1943, THE JEFFERSON MEMORIAL IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

Today, The Grandma has remembered the last time she visited Washington, D.C., one of the most beautiful cities of the United States of America.

 

She enjoyed the city, and she visited all the important monuments, especially the Jefferson Memorial, the presidential memorial that was dedicated on the 200th anniversary of President Thomas Jefferson's birth.

The Jefferson Memorial is a presidential memorial built in Washington, D.C. between 1939 and 1943 under the sponsorship of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt thought that it was a suitable memorial to the Founding Fathers of the United States and to Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the founder of the Democratic-Republican Party.

The neoclassical building is situated in West Potomac Park on the shore of the Potomac River. It was designed by John Russell Pope and built by Philadelphia contractor John McShain. Construction began in 1939 and was completed in 1943.

The bronze statue of Jefferson was added in 1947. Pope made references to the Roman Pantheon whose designer was Apollodorus of Damascus, and to Jefferson's own design for the rotunda at the University of Virginia.

The Jefferson Memorial and the White House form one of the main anchor points in the area of the National Mall in D.C. 

The Washington Monument was intended to be located at the intersection of the White House and the site for the Jefferson Memorial, but soft swampy ground required that it be situated to the east.

The national memorial is managed by the National Park Service of the Department of the Interior under its National Mall and Memorial Parks division.

In 2007, it was ranked fourth on the List of America's Favorite Architecture by the American Institute of Architects.

It became apparent that the site was well suited for another high-profile memorial since it sat directly south of the White House. By 1901 the Senate Park Commission, better known as the McMillan Commission, had proposed placing a Pantheon-like structure on the site hosting the statues of the illustrious men of the nation, or whether the memory of some individual shall be honored by a monument of the first rank may be left to the future; no action was ever taken by Congress on this issue.

More information: NPS

The completion of the Tidal Basin Inlet Bridge in 1908 helped to facilitate the recreational usage of East and West Potomac Parks. In 1918, large liquid-chlorine dispensers were installed under the bridge to treat the water and make the Tidal Basin, also known as Twining Lake, suitable for swimming.

The Tidal Basin Beach, on the site of the future Memorial, opened in May 1918 and operated as a Whites Only facility until 1925, when it was permanently closed to avoid the question of racial integration.

A design competition was held for a memorial to Theodore Roosevelt in 1925. The winning design was submitted by John Russell Pope and consisted of a half-circle memorial situated next to a circular basin. The plan was never funded by Congress and was not built.

The Memorial's chance came in 1934 when President Franklin Roosevelt, an admirer of Jefferson, in large part because of the book on Jefferson by his friend Claude G. Bowers, inquired to the Commission of Fine Arts about the possibility of erecting a memorial to Jefferson, including it in the plans for the Federal Triangle project, which was under construction at the time.

Later the same year, Congressman John J. Boylan followed FDR's lead and urged Congress to create the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Commission. Boylan was appointed the Commission's first chairman and Congress eventually appropriated $3 million for a memorial to Jefferson.

The Commission chose John Russell Pope as the architect in 1935. Pope was also the architect of the National Archives Building and original (west) building of the National Gallery of Art. He prepared four different plans for the project, each on a different site. One was on the Anacostia River at the end of East Capitol Street; one at Lincoln Park; one on the south side of the National Mall across from the National Archives; and one situated on the Tidal Basin, directly south of the White House.

The Commission preferred the site on the Tidal Basin mainly because it was the most prominent site and because it completed the four-point plan called for by the McMillan Commission (Lincoln Memorial to the Capitol; White House to the Tidal Basin site). Pope designed a very large pantheon-like structure, to sit on a square platform, and to be flanked by two smaller, rectangular, colonnaded buildings.

The site of the monument is in West Potomac Park, in Washington, D.C., on the shore of the Potomac River Tidal Basin, and is enhanced with the massed planting of Japanese cherry trees, a gift from the people of Japan in 1912.

Although the Jefferson Memorial is geographically removed from other buildings and monuments in Washington, D.C., as well as from the National Mall and the Washington Metro, it plays host to many events and ceremonies each year, including memorial exercises, the Easter Sunrise Service, and the annual National Cherry Blossom Festival.

More information: Washington, D.C.

I like the dreams of the future better

than the history of the past.

Thomas Jefferson

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS IN WASHINGTON, D.C. BURNS

Today, The Grandma has been reading about the Library of Congress, one of the most interesting cultural places that you can visit and enjoy in Washington, D.C., and a place that burnt on a day like today in 1851.

