Creative History

  By July of 1864 the Union Army’s assault on the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia though massive and determined, had ground to a complete and bloody halt. Tens of thousands of young American soldiers lay dead scattered across the fields and woodlands of northern Virginia.  A veritable state of siege, centered around the strategically important railroad town of Petersburg, had begun to settle in between the two opposing armies.  Public outcry in the north started calling Ulysses S. Grant -Commanding General of the Union Army of the Potomac-a drunkard and a butcher.  The press clamored for President Lincoln to fire or demote his erstwhile General. Sensing an opportunity, and seeking to capitalize on the bloody stalemate that was the American Civil War in July of 1864,  a Confederate Army composed of 10,000 elite troops led by the audacious and flamboyant General Jubal Early moved north towards Washington DC.  The Confederacy hoped to take the Un...

  A large crowd of nearly 1,000 people gathered inside Washington D.C.’s glamorous and elegant Knickerbocker Theater on Saturday night January 28, 1922. It is the city’s largest movie theater, located on the corner of 18th Street and Columbia Road right in the heart of our nation’s capital.   The Knickerbocker Theater in addition to showing the silent film era’s latest releases, is also often used as a concert hall and public convention center.  It is renowned across the east coast for its elegant ballrooms and ornate art deco appearance. Built only five years earlier in 1917, the Knickerbocker Theater, with its flat topped roof design is considered to be the epitome of modern architectural style for movie houses the world over. On this night, the crowd comes to see an on screen adaptation of the hit Broadway comedy Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford .  Saturday night at the Knickerbocker Theater is comedy night and the crowd for Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford is loud an...

            The clouds break and temperatures rise.  Sunlight cascades down upon America’s capital city. It is March 4, 1829--inauguration day for the seventh President of the United States, Andrew Jackson. Jackson, at the head of a brand new political party, won last November’s election in a landslide over incumbent President John Quincy Adams.  It was the second time that Jackson had run for the Presidency against this same adversary. Back in 1824, after winning a plurality of the electoral vote in a four candidate race, Jackson had lost a contingent runoff in Congress for the Presidency to John Quincy Adams when one of the other candidates, Henry Clay, agreed to throw his support in Congress behind Adams in return for an appointment to Secretary of State. This deal in Congress for the Presidency between Adams and Clay in 1824 would be labelled by Jackson and his supporters as the “Corrupt Bargain” and, after resigning his seat in C...