Wealth, Power and Status in Dupont Circle During the Gilded Age
The center of the Dupont Circle neighborhood in the northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C. is the intersection of three of the city’s grand avenues: Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire. What began as one of the many squares drawn on Pierre Charles L’Enfant’s 1791 plan for the city of Washington—intended as a public park where three of the city’s at the time nonexistent major avenues were to intersect—became a concentration of wealth, status and power that was not equaled in any other nineteenth century American city.
The Dupont Circle neighborhood was born from the post–Civil War economic boom, the corruption of the early 1870s territorial government of Alexander “Boss” Shepherd, a few slightly corrupt politicians, silver miners, and many relatively honest wealthy people. To understand the history of Dupont Circle is to understand the socioeconomic class structures in the city dur…