The Library of Congress (LC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the de facto national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States.

The library is housed in three buildings on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.; it also maintains a conservation center in Culpeper, Virginia.

The library's functions are overseen by the Librarian of Congress, and its buildings are maintained by the Architect of the Capitol.

The Library of Congress is one of the largest libraries in the world. Its collections are universal, not limited by subject, format, or national boundary, and include research materials from all parts of the world and in more than 450 languages.

Congress moved to Washington, D.C., in 1800 after holding sessions for 11 years in the temporary national capitals in New York City and Philadelphia. In both cities, members of the U.S. Congress had access to the sizable collections of the New York Society Library and the Library Company of Philadelphia.

The small Congressional Library was housed in the United States Capitol for most of the 19th century until the early 1890s.

Most of the original collection was burnt by the British during the War of 1812, with the library beginning efforts to restore its collection in 1815.

The library purchased Thomas Jefferson's entire personal collection of 6,487 books, and its collection slowly expanded in the following years, although it suffered another fire in its Capitol chambers in 1851. This destroyed a large amount of the collection, including many of Jefferson's books.

More information: Library of Congress

After the American Civil War, the importance of the Library of Congress increased with its growth, and there was a campaign to purchase replacement copies for volumes that had been burned. The library received the right of transference of all copyrighted works to deposit two copies of books, maps, illustrations, and diagrams printed in the United States. It also began to build its collections.

Its development culminated between 1888 and 1894 with the construction of its own separate, large library building across the street from the Capitol. Two additional buildings have been constructed nearby to hold collections and provide services, one in the 1930s and one in the 1970s.

The library's primary mission is to research inquiries made by members of Congress, which is carried out through the Congressional Research Service. It also houses and oversees the United States Copyright Office. The library is open to the public for research, although only high-ranking government officials and library employees may check out books and materials.

James Madison of Virginia is credited with the idea of creating a congressional library, first making such a proposition in 1783.

The Library of Congress was subsequently established on April 24, 1800, when President John Adams signed an act of Congress also providing for the transfer of the seat of government from Philadelphia to the new capital city of Washington.

Part of the legislation appropriated $5,000 for the purchase of such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress... and for fitting up a suitable apartment for containing them.

 

Books were ordered from London, and the collection consisted of 740 books and three maps, which were housed in the new United States Capitol.

President Thomas Jefferson played an important role in establishing the structure of the Library of Congress.

On January 26, 1802, he signed a bill that allowed the president to appoint the librarian of Congress and establishing a Joint Committee on the Library to regulate and oversee it. The new law also extended borrowing privileges to the president and vice president.

In August 1814, after routing an American militia at Bladensburg, the British bloodlessly occupied Washington, D.C. In retaliation for the American destruction of Port Dover, the British ordered the destruction of numerous public buildings in the city.

British troops burned the Library of Congress, including its collection of 3,000 volumes. These volumes had been held in the Senate wing of the Capitol. One of the few congressional volumes to survive was a government account book of receipts and expenditures for 1810. It was taken as a souvenir by British naval officer Sir George Cockburn, whose family returned it to the United States government in 1940.

On December 24, 1851, the largest fire in the library's history destroyed 35,000 books, about two–thirds of the library's collection and two-thirds of Jefferson's original transfer. 

Congress appropriated $168,700 to replace the lost books in 1852 but not to acquire new materials. By 2008, the librarians of Congress had found replacements for all but 300 of the works that had been documented as being in Jefferson's original collection.

More information: Pentagram

In 1859, Congress transferred the library's public document distribution activities to the Department of the Interior and its international book exchange program to the Department of State.

The Library of Congress contents:

-American Memory created in 1990, which became The National Digital Library in 1994. It provides free access online to digitized American history and culture resources, including primary sources, with curatorial explanations to support use in K-12 education.

-thomas.gov website launched in 1994 to provide free public access to U.S. federal legislative information with ongoing updates; and congress.gov website to provide a state-of-the-art framework for both Congress and the public in 2012;

-The National Book Festival, founded in 2000 with First Lady Laura Bush, has attracted more than 1000 authors and a million guests to the National Mall and the Washington Convention Center to celebrate reading. With a major gift from David Rubenstein in 2013, the library established the Library of Congress Literacy Awards to recognize and support achievements in improving literacy in the U.S. and abroad;

-The Kluge Center, started with a grant of $60 million from John W. Kluge in 2000, this brings international scholars and researchers to use library resources and to interact with policymakers and the public. It hosts public lectures and scholarly events, provides endowed Kluge fellowships, and awards The Kluge Prize for the Study of Humanity (now worth $1.5 million), the first Nobel-level international prize for lifetime achievement in the humanities and social sciences (subjects not included in the Nobel awards);

-Open World Leadership Center, established in 2000, by 2015 this program administered 23,000 professional exchanges for emerging post-Soviet leaders in Russia, Ukraine, and other successor states of the former USSR. Open World began as a Library of Congress project, and later was established as an independent agency in the legislative branch.

