Pierre Charles L'Enfant and Thackara & Vallance. Plan of the City of Washington, 1792. Library of Congress.

Looking at the L'Enfant Plan in a New Light

November 13, 2017

On November 13, 2017, architect and historic cartographer Don Hawkins presented an Overbeck Lecture describing his recent conclusions about L'Enfant's vision for the design of the City of Washington based on close study of an original pencil sketch by L'Enfant at the Library of Congress, as well as on investigation of L'Enfant's education, friends, and experiences.

Don Hawkins is an architect, an urban designer, and a life-long Washingtonian with an interest in the city's early history. He lectures frequently on the subject and his maps, essays, and reviews appear in Washington History magazine and other publications.

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Past Lectures

May 13, 2024

Looking at the L'Enfant Plan in a New Light

Past Lectures

Thomas Smallwood, the Underground Railroad, and Capitol Hill

United States Botanic Garden: 200 Years of Contributions

Capitol Hill’s Inhabited Alleys

Row Houses of Capitol Hill

The Last Lincoln Conspirator

Washington Navy Yard: Celebrating 224 Years in the Neighborhood

William Costin: A Tribute to Worth by His Friends.

"Hog Catcher Hog Catcher" Farm Animals on Capitol Hill

The Intersections of History: Five Parks that Changed Washington

Bridge Across History

Following the Trail of John Burroughs

Places of Protest: The Struggle for Women’s Suffrage in the Nation’s Capital

Exposing Washington's History with Archaeology's New Tools

A Monument to Literature in a City of Politics

The Green Legacy of 19th Century Washingtonians

The Razzle-Dazzle: Mary Shiner Almarolia (1833-1904)

The Washington Riots of 1968: The View from Capitol Hill

Anacostia Park - And a River Runs By It

Native Americans Who Never Left Capitol Hill

A Closer Look at Capitol Hill's Historic Alleys

Looking at the L'Enfant Plan in a New Light

Union Terminal Market, Then and Now

Capitol Hill Leisure During Segregation

Buzzard Point – From Indians to Soccer

Alexander Shepherd and the Making of Modern Washington

A Virtual Tour of Capitol Hill's Rainbow History

Frederick Douglass's Years in Washington

Capitol Hill and the Capital

Emily Edson Briggs of The Maples

Duke Ellington's Washington

The Washington Arsenal Explosion

Alice Dunnigan: A Reporter "Alone Atop the Hill"

Why Washington, D.C., Has No Vote in Congress

The President's Own: A History of the U.S. Marine Band

How the Folgers Brought the Bard to Capitol Hill

Michael Shiner's Diary, 1813-1869: A Black Man Looks at 19th Century Washington

"This is the City and I Am One of the Citizens": Walt Whitman in Washington

A City Transformed: Washington in the Civil War

Simeon Booker: Eyewitness to the Civil Rights Revolution

Washington in the Movies: How Hollywood Views the Nation's Capital

A Preservation Success Story: Compatibility and Economic Growth in Washington's Historic Districts

Snow Storm in August: The Washington Race Riot of 1835

301 East Capitol: Tales from the Heart of the Hill

Congressional Cemetery: Its Past, Present, and Future

The Captain Who Burned His Ships: Captain Thomas Tingey, USN, 1750-1829

How Dry We Weren't: Prohibition in Washington, D.C.

The Life, Decline, and Rebirth of the Old Naval Hospital

Washington at Home: Neighborhoods Tell the D.C. Story

The Engineer and the Artist: Montgomery Meigs, Constantino Brumidi and the Capitol Frescos

The Streetcars in Washington, D.C.

The Old Naval Lodge and Freemasonry in Washington, D.C.

The Capitol Hill Restoration Society: Past, Present and Future

301 East Capitol: Growing Up on the Hill in the 1920s

William Prout's Grave: The Beginning of a Grand Adventure

Abraham Lincoln and the End of Slavery in the District of Columbia

The Road to Ford's Theatre, Abraham Lincoln's Murder, and the Rage for Vengeance

Envisioning Early Washington

L'Enfant's Grand Avenues

Historic Capitol Hill Row House Designs: Not Colonial Williamsburg

African American Housing in 19th Century D.C.

Capitol Hill's John Philip Sousa

The Anacostia: Our Neighborhood's River, and the Nation's

Hollywood on the Potomac: D.C. on Film - Getting it Wrong and Getting It Right??

Past and Future of the National Mall

Growing Up on the Hill in the 1920s and '30s

The Improbable History of Eastern Market

The Washington Navy Yard

The Breweries of Capitol Hill

The Instrument Makers of Capitol Hill

Adolf Cluss: The Navy Yard Communist Who Designed Eastern Market

Remembering the Bonus Army

Washington's Railways and the Rise of Union Station

Alexander R. Shepherd: D.C.'s Unappreciated Visionary

Washington's Homestead Grays and the Integration of Baseball

Capitol Hill in the Jazz Age and the Great Depression

Contested Ground: Aboriginal America and the Potomac Frontier, A.D. 700 to 1676

The District of Columbia's Black Civil War Regiment

The Burning of Washington: The British Invasion of 1814