Alexandria History Smart Cookie Questions & Answers

This page provides answers to Alexandria, VA history questions Learning Life posed in fortune cookies (we prefer to call these “smart cookies”) we placed free (donation requested) in participating Alexandria restaurants, bars and cafes from January to April 2014.  Proceeds from donations benefited Learning Life and the Historic Alexandria Foundation.  Learning Life thanks the Historic Alexandria Administration for helping us develop these questions and answers.       

Twelve Cookies, Twelve Questions, with Answers Below

1) In what year was Alexandria founded?

Alexandria was established in 1749, and incorporated in 1779.  Alexandria was intended as a trading destination to allow farmers farther inland in Virginia to sell their crops to the wider world.  The city quickly became a major trading port.

2) Where does Alexandria’s name come from?

Alexandria was named after John and Philip Alexander, cousins who owned and farmed a large portion of the land that became Alexandria.

3) Which U.S. President was a trustee of Alexandria?

George Washington lived much of his life at his country estate at Mount Vernon adjacent to Alexandria, but maintained a town house in Alexandria and served as a trustee of the city.

4) Which famous Revolutionary War General lived in Alexandria?

Henry Lee III, also known as “Light-Horse Harry Lee” for his exemplary service as a cavalry officer in the American Continental Army, moved his family to Alexandria in 1810.  Lee served as the 9^th Governor of Virginia from 1791 to 1794, and served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1799 to 1801.

5) Which Civil War General lived his youth in Alexandria? 

Robert E. Lee, son of the Revolutionary War General Henry Lee, was born in 1807 and lived in Alexandria from 1810 until he left to attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, a.k.a. West Point, in 1825.  In 1861, when Virginia seceded from the Union to join the Confederacy, Lee followed his state despite his opposition to secession, and eventually became the famed commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.

6) What current Alexandria hotel is the site of the Civil War’s first deliberate killings? 

The Hotel Monaco, located at 480 King Street in Old Town Alexandria, is the site of the former Marshall House, an inn owned by James W. Jackson, an ardent advocate of southern secession up until the Civil War.  Jackson installed a cannon outside the Marshall House, and a large Confederate flag atop the House on April 23, 1861, warning that he would shoot anyone who took the flag down.

Elmer E. Ellsworth, commander of the 11^th New York Infantry Regiment of the Union Army and a close friend of Abraham Lincoln, entered Alexandria on May 24, 1861 with his Regiment to seize control of the city.  Spotting the large Confederate flag atop the Marshall House, Ellsworth and and four of his soldiers took down the flag.  As they walked down the stairs of the Marshall House though, Jackson shot Ellsworth in the chest with a shotgun, killing him.  One of Ellsworth’s soldiers, Corporal Francis E. Brownell, then immediately shot and killed Jackson.  Ellsworth and Jackson thus became the first deliberate casualties of the long and bloody Civil War.  This incident proved a rallying cry for both North and South as calls to “Remember Jackson” and “Remember Ellsworth” were used to recruit volunteers into the Confederate and Union armies.  Brownell was later awarded the coveted Medal of Honor for shooting Jackson.

7) Which American labor leader lived in Alexandria’s Lee-Fendall House?

Famous labor union leader, John L. Lewis (1880-1969) lived in the historic Lee-Fendall House from 1937 until his death in 1969.   Lewis was President of the United Mine Workers of America from 1920 to 1960, and founding president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations that merged with the American Federal of Labor in 1955 to form the AFL-CIO, the leading federation of organized labor in the United States.

From 1785 to 1903, the Lee-Fendall House, located at 614 Oronoco Street in Old Town Alexandria, served as home to 37 members of the Lee family, including Revolutionary War leader Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee, and his son, Robert E. Lee, the commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia during the U.S. Civil War.  Learn more about the Lee-Fendall House.

8) Alexandria’s U.S. Naval Torpedo Station was converted into what?

