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Colleagues: the recent discussion in another forum of the persistent myth that "residents stopped a Metro stop from being constructed in Georgetown" prompts me to ask--what are the other myths of Washington DC history? Here are a few tht come to mind: Myths of Washington *Built on a swamp (discussed several years ago on H-DC) *plan reconstructed out of Banneker's memory after L'Enfant was fired *plan copied after Versailles (Don Hawkins' recently lectured at the National Building Museum on this) *circles and avenues for military purposes/crowd control (also been discussed on H-DC) *No J Street to slight John Jay, or Thomas Jefferson, or.... *Residents stopped a Metro stop from being constructed in Georgetown The persistence of these says something more about sociology and politics than history. An example of these kind of shorthand useful legends is that of Charles Drew: http://www.gale.com/free_resources/bhm/bio/drew_c.htm "It was not long afterward that rumors began to spread throughout the African American community about how and why Drew had died. According to those rumors, the white doctors at the segregated hospital he had been taken to refused to treat him, presumably because the few beds that were set aside for black patients were already full. In a bitterly ironic twist of fate, so the story went, they then allowed him to bleed to death. This account of Drew's final hours persisted for decades. It was (and still is) accepted as fact by many people. Yet as historian Spencie Love points out in her book One Blood: The Death and Resurrection of Charles R. Drew, there is far more myth than truth to the story. Statements obtained from the men who were with Drew indicate that his doctors were well aware of his identity as they fought for more than an hour to save his life. His colleagues saw no evidence of mistreatment or neglect." Love, Spencie. _One Blood: The Death and Resurrection of Charles R. Drew_ Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996. and see: http://tafkac.org/death/charles.drew/drew_bio.html -- Matthew Gilmore H-DC list co-editor, web editor Vice President, Networks -- H-Net dc-edit@mail.h-net.msu.edu http://www.h-net.org/~dclist/ [list website] http://www.h-net.org/hcalendar/month.php?user=H-DC [calendar] http://www.h-net.org/lists/subscribe.cgi?list=H-DC [subscribe to H-DC] Remember to check http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=lm&list=h-dc for past list messages.
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