790 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 



DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA (WASHINGTON CITY) 1 



Population (1910) 331,069; distributed as follows: in original limits of Washington 

 City, 230,630 (120,284 in "Northwest;" 40,959 in "Northeast;" 32,513 in "South- 

 west," and 36,874 in " Southeast "); in Georgetown, 16,046; and in former Washington 

 county, 84,393. Whites numbered 236,128 (71.3%; in 1900 68.7%) and negroes, 

 94,446 (28.5%; in 1900, 31.3%). Native whites of native parentage constituted 50.4% 

 of the total, and those of foreign parentage, 13.6%; and whites of foreign birth, 7.4%. 

 Of all foreign-born whites, 21.9% were born in Ireland, 21,3 in Germany, 13.9 in Russia; 

 11.3 in Italy, 10.8 in England, 4.6 in Canada, 2.9 in Scotland, 2.1 in France, 1.9 in 

 Austria, 1.5 in Sweden, 1.4 in Greece and 1.2 in Switzerland. The ratio of males to 

 females, 91.3 to 100, was a little higher than in 1900 (90 to 100). This comparatively 

 low ratio is only partly due to the large number of female employees in government 

 departments; the ratio among whites is 94.9, among negroes 82.2. The death rate in 

 1911 was 17.8 per 1000 (whites 14.61; negroes, 26.12), and the birth rate was 19.86. 



Agriculture. The acreage in farms decreased from 8,489 to 6,063 between 1900 and 1910, 

 the improved land in farms from 5,934 to 5,133, the average farm acreage from 31.6 to 27.9, 

 and the value of farm property from $11,535,376 to $8,476,533 ($7,193,950 land, $1,037,393 

 buildings, $92,350 implements, and $152,840 domestic animals). The principal crops were: 

 hay and forage, 2,148 tons (962 A.); potatoes, 32,028 bit. (226 A.); sweet potatoes and yams, 

 19,662 bu. (126 A.); and Indian corn, 12,667 bu. (426 A.). 



Manufactures. Apart from establishments operated by the Federal government, the 

 number of factories increased in 1899-1909 from 49110518; the number of wage-earners from 

 6,155 to 7.77; capital invested from $17,960,000 to $30,553,000, and the value of products 

 from $16,426,000 to $25,289,000. The larger manufactures were: printing and publishing, 

 84,899,000; malt liquors, $1,805,000; foundry and machine-shop products, $1,175,000. 



Buildings. The most important changes in the city of Washington are the new 

 buildings for the departments of state, justice and commerce, for which commissions 

 were made in April 1911 and which are to be grouped between Pennsylvania avenue 

 and the Mall and Fourteenth and Fifteenth streets. All are to be of white marble. 

 The Commerce building (architects, York and Sawyer) is to be five storeys high, is to 

 stand between the other two (each three storeys) and is to cost $3,650,000. The State 

 building (architect, Arnold W. Brunner) will cost $2,200,000, and the building of the 

 department of justice (architect, Donn Barber), $1,900,000. 



In 1911 Congress appropriated $2,000,000 for a Lincoln Memorial, and appointed 

 the Lincoln Memorial Commission, with President Taft as chairman, which, cooperat- 

 ing with the Federal Fine Arts Commission, appointed Henry Bacon to design a plan. 

 The Fine Arts Commission, July 17, 1911, recommended Potomac Park as the site of 

 the memorial. Mr. Bacon's plan, as completed in 1912, is for a hall of white marble, 

 resembling a Greek temple, surrounded by 36 Doric columns, representing the 36 

 states of Lincoln's time, to be built in Potomac Park, in the centre of a circular terrace, 

 500 ft. in diameter, rising 16 ft. above another terrace, 1,000 ft. in diameter and n ft. 

 above the present grade. In the hall is to be placed a statue of Lincoln, and on the 

 interior walls are to be inscribed his Gettysburg speech and his second inaugural. The 

 memorial terminates the principal axis of the city, and is intended to-fit into the design 

 for the revision and extension of the original plan of Washington which was undertaken 

 by a commission appointed in 1901. Early in 1913 the memorial was adopted by Con- 

 gress. Plans for a memorial to Christopher Columbus, for which Congress appropriated 

 $100,000, and to which the Knights of Columbus contributed, were drawn by the archi- 

 tect Daniel H. Burnham and the sculptor Lorado Taft. The memorial, made of Georgia 

 marble, consists of a semi-circular fountain, 70 ft. wide and 65 ft. deep, adorned with a 

 statue of Columbus behind which rises a stone shaft 45 ft. high surmounted by a globe. 

 Figures typifying the new world, an American Indian, and the old world, a Caucasian 1 , 

 stand on either side of the shaft. Columbus is represented as standing on the prow 

 of a ship, the figure-head of which is a female statue typifying discovery. The memo- 

 rial was unveiled June 8, 1912. The Memorial Continental Hall (architect, E. P. Casey) 



1 See E. B. xxviii, 349 el seq. The District and the city are coterminous. 



