Our neighborhoods were once filled with thousands of Union troops in and around the Civil War Defenses of Washington, and for a few days in July 11-12, 1864, attacking Rebel troops as well.  This presentation, rich with maps and photos, will explain what happened here during the Civil War, with a particular focus on the stretch of fortifications from Fort Reno over to Fort Totten.

Gary Thompson is a co-founder and the current President of the non-profit Alliance to Preserve the Civil War Defenses of Washington.  He is an avid student of the defenses, a dynamic speaker on the topic, and also a reenactor of Maj. Gen. Lew Wallace, “Savior of Washington” from the Battle of Monocacy.  Gary has lived in Chevy Chase DC for over 30 years, 8 years on the ANC, and when he doesn’t have his nose in a Civil War history book, either practices law or runs in Rock Creek Park. Gary is also Chair of the DC Board of Elections.

Reader Views 2024-25 Literary Awards, Gold Medal Winner
American Bookfest 21st Annual Best Book Awards, Finalist
2024 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards, Finalist

On July 30, 1902, tens of thousands of mourners lined the streets of New York’s Lower East Side to bid farewell to the city’s chief rabbi, the eminent Talmudist Jacob Joseph. All went well until the funeral procession reached the Grand and Sheriff Streets, where the six-story R. Hoe and Company printing press factory towered over the intersection Without warning, scraps of steel, iron bolts and scalding water rained down and injured hundreds of mourners, courtesy of antisemitic factory workers on the upper floors. But worse, the police compounded the attack when they arrived on the scene. Under orders from the inspector in charge, who made no effort to distinguish aggressors from victims or issue orders to disperse, officers began beating up Jews. It became the single largest violent antisemitic incident in American history, measured in sheer numbers of people attacked and injured.

To the Yiddish-language daily Forverts (Forward), the bloody attack was not unlike the pogroms many Russian Jews remembered bitterly from the old country. But this was America, and the Jewish community wasn’t going to stand for such treatment. Fed up with being persecuted, New York’s Jews, whose numbers and political influence had been growing, set a pattern for the future by deftly pursuing justice for the victims. They forced trials and disciplinary hearings, accelerated retirements and transfers within the corrupt police department, and engineered the resignation of the police commissioner. Scott D. Seligman’s The Chief Rabbi’s Funeral is the first book-length account of this event and its aftermath.

Scott D. Seligman is a national award-winning writer and historian with a special interest in the history of hyphenated Americans. He is a former corporate executive who holds an undergraduate degree in American history from Princeton and a master’s degree from Harvard. His first Jewish-themed book, The Great Kosher Meat War of 1902, won gold medals in history in the Independent Publisher Book Awards and Reader Views Literary Awards and was a finalist in the 2020 National Jewish Book Awards. His website is viewable at www.seligmanonline.com He lives in Washington, DC.

Headlined by the New York Times as a “A Vivid, Engrossing Biography of an Art-World Contrarian,” Blake Gopnik’s new life of Albert Barnes (1872-1951) offers  a compelling portrait of America’s first great collector of modern art. Raised in a Philadelphia slum shortly after the Civil War, Barnes rose to earn a medical degree and then made a fortune from a pioneering antiseptic treatment for newborns. Never losing sight of the working-class neighbors of his youth, Barnes became a ruthless advocate for their rights and needs. His vast art collection—181 Renoirs, 69 Cézannes, 59 Matisses, 46 Picassos—was dedicated to enriching their cultural lives. A miner was more likely to get access than a mine owner.

Gopnik’s research reveals Barnes as a fierce advocate for the egalitarian ideals of his era’s progressive movement. But while his friends in the movement worked to reshape American society, Barnes wanted to transform the nation’s aesthetic life, taking art out of the hands of the elite and making it available to the average American.

The sheer ferocity of Barnes’s democratic ambitions left him with more enemies than allies among people of all classes, but for a circle of intimates, he was a model of intelligence, generosity, and loyalty.

In Blake’s talk for NNV, he will explore the contradictions at the heart of this great American eccentric.

Blake Gopnik’s latest book is The Maverick’s Museum: Albert Barnes and His American Dream.” In 2020 he published Warhol, the first comprehensive biography of the Pop artist. He has been the staff art critic at the Washington Post and Newsweek and is now a regular contributor to the New York Times. He has a PhD in art history from the University of Oxford.