the United States, African Americans have been integrally involved in...
In the late eighteenth century, the original thirteen colonies dissolved and formed the United States. In 1787, delegates to the Constitutional...
On April 16, 1862, Congress passed the Compensated Emancipation Act, ending slavery in the District of Columbia and delivering long-awaited freedom to...
January 1, 1863 was a watershed moment in American history. That morning, President Abraham Lincoln hosted the annual New Year’s Day re...