Dispatches from DC
Stories and podcasts about the District’s past—and its future
The Case of the Missing Liberty Bell
washingtonian
How did Washington, DC, lose a 2,080-pound replica of the country’s most famous bell? And can a DC Council employee find it almost 50 years later?
S-P-E-L-L-I-N-G in Segregated Washington, DC
washington post
Zaila Avant-garde, the first African American to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee, was inspired by a black girl named MacNolia Cox, who spelled her way to Washington in 1936.
News From Over There
smithsonian magazine
A Washington, DC, house fire inspired Andrew Carroll to undertake an unprecedented effort to find and preserve a million letter from U.S. service members during wartime.
DC Freeway Revolt
echoes + rhymes podcast
In the debut season of Echoes + Rhymes, we go into the archives to hear the history of the DC Freeway Revolt from those who were a part of that long-ago fight. It was a fight for community, for equality, for representation, and for environmental justice. It’s a fight that has not yet ended.
When the US Government Fought Against Victory Gardens
atlas obscura
During the first World War victory gardens bloomed along the National Mall. Why did the Department of Agriculture try to discourage the District’s gardeners—Eleanor Roosevelt among them—at the dawn of World War II?
Living With the Damage
washington post
Preserving the damage of the January 6th insurrection inside one of the U.S. Capitol would have been an immediate and profound act of remembrance.