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[Map]
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7th
Street, east side, decorated for President James Garfield’s inauguration,
March 4, 1881. The Washington Sängerbund was part of the parade
for this occasion.
Unlike
the 1875 engraving,
this photograph conveys a less elegant, more gritty impression of life
on 7th Street. The hurly-burly reality of this commercial streetscape
comes through vividly—and realistically. On July 2, 1881, four
months after this picture was taken, President Garfield was shot by
a deranged office-seeker at the Baltimore & Potomac Railroad Station,
then situated where the National Gallery of Art’s West Building
now stands. Garfield died of his wounds on September 19.
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[BACK]
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Seventh Street, Northwest, Engraving, 1875 |
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