-The Veterans History Project, congressionally mandated in 2000 to collect, preserve, and make accessible the personal accounts of American war veterans from WWI to the present day;

-The National Audio-Visual Conservation Center opened in 2007 at a 45-acre site in Culpeper, Virginia, established with a gift of more than $150 million by the Packard Humanities Institute, and $82.1 million in additional support from Congress.

Since 1988, the library has administered the National Film Preservation Board. Established by congressional mandate, it selects American films annually for preservation and inclusion in the new National Registry, a collection of American films.

The library has made these available on the Internet for free streaming.

More information: Twitter-Library of Congress

By 2015, the librarian had named 650 films to the registry. The films in the collection date from the earliest to ones produced more than ten years ago; they are selected from nominations submitted to the board.

-The Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, was launched in 2007 to honor the work of an artist whose career reflects lifetime achievement in song composition. Winners have included Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney, Burt Bacharach and Hal David, Carole King, Billy Joel, and Willie Nelson, as of 2015. The library also launched the Living Legend Awards in 2000 to honor artists, activists, filmmakers, and others who have contributed to America's diverse cultural, scientific, and social heritage;

-The Fiction Prize, now the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction, was started in 2008 to recognize distinguished lifetime achievement in the writing of fiction.

-The World Digital Library, established in association with UNESCO and 181 partners in 81 countries in 2009, makes copies of professionally curated primary materials of the world's varied cultures freely available online in multiple languages.

-National Jukebox, launched in 2011, provides streaming free online access to more than 10,000 out-of-print music and spoken word recordings.

-BARD was started in 2013; it is a digital, talking books mobile app for Braille and Audio Reading Downloads, in partnership with the library's National Library Service for the blind and physically handicapped. It enables free downloads of audio and Braille books to mobile devices via the Apple App Store.

More information: USG

A library is the delivery room for the birth of ideas,
a place where history comes to life.

Norman Cousins

1932, THE FBI LABORATORY OPENS IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

Today, The Grandma has been reading about the FBI Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory, a division within the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation that officially opened in Washington, D.C. on a day like today in 1932.

The FBI Laboratory is a division within the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation that provides forensic analysis support services to the FBI, as well as to state and local law enforcement agencies, free of charge.

The lab is located at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Quantico, Virginia.

Opened November 24, 1932, the lab was first known as the Technical Laboratory. It became a separate division when the Bureau of Investigation (BOI) was renamed as the FBI.

The Lab staffs approximately 500 scientific experts and special agents. The lab generally enjoys the reputation as the premier crime lab in the United States. However, during the 1990s, its reputation and integrity came under withering criticism, primarily due to the revelations of Special Agent Dr. Frederic Whitehurst, the most prominent whistleblower in the history of the Bureau. 

Whitehurst was a harsh critic of conduct at the Lab. He believed that a lack of funding had affected operations and that Lab technicians had a pro-prosecution bias. He suggested they were FBI agents first and forensic scientists second, due to the institutional culture of the Bureau, which resulted in the tainting of evidence.

From September 1934 to September 1975, the Lab was located on the 6th floor and the attic of the Justice Department Building in Washington, D.C. Public tours of the lab work area were available until the FBI moved across the street to the newly constructed J. Edgar Hoover Building in 1974.

Tours of the J. Edgar Hoover Building were available, but the tour route shifted away from the lab work space, thus sealing the lab from public view.

More information: FBI

The Lab expanded to such an extent that the Forensic Science Research and Training Center (FSRTC) was established at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia.

Methods at the FSRTC have helped establish standardized forensic practices for law enforcement agencies. The FBI Lab has been in Quantico since the relocation from Washington since April 2003.

The more widespread use of DNA testing in the late 20th century brought renewed scrutiny to the scientific reliability of many of the FBI Laboratory's forensic analyses. Scientific experts consider DNA -which first became widely used in courts in the 1990s- to be the only near-certain indicator of a forensic match.

