The Historic Waterfront of Washington, D.C.

The waters of the Potomac and the Anacostia Rivers surround and define the nation's capital. For centuries, these rivers have been manipulated environments--transformed by native populations, settlers, politicians and real estate developers. With docks and wharves extending from the Anacostia River to Georgetown, the architect of the young capital, Pierre L'Enfant, planned to develop the waterfront into a prosperous inland seaport. Decades later, the Civil War took a devastating toll on the District's maritime economy with civilian port facilities pressed into military service and the failure of many riverfront plantations. Author John R. Wennersten explores this early history of Washington, D.C.'s waterfront even as he tackles its twentieth-century redevelopment and the challenges the rivers face today.

Dr. John R. Wennersten is a senior fellow at the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution, and a member of the board of directors for the Anacostia Watershed Society. He is a professor emeritus of environmental history at the University of Maryland, Eastern Shore, and he served as the associate editor for Maryland Historical Magazine for ten years. He was selected as a humanities scholar for Maryland and received the Maryland Writers Prize for his work The Oyster Wars of Chesapeake Bay.