Author: GW Museum

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Collection Spotlight Presidents White House

Easter Egg Roll at the White House: A Time Capsule of America’s Racial and Religious History

Black and white photo of a man in a suit jacket and pants with a young girl in a dress and hat, in front of the White House.
Printed postcard showing the White House grounds on Easter Monday in 1898. Photo originally taken by Frances Benjamin Johnston (1864-1952). Albert H Small Washingtoniana Collection AS 957.

Emma Cieslik, M.A. ’23, Museum Studies

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Architecture Collection Spotlight National Mall

Renwick’s Castle on the National Mall

A colored woodcut lithograph depicting the Smithsonian Institute Castle from the National Mall in 1855, with throngs of pedestrians walking in the foreground. The image is labeled “View of the Smithsonian Institute - Washington City.”

“View of the Smithsonian Institute – Washington City,” Harper’s Weekly, c. 1855. Albert H. Small Washingtoniana Collection AS 51.

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Civil War Transportation Virginia

A Total Trainwreck: Witnessing the Destruction at Manassas

A watercolor painting by Robert Knox Sneden depicting two burning trains at Manassas Junction, Virginia.

Robert Knox Sneden (1832-1918), “The Destruction of the Union Supply Trains at Manassas Junction, Virginia, by Jackson and Stuart’s Cavalry C.S.A., August 28, 1862,” c. 1875. Albert H. Small Washingtoniana Collection AS 479.

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Architecture Transportation

A Metro Mecca: Pennsylvania Railroad’s Union Station

A colored lithograph depicting Union Station in Washington, DC in 1906, with pedestrians and horse drawn carriages in the foreground.

“The Pennsylvania Railroad’s Union Station, Washington, D.C.,” published by John A. Lowell Bank Co., Boston, 1906. Albert H. Small Washingtoniana Collection AS 252.

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GW History

Foggy Bottom Feud: 1970s Jewish Activism at GW

A 1971 black-and-white advertisement for the Jewish Activist Front that includes a stylized closed fist.
The Jewish Activist Front at GW ran this ad in the September 16, 1971, edition of the campus newspaper, The Hatchet. It echoes Rabbi Mier Kahane's calls for Jewish pride and incites political action. The Hebrew writing on the pinky says "remember," alluding to the fear of anti-Semitism with an Auschwitz prisoner number etched onto the forearm of the closed fist.

Sylvia Cassidy, B.A. ’25, Political Science and Religion