The scientific reliability of FBI hair analysis has been questioned, as DNA testing has exonerated persons convicted where the only physical evidence was hair analysis. In addition, in a high percentage of cases, the FBI has learned that its expert witnesses overstated the reliability of hair analysis in testimony in court cases.

In 2013 the Department of Justice began a review of thousands of cases from 1982 through 1999 referred to the FBI for hair analysis.

By 2015 it found that these included 32 death penalty convictions, of which 14 people had died in prison or been executed, and narrowed its review to cases that went to court. It has focused on cases in which hair analysis played a part in convictions, in order to follow up with defendants.

In a subsequent investigation in 2012, the DOJ found that evidence related to hair analysis had been falsified, altered, or suppressed, or that FBI agents had overstated the scientific basis of their testimony, to the detriment of defendants. In 2013, the Department of Justice began a review of cases referred to them for hair analysis from 1982 through 1999, as many as 10,000 cases, to determine whether their agents' testimony resulted in wrongful convictions.

DNA testing has revealed some convicted inmates to be innocent of violent crime charges against them.

In 2015 the FBI reported that their expert witnesses overstated the reliability of hair analysis in matching suspects 96 percent of the time, likely influencing conviction of some defendants.

More information: Washingtonian

Cases are still being overturned as a result of incorrect hair analysis testimony.

In 2012 DNA testing revealed the innocence of three inmates from the District of Columbia who had been convicted to life and served years in prison based on hair analysis evidence and testimony by FBI experts. They have received large settlements from the city because of wrongful convictions and damages of the lost years.

Bullet and gun analysis is another forensic discipline that has been identified in recent studies as being less scientifically reliable than thought. The Bureau established an interdisciplinary commission in 2013 to establish the highest scientific standards in forensic testing and to understand the limits of these tests, and how they may be properly used in court.

With a heightened attention to scientific rigour in its forensic testing, the FBI lab in 2005 abandoned its four-decade-long practice of tracing bullets to a specific manufacturer's batch through chemical analysis, after its methods were scientifically debunked.

A blue-ribbon panel of the National Academy of Sciences raised concerns about the FBI's reliance on forensic testing in a 2009 report that found nearly every familiar staple of forensic science to be scientifically unsound and highly subjective.

In 2016 a man was exonerated and freed in Virginia, based on DNA evidence, after serving 33 years in prison. He had been convicted of rape and murder and sentenced to life in part based on several FBI experts testifying to identification of him by bite-mark patterns, to a medical certainty.

Scientists say that such certainty is impossible to gain by this test. The DNA testing showed that he was not the perpetrator of the crime. As the Washington Post reported, No court in the United States has barred bite-mark evidence, despite 21 known wrongful convictions, a proposed moratorium in Texas and research showing that experts cannot consistently agree even on whether injuries are caused by human teeth.

This forensic test has been highly suspect for some years, but prosecutors and police continue to rely on it, and FBI agents make claims about it.

More information: PBS Learning Media

I taught at the FBI for four decades
-how to think outside of the box and deal
with social engineering.

Frank Abagnale

WOMAN SUFFRAGE PROCESSION IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

March, 8 is near and The Grandma has been reading about the first suffragist parade in Washington, D.C. known as the Woman Suffrage Procession in 1913.

The Woman Suffrage Procession in 1913, was the first suffragist parade in Washington, D.C.

It was also the first large, organized march on Washington for political purposes.

The procession was organized by the suffragists Alice Paul and Lucy Burns for the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA).

Planning for the event began in Washington in December 1912. The parade's purpose, stated in its official program, was to march in a spirit of protest against the present political organization of society, from which women are excluded.

Participation numbers vary between 5,000 and 10,000 marchers. Suffragists and supporters marched down Pennsylvania Avenue on Monday, March 3, 1913, the day before President Woodrow Wilson's inauguration. Paul had selected the venue and date to maximize publicity, but met resistance from the D.C. police department.

More information: National Park Service

The demonstration consisted of a procession with floats, bands, and various groups representing women at home, in school, and in the workplace. At the Treasury Building, a pageant of allegorical tableaux was acted out during the parade. The final act was a rally at the Memorial Continental Hall with prominent speakers, including Anna Howard Shaw and Helen Keller.

Prior to the event, the issue of black participation in the march threatened to cause a rift with delegations from Southern states. Some blacks did march with state delegations. A group from Howard University participated in the parade. It is often said that black women were segregated at the back of the parade, however, contemporaneous sources confirm they marched with their respective state delegations or professional groups.