The U.S. Naval Torpedo Station was constructed after World War I to manufacture torpedoes, and served variously as a torpedo factory and storage space thereafter, until the city of Alexandria bought the Station from the federal government in 1969.  Under artist and city leader Marian Van Landingham’s leadership, the Station was converted into the Torpedo Factory Art Center, opening its doors on September 15, 1974.

As the Center’s website explains, “[t]oday, the Torpedo Factory Art Center is home to over 160 professional artists who work, exhibit, and sell their art. Along with over 1,000 cooperative gallery members and some 2,000 art students, the Torpedo Factory Art Center draws artists from across the region and attracts visitors from around the world.”  Learn more about the Center.

9) George Washington was a member of what fraternal organization that built a memorial in Alexandria in his honor?

George Washington joined the Masons (also known as the Freemasons), an international fraternal organization founded in England, in 1752, and became Charter Master of Alexandria’s Masonic Lodge in 1788.  One year later, in 1789, Washington was inaugurated as the first President of the United States.  The Masons began building a memorial in Washington’s honor in 1922.  Construction proceeded gradually as funding became available until the George Washington Masonic National Memorial was completed in 1970 on Shuters Hill at the base of King Street in Old Town Alexandria.  The prominent Memorial is open to the public, with guided group tours, scheduled in advance, available seven days a week.  Learn more about the Memorial.

10) Which famous 1960s rock star graduated from high school in Alexandria in 1961?

Jim Morrison of The Doors graduated from George Washington High School (now George Washington Middle School) in 1961.  Morrison was the lead singer for the famous American rock band, The Doors, from 1965 until his tragic death in 1971 from a suspected drug overdose (no autopsy was performed, so the precise cause of his death was never verified).

11) Who was the first female mayor of Alexandria, and who was the first African American mayor?

Patsy Ticer became Alexandria’s first female mayor upon her election in 1991.   Ticer served as mayor until 1996, when she became Alexandria’s first female State Senator.  Ticer served as State Senator until her retirement in 2011.  In 2003, Bill Euille became the first African American mayor of Alexandria, and remains mayor today.

12) What is the current population of Alexandria? 

After losing population in the 1970s – the only decade that Alexandria lost population since the start of U.S. Census measurement in 1790 – Alexandria has since been growing rapidly, from 103,000 in 1980, to 111,000 in 1990, 128,000 in 2000, 140,000 in 2010, and 146,000 in 2012 (all numbers rounded to the nearest thousand), according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Learn much more about the remarkable history of Alexandria, VA online at the city’s “Historic Alexandria” page.

MORE INTERESTING ALEXANDRIA HISTORY FACTS

Alexandria’s Earliest Inhabitants

Native American artifacts have been found in Alexandria dating as far back as 13,200 years ago and as late as 1,600 A.D.

Source: “A Brief History of Alexandria”

 _____________________________________________________

Slavery in Alexandria

Slaves and slave owners cultivated the land that became Alexandria decades before the town was founded in 1749.  Slaves were crucial to the making of many of Alexandria’s enterprises.

Alexandria was also a significant slave trading center up until the Civil War, which helped incline Virginia to side with the Confederacy.  From Alexandria, thousands of slaves were sold and transported to plantations in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and other parts of the South, where cotton production required more and more labor.

But by 1790, Alexandria also had a substantial population of free blacks, manumitted (freed) by their owners, so that freed and enslaved African Americans paradoxically lived in the same bustling port city.

Sources:

“A Brief History of Alexandria”

“A Brief History of Alexandria’s Freed People and of Freedmen’s Cemetery”

 _____________________________________________________

Alexandria’s Charles Lee

Charles Lee was famed Civil War General Robert E. Lee’s uncle, and the first of the Lee family to settle in Alexandria, in 1762.   Lee served as U.S. Attorney General from 1795 to 1801, and represented the winning plaintiffs in the seminal Supreme Court case of Marbury v. Madison in 1803.  In that case, the Supreme Court established “judicial review,” its singular power to review the constitutionality of government officials’ actions.

