Robert Pohl worked for many years as a computer programmer but recovered from that and became a full time stay-at-home dad. With his son now in school, he has expanded his horizons and become a self-taught historian. He has written books about his house as well as Emancipation in the District of Columbia. You can reach Robert at Robert[at]thehillishome.com
Well, really 99 years, 10 months and 14 days ago. March 4, 1913, the day that Woodrow Wilson was sworn in as President, replacing our fattest president, William Howard Taft. It was a day filled with bunting. It was a day filled with speeches. It was a day without an inaugural ball, which Wilson felt […]
Returning to the subject of Prohibition that I broached last week, today, we will look at how some Hill residents responded to the banning of alcohol by simply making their own. Since the ingredients are quite simple, it is unsurprising that enterprising members of society circumvented the law in this manner.
One of the topics that I did not touch upon in my book was prohibition and all the scandals surrounding it, whether the amount of booze being bootlegged into the Capitol, those congressmen who voted dry, but were themselves sopping wet, or even the many locations that you could procure alcohol on the Hill. The […]
With the end of the year upon us, and most of us more concerned with making plans for New Year’s Eve than reading about Hill history, I offer another rerun from earlier in this year. The story is – partly – related in my book, but seems appropriate with the debauchery expected of one for […]
With Christmas almost upon us, it seems to behoove me to go to reruns rather than trying to find new information to post. And so, I will repeat a column that argues for the renaming of one of the more minor rooms at the Old Naval Hospital after one Lewis Dublois.