Washington, DC History & Culture

Washington, DC, US

58,098 members · Public group

Organized by Robert Kelleman and 21 others

What we’re about

Meet People + See Places + Learn Things + Have Fun!

Washington, DC History & Culture
A non-profit community organization.
Experience the History and Culture of Washington, DC - and the world!

For more fun and educational programs visit us at:
https://www.Meetup.com/DCHistoryAndCulture
https://www.Facebook.com/DCHistoryAndCulture
https://DCHistoryAndCulture.Eventbrite.com
http://www.youtube.com/c/WashingtonDCHistoryCulture
https://www.Instagram.com/DCHistoryAndCulture
#DCHistoryAndCulture

__________________________________________________

We look forward to seeing you - thanks!

Robert Kelleman
rkelleman@yahoo.com
202-821-6325 (text only)

Upcoming events (4+)

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Sun, Jun 8, 2025, 12:00 AM UTCThe 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in NY - Film History Livestream
Link visible for attendees
The 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in NY - Film History Livestream

We invite you to join us for two documentary film screenings on the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.
During and after the screenings there will be opportunities to discuss the films with your fellow participants via Zoom.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, on Saturday, March 25, 1911, was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city, and one of the deadliest in U.S. history. The fire caused the deaths of 146 garment workers - 123 women and girls and 23 men - who died from the fire, smoke inhalation, falling, or jumping to their deaths. Most of the victims were recent Italian or Jewish immigrant women and girls aged 14 to 23; of the victims whose ages are known, the oldest victim was 43-year-old Providenza Panno and the youngest were 14-year-olds Kate Leone and Rosaria "Sara" Maltese.
The factory was located on the 8th, 9th, and 10th floors of the Asch Building, which had been built in 1901. Later renamed the "Brown Building", it still stands at 23–29 Washington Place near Washington Square Park, on the New York University (NYU) campus. The building has been designated a National Historic Landmark and a New York City landmark.
Because the doors to the stairwells and exits were locked - practice at the time to prevent workers from taking unauthorized breaks and to reduce theft - many of the workers could not escape from the burning building and jumped from the high windows. There were no sprinklers in the building. The fire led to legislation requiring improved factory safety standards and helped spur the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU), which fought for better working conditions for sweatshop workers.

Triangle: Remembering the Fire Trailer (HBO - 40 minutes)
From Emmy - winning filmmakers Marc Levin and Daphne Pinkerson, this 40-minute documentary recounts the horror of March 25, 1911, when young garment workers perished in the worst industrial accident in New York City history (up until 9/11), triggering widespread reforms and ushering in the birth of modern labor movement. In addition to riveting stories of heart break and courage told by descendants of several of the fire's victims and survivors, the documentary explains how the tragedy occurred in the wake of an earlier strike (initiated by Triangle employees) that unified some 20,000 garment workers, but ended violence and few concessions by labor leaders. The Saturday afternoon fire, in which workers were literally locked inside their workspace by management apparently worried about theft, galvanized the public's outrage against big business and its treatment of employees. It also forced Tammany Hall officials to work with the fledgling International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU) to enact legislation improving safety, conditions and wages for garment workers -- a trend that climaxed in New Deal reforms twenty years later, and is the foundation of today's labor standards.
YouTube Preview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbDoBlUPJUg

American Experience: Triangle Fire (PBS - 60 minutes)
The fire that tore through the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City on March 25, 1911, was the gruesome culmination of years of unrest in America's most profitable manufacturing industry. Two years earlier, led by a spontaneous walkout in the same factory, twenty thousand garment workers, in the largest women's strike in American history, took to the streets of New York to protest working conditions. They gained the support of both progressives and leading women in New York's high society. But it took the tragedy at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, the death of one hundred and forty-eight young women and the ensuing national outrage, to force government action. From producer Jamila Wignot (Walt Whitman, Jesse James, the Massie Affair) comes Triangle Fire (wt), a one-hour film chronicling the tragedy that shook New York and forever changed the relationship between labor and industry in the United States. And it is a relationship that is still in question today as Americans.
YouTube Preview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YABBwNxgBHw

***

Zoom Connection Link
Click (or Copy and Paste) and Follow the Instructions:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83085282382?pwd=avmfVVAHUV1eCnhKXiZj4mHEQs7dWg.1
Meeting ID: 830 8528 2382
Passcode: 775956
Dial by your location
+1 719 359 4580 US

***

Your host for this program is Robert Kelleman, the founder/director of the non-profit community organizations Washington, DC History & Culture and Texas History & Culture.