Source: A Seaport Saga: Portrait of Old Alexandria, Virginia (1989, p.43), by William Francis Smith and T. Michael Miller.

 _____________________________________________________

Alexandria Invaded, but Spared in the War of 1812

In August 1814, the British invaded and set fire to Washington D.C.  Threatened with imminent invasion and with insufficient forces to defend itself, Alexandria surrendered to the British without resistance.  In exchange for not destroying Alexandria, the British seized the contents of the city’s stores and warehouses.

 _____________________________________________________

Alexandria Invaded and Spared Again in the Civil War

Days after Virginia seceded from the Union in the spring of 1861, Union troops occupied Alexandria.  The city remained occupied until the end of the Civil War, and became a major supply and hospital center during the war.  Alexandria’s critical supply role and proximity to D.C. spared it the destruction that befell other Virginia cities, like Fredericksburg and Richmond.

Source: “A Brief History of Alexandria” at http://alexandriava.gov/historic/

 _____________________________________________________

The History behind Alexandria’s Freedmen’s Cemetery

During the Civil War, thousands of slaves escaped and sought refuge in Alexandria, creating a refugee crisis.  About 1,800 of those refugees as well as black Union soldiers were buried in what has become known as the Freedmen’s Cemetery.  Forgotten then built over for many decades, the Cemetery is now a memorial park located at South Washington and Church Streets.

Source: “A Brief History of Alexandria’s Freed People and of Freedmen’s Cemetery” 

 _____________________________________________________

Old Town Alexandria

Old Town is the oldest neighborhood of Alexandria.  Designated in 1946 as the Old and Historic District, it became the third historic district in the nation, after Charleston and New Orleans.

Source: “Alexandria in the 20^th Century”

 _____________________________________________________

Alexandria’s Market Square

Old Town Alexandria’s Market Square, outside City Hall, is believed to be one of the oldest continuously operating marketplaces in the nation.  Established in 1753, today Market Square is home to the large and popular Old Town Farmers’ Market, operating every Saturday, 7am-12pm, throughout the year.

Source: Wikipedia. Alexandria, Virginia.  

 _____________________________________________________

Gadsby’s Historic Tavern

Gadsby’s Tavern, located at 134 N. Royal Street, was host to the nation’s first five presidents: George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe. One of the few preserved taverns in Alexandria, thousands of English artifacts have been excavated from it and other city taverns, including “tall ale tankards, large and small punch bowls, and white clay tobacco pipes, snuff bottles, toothbrushes, hairbrushes, medicine bottles and chamber pots (precursors of indoor plumbing)….Much of the service work was performed by African Americans; more blacks were enslaved by tavern keepers than by other business owners.”

Source: “Walk and Bike the Alexandria Heritage Trail”

 _____________________________________________________

Inova Hospital Makes U.S. History

Inova Alexandria Hospital, founded in 1872, was the first hospital in the nation to have a 24-hour emergency department with full-time ER physicians. It opened in 1961. This approach to emergency care was nationally known as the “Alexandria plan.”

Volunteer Spotlight: Craig Gusmann

“I’m a jack of all trades, master of none,” says Learning Life volunteer, Craig Gusmann, when asked to describe himself.

“In my relatively short life,” he goes on to explain, “I’ve earned a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, won a Dodgeball championship, wrote a feature length film that was independently produced, worked as a machinist, taught science, created lighting and effects for independent films, and most recently worked as a proposal writer.”

Craig does, however, aspire to master one trade: screenwriting.  To understand every aspect of film production, he has volunteered for various creative and non-creative roles – gaffer, grip, writer, production assistant, and assistant director.  He also wrote his own film, Granted (learn more and check out the film’s trailer here), that played at several film festivals nationwide, and has developed his own blog about screenwriting, to which he diligently posts every few days.  True to his humorously self-effacing manner, Craig titles the blog “Failing Up” with the subtitle “another blog about writing from someone who has never actually been paid to write” (this isn’t quite true though as the next paragraph will reveal).