More information: Social Welfare

During the procession, district police failed to keep the enormous crowd off the street, impeding the marchers' progress. Many participants were subjected to heckling from spectators, though there were also many supporters present. The marchers were finally assisted by citizens' groups and eventually the cavalry.

The police were subjected to a congressional inquiry due to security failures. The event premiered Paul's campaign to refocus the suffrage movement on obtaining a national constitutional amendment for woman's suffrage. Intended to pressure President Wilson to support an amendment, he resisted their demands for years afterward.

More information: Time

American suffragists Alice Paul and Lucy Burns spearheaded a drive to adopt a national strategy for women's suffrage in the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Paul and Burns had seen first-hand the effectiveness of militant activism while working for Emmeline Pankhurst in the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in Britain.

Their education included rallies, marches, and demonstrations, knowledge of which the two would put to work back in America. They already had first-hand experience with imprisonment as a backlash against suffrage activism. They had gone on hunger strikes and suffered force-feeding. They were not afraid to be provocative, even knowing the potential consequences. The procession would be their first foray into moving into militant mode on a national stage.

More information: Timeline

According to the media, the suffrage parade had become the primary draw over the inauguration itself. Special suffrage trains were hired to bring spectators from other cities, adding to the crowds in Washington. The novelty of the procession attracted enormous interest throughout the eastern U.S.

As the parade participants gathered near the Peace Monument around noon, the police began roping off part of the parade route. Even before the parade began, the ropes were badly stretched and coming loose in places. The procession drew such a crowd that President-elect Wilson was mystified about why there were no people to be seen when he arrived in town that day.

More information: The Atlantic

 We women of America tell you that
America is not a democracy.
Twenty million women
are denied the right to vote.

Alice Paul

WASHINGTON, D.C., THE AMERICAN IDIOSYNCRASY

The Beans arriving to the Treasury Building

Yesterday, The Beans said goodbye to Washington, D.C. They chose the last places to visit and they have a closer relationship with the idiosyncrasy of the country. 

For one hand, they visited the Treasury Building, symbol of the economical power in the country which represents better the idea of capitalism. 

For other hand, the family visited Arlington Cemetery, symbol of the politican and military power of the USA.

Finally, The Grandma wanted to visit the Lincoln Memorial to tribute Abraham Lincoln and to remember another important figure of the recent American history: Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Treasury Building in Washington, D.C., is a National Historic Landmark building which is the headquarters of the United States Department of the Treasury. An image of the Treasury Building is featured on the back of the United States ten-dollar bill.

In the spring of the year 1800, the capital of the United States was preparing to move from the well-established city of Philadelphia to a parcel of tidewater land along the Potomac River. President John Adams issued an Executive Order on May 15th instructing the federal government to move to Washington and to be open for business by June 15, 1800. Arriving in Washington, relocated government employees found only one building completed and ready to be occupied: the Treasury Department building. The building was 147 feet long and 57 feet wide, flanking the south-east end of the White House.

More information: U.S.Department of the Treasury

Arlington National Cemetery is a United States military cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., in whose 253 ha the dead of the nation's conflicts have been buried, beginning with the Civil War, as well as reinterred dead from earlier wars. The United States Department of the Army, a component of the United States Department of Defense, controls the cemetery. The national cemetery was established during the Civil War on the grounds of Arlington House, which had been the estate of the family of Confederate general Robert E. Lee's wife Mary Anna (Custis) Lee, a great-granddaughter of Martha Washington.

More information: Arlington Cemetery

The Lincoln Memorial is an American national monument built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. It is located on the western end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., across from the Washington Monument. Dedicated in 1922, it is one of several monuments built to honor an American president. It has always been a major tourist attraction and since the 1930s has been a symbolic center focused on race relations.

Grandma's memories with Martin Luther King, Jr.

The building is in the form of a Greek Doric temple and contains a large seated sculpture of Abraham Lincoln and inscriptions of two well-known speeches by Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address and his Second Inaugural Address. 

The memorial has been the site of many famous speeches, including Martin Luther King Jr.'s I Have a Dream speech, delivered on August 28, 1963, during the rally at the end of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

Like other monuments on the National Mall, the memorial is administered by the National Park Service under its National Mall and Memorial Parks group.

More information: Lincoln Memorial

I got my story, my dream, from America. 

The hero I had is Forrest Gump... I like that guy.
 

Jack Ma