Washington, DC History & Culture
Experience the history and culture of Washington, DC - and the world!

YouTube Previously Recorded Programs:
http://www.Youtube.com/c/WashingtonDCHistoryCulture

Donations Support Our Non-Profit Community Programs - Thank You!
PayPal: DCHistoryAndCulture@gmail.com
Venmo: @DCHistoryAndCulture
GoFundMe: https://gofund.me/d29491c0

We look forward to seeing you. Thanks!

Robert Kelleman
rkelleman@yahoo.com
202-821-6325 (text only)
https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertkelleman/
339 attendees+334
Tue, Jun 10, 2025, 11:00 PM UTCJune History Book Club Meeting - "Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia"
Link visible for attendees
In June, we will learn the history of a region of the world that we have only rarely visited in this group: Polynesia. This book explores the history of how humans came to populate these islands. Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia by Christina Thompson.

Here is what the publisher has to say about the book:

"For more than a millennium, Polynesians have occupied the remotest islands in the Pacific Ocean, a vast triangle stretching from Hawaii to New Zealand to Easter Island. Both the most closely related and the most widely dispersed people in the world before the era of mass migration, Polynesians can trace their roots to a group of epic voyagers who ventured out into the unknown in one of the greatest adventures in human history.

How did the earliest Polynesians find and colonize these far-flung islands? How did a people without writing or metal tools conquer the largest ocean in the world? This conundrum, which came to be known as the Problem of Polynesian Origins, emerged in the eighteenth century as one of the great geographical mysteries of mankind.

Thompson explores the fascinating story of these ancestors, as well as those of the many sailors, linguists, archaeologists, folklorists, biologists, and geographers who have puzzled over this history for three hundred years."

Please remember that this is, first and foremost, a book club. Like any local book club, the point is discussion about a shared experience - reading the book! It is not a lecture series. So as usual, get yourself a copy and read it, then join us for another interesting discussion. We continue to meet virtually because so many of our members now join us from locations far from the D.C area.

A zoom link to the discussion will be sent a day before the meeting.
83 attendees+78
Tue, Jul 8, 2025, 11:00 PM UTCJuly History Bk Club - "Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold..."
Link visible for attendees
We have arrived at the beginning of the commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, and - no doubt, this group will read its fair share of related books - starting this July. Nathaniel Philbrick wrote three books on the war for independence. This is the middle of the three: Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution. It captures a short time period within the larger war, starting in 1776 when Washington was less certain of the path forward, and Arnold seemed to do no wrong. Their positions reversed over the next four years, and this book tells that story.

Here is what the publisher has to say about the book:

"Valiant Ambition is a complex, controversial, and dramatic portrait of a people in crisis and the war that gave birth to a nation. The focus is on loyalty and personal integrity, evoking a Shakespearean tragedy that unfolds in the key relationship of Washington and Arnold, who is an impulsive but sympathetic hero whose misfortunes at the hands of self-serving politicians fatally destroy his faith in the legitimacy of the rebellion. As a country wary of tyrants suddenly must figure out how it should be led, Washington’s unmatched ability to rise above the petty politics of his time enables him to win the war that really matters."

Please remember that this is, first and foremost, a book club. Like any local book club, the point is discussion about a shared experience - reading the book! It is not a lecture series. So as usual, get yourself a copy, read it, then join us for another interesting discussion. We continue to meet virtually because so many of our members now join us from locations outside the D.C area.

A zoom link to the discussion will be sent a day before the meeting.
22 attendees+17
Sat, Jul 12, 2025, 12:00 AM UTCGeorge Caleb Bingham Film - Art History Livestream
Link visible for attendees
George Caleb Bingham Film - Art History Livestream
&
George Caleb Bingham Lecture - Art History Livestream

We invite you to a special two-part art history program on the life and career of George Caleb Bingham, “the Missouri Artist.”