A native of Buffalo, New York, Craig attended its Academy for the Visual and Performing Arts, then majored in Media Study at the State University of New York in Buffalo.  Upon graduating from college in 2009, Craig worked for Americorps and other organizations teaching science and creative writing to at-risk urban youth.  He moved to Washington D.C. in 2012 and began working as a writer for companies seeking federal contracts, researching, drafting and editing project funding proposals to a variety of government agencies including the Department of Homeland Security, the Defense Information Services Agency, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.  (Thus, Craig has in fact been paid for his writing, even if he hasn’t as yet been paid for his creative writing.)  In 2013, he began life as a freelance writer.

Craig Gusmann joined Learning Life on December 16 last year.  On that first day with us, Craig served ably as Learning Life’s photographer documenting the culmination of our Newseum project: the distribution of 10,000 napkins about John F. Kennedy’s presidency in restaurants in several neighborhoods across Washington D.C., followed by street re-enactments of excerpts of Kennedy’s historic inaugural address at several high-traffic locations in D.C.

Craig then ably produced Learning Life’s very first video, a promotion based on our work with Washington D.C.’s Newseum to help educate the public about Kennedy’s extraordinary presidency.  Craig has gone on to research and draft two quizzes on astronomy (one of his many interests!) – one about the sun, the other about the stars – then quizzes African American history, women’s history, and most recently, Asian American history (just out as May is Asian American History Month).

He has also assisted in expanding and systematizing Learning Life’s social media posts, learning about area farmers’ markets as part of our business development research (more on this to come!), and is in the process of investigating the possibility of recording expert interviews for our Big Questions Series (see, for example, our series on terrorism). In addition, Craig will soon add to the series several astronomers’ answers to the big question, “is there life out there in the universe?”

Asked why he volunteers with Learning Life, Craig responds, “Learning Life’s mission reminds me a lot of Americorps and what I loved about teaching science with them.  I firmly believe that solving any problem in life requires a thorough understanding of the issues and facts related to the problem.  Learning Life not only facilitates easy access to these facts, but does so in a way that can be immediately applied by people in various situations.”

Learning Life considers itself lucky to have Craig’s help.  Craig may not yet be a master of any trade, but he has proven himself quite able at manifold tasks with Learning Life, and that should be attractive to any employer.  If we could hire him, we would.

To learn more about volunteering or interning with Learning Life and other ways you can help, contact us at email@learninglife.info.    

Scholars: We Promote Your Research Free

One of the reasons I founded Learning Life in 2012 is to help publicize scholars doing research of interest and importance to the broad public.  There are many scholars in the United States and abroad doing research on everything from health and safety, to history and literature, to human and animal behavior, that matters to our lives.  Much of that research though ends up in books or academic journals few people read.  Of course, some of it is shared via radio, newspapers, magazines and blogs, but the audience still tends to be a self-selected group of more educated people.  If academics are serious though about informing and empowering more people – especially those least educated – we can and should do better.

Learning Life’s approach to public education is different.  As helpful as going to school, taking a free course online, visiting a library, or reading a book can be, we believe we can reach more people by spreading knowledge on the surfaces of everyday life, from napkins, cup sleeves and placemats, to t-shirts and posters, to social media accessed on smart phones, tablets and personal computers.  In other words, rather than expect people to come to education, Learning Life aims to bring education to people.  This is especially important to reach those least inclined to come to or get an education.

Since 2012, Learning Life has partnered with local institutions – like Washington D.C.’s Newseum, and the City of Alexandria, Virginia – to help them educate the public about local and national history using napkins, wallet cards, tote bags and fortune cookies distributed free to the public at their doors as well as at stores, restaurants, cafes, ice cream parlors and farmers’ markets (check out our short video on Learning Life’s Newseum project).

