Working in Washington DC

    Hi again everyone! For this fun post I get to talk about one of our satellite museums, the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office in Washington D.C.  So far I have only worked in the main museum with a few trips out but this weekend I was assigned to D.C.  It was very exciting for me because I have heard so many good things about it such as the originality of the building and such an intimate connection to Clara Barton and her post Civil War work.  I took the Metro to D.C. with a coworker, Emily, and she gave me a private tour of the place which I really enjoyed because she was able to teach me so much about Clara’s work there.  Through private study and the museum I have really upped my knowledge of her but to see the spaces she worked and lived in really brought it home to me.  I was definitely loving it.

The original sign Clara Barton hung up at the Missing Soldiers Office.  On loan from U.S. General Services Administration.

                A little backstory on the building is that from 1865 to 1868 Clara rented a series of rooms on the third floor.  It is only a few blocks from the National Mall and the Patent Building that she once worked at.  She and her small staff worked in this building (she had her own bedroom as well) where they responded to both in-person visitors and letters  relating to soldiers that had unknown fates during the war.  Soldiers were often buried on or near battlefields and in order for a family to secure a pension or have the comfort of knowing where a loved one was buried they came to Clara Barton often.  Her office eventually succeeded in finding approximately 22,000 soldiers.  After that she placed many of her belongings in the attic of this building and the third floor was boarded up.  I find it really hard to believe but the third floor where she did so much good was basically forgotten about until the 1990s when the building was slated for demolition.  I mean, how do you lose a whole floor of building in a highly desirable city where real estate is slim? I’ll never know but it did happen.

                In 1997 Richard Lyons went up into the previously boarded up floor and began poking around the attic.  In there he discovered socks, documents, and all sorts of other items and he saw the historic signifcance of it all.  After that it was worked a little bit to make it a bit safer such as putting in an elevator and redoing wallpaper but other than that it is all original as Clara Barton left it in 1868.  I could not believe the fantastic condition of everything.  It was just like Pry House except arguably better.  The floors were completely original so Clara and hundreds of others walked those very floorboards and the doors were original so I opened doors that so many others did as they sought answers about their loved ones.  Because it was locked up and undiscovered for so  long the  place isn’t  wired up with electricity and plumbing.  It is a virtually untouched time capsule of rooms from 1868.  It’s like striking the historic lottery and winning! The wallpaper in a vast majority of the rooms were recreations of the patterns and colors that were selected by Clara so that was very cool to see.  They aren’t like the patterns I am used to seeing so it was very cool to see what she selected.  They really stood out as well in the empty rooms. In one room there is a cutout of Clara and in her bedroom (where the discovery was made) there is Lyons ladder the hole in the ceiling but otherwise the space is pure and empty. 

Clara Barton's bedroom in the MSO with replica wallpaper and original floor.  The ladder is Richard Lyons along with the hole to the attic.

                One of my favorite bits beyond the original floor and doors was the sections that still had original wallpaper on them.  Since it’s been almost 150 years it has of course faded and been damaged with time so the bright pinks and blues she chose are gone but the fabric remains.  Much it has been removed and replaced with the recreations but in some spots it was left so that visitors could see it.  I really loved it because most of the time the pattern could be seen and it blended flawlessly with the modern parts.  I have not seen stuff like that before so I really appreciated the effort to keep the original stuff.  In some places signatures could be seen of the people who put the wallpaper with the year which was also fantastic.  All of these spots are covered with protective layers to prevent further damage. 

Posing with a section of original wallpaper.  The pattern blends flawlessly  with the rest when looked at closely.

                I was like a kid in a candy shop asking Emily to take pictures of me with various parts because you had better believe that I was going to document this trip.  I felt so lucky and fortunate to be able to walk around the place Clara Barton on the floor she did with the doors and wallpaper.  Just like seeing her birthplace I know it is not the place that was remarkable but the person but I mean come on…everyone needs to have something to geek out over and I do it with historic artifacts.  Time capsule  buildings don’t exist everywhere and this one is so perfect.  It was heavenly.

The  orignal number 9 door that people would have come to see her at.  There is a small mail slot on the lower left of the door.  It cost her 50 cents to install it.

                Emily finished my tour by showing me the original staircase used by Clara and countless others to go directly to the Missing Soldiers Office. It was a very long and tall staircase since it went from street level all the way to the third floor.  She pointed out the section of wall a little way from the top where the barrier began that had hid the third floor away from people for so long.  There was lots of natural light from the street and windows in the middle of the building.  The floorboards were worn but still fantastic considering their age.  There is a runner placed over them now for protection but you can still see the steps, the color and everything else.  Again I nerded out and took lots of pictures. 

View from third floor to street level entrance.  The wall that blocked access to third floor can be seen on the right about half way down the stairs .

                Clara Barton and her work in the missing soldiers office was instrumental to the postwar years by helping so many find the answers they desperately sought.  This kind of a discovery is rare and deserves to be treated with great respect and I am very happy to have such an opportunity to visit it like I did.  I spent the rest of the day downstairs working with visitors who I hope enjoyed this time capsule as much as I did.  We had a family of six come in who were big Clara Barton (they had recently visited her Glen Echo home), a few nice couples and a man from England.  The main museum is a historic building but it often doesn’t feel like it so it was nice to work in a building that did feel historic.  Anyways, lots of stuff to do today so I’ll you all later because I might start giving tours later this week!