But Learning Life also disseminates educational content (e.g., quizzes, facts, expert answers to big questions) via our website, e-newsletter and social media pages (check us out on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Pinterest) on a daily to monthly basis.  Through Learning Life’s website, e-newsletter and social media pages, we have promoted the research of a few scholars, like Brian Wansink’s food behavior studies, historian Eric Kurlander’s work on Nazi era history, and philosopher Joshua Rust’s examination of the ethics of ethics professors.

But we want to promote more scholars, so here’s our invitation:

If you do research that’s interesting and important to the public, Learning Life wants to help you promote it, absolutely free of charge.  Choose one or more studies you have conducted on a topic, and email us at email@learninglife.info with copies of the articles (alas, we can’t examine books unless the book is fully available electronically).  That’s it.  You don’t have to do anything else.

We’ll review your work, and if we find we can use your research to produce facts, a quiz, or other educational content that’s interesting and important to the public, we’ll let you know via email, then produce the content and email it to you for your approval before we publish it at our website and/or disseminate it via our e-newsletter and social media pages.

Alternatively, you may create your own quiz, brief facts or other educational content about your research, but if you would like to do so, please contact us first so we can provide you with some guidelines.

Note: we cannot guarantee promotion for all comers.  Promotion will depend on the number of scholars who respond, our editorial judgment as to the public utility of the research submitted, and the Learning Life staff time available.

Of course, if we do promote your work, we will cite the research as yours, and offer a link to your website, blog or other page online (if available) where readers can go to learn more about you and your research.  If your research does not go out of date, we will promote your work on an ongoing basis via our Facebook, Twitter and/or Linkedin pages.  As our social media audience grows, so will grow the number of people exposed to your research.

Feel free to contact us at email@learninglife.info with any questions.  We look forward to hearing from you!

Knowledge, or Information?

In 2011, I began talking with people about my plans to found Learning Life.  The original idea for Learning Life came to me several years prior, literally in a dream exciting enough to wake me.  But I did not start talking in earnest about Learning Life until 2011, when I decided to leave academia to chart this new course and career.

One day, I spoke with a friend and thoughtful academic who skeptically challenged Learning Life.  Her challenge went something like this:

“You’re not spreading knowledge, you’re spreading information.  There’s a big difference.  And the information you’re spreading is disconnected facts.  Knowledge, however, is a mix of facts and analysis (or theory), and the analysis organizes the facts into a coherent and penetrating whole.  You can’t really understand facts without analysis, and that takes more than disconnected facts printed on a surface, or published online.  That takes reading, thought and discussion developed over days, weeks, months or years.”

There is truth to this challenge.  Learning Life is spreading information, and better understanding the world we live in requires more than just facts, but intelligent analysis to incisively organize the facts.

But facts still matter.  Indeed, people need facts to think.  Imagine trying to understand virtually anything in the world – how the internet works, how plants grow, how governments or economies operate, etc. – without knowing facts about whatever you are trying to understand.  Research shows that the more one knows about a given topic, the better one remembers, comprehends and problem solves on that topic (see my earlier blog post “On the Importance of Knowledge” for more on this).

Learning Life spreads information as an invitation to knowledge, and as part of knowledge.  We do not claim that information is all one needs, but rather that information is necessary to knowledge, and hence should be spread.  The facts we spread on the surfaces of everyday life are intended to stimulate conversation and learning that might not otherwise occur in everyday contexts.  And, by connecting these facts to further learning online, we invite people to develop their knowledge.

Learning Life’s approach – spreading information on everyday surfaces and connecting those surfaces to further learning, fun and reward online – is not cure for all our ills, but it can and should be part of public education, that is, part of any democracy’s effort to inform and empower its people.

If life is learning, let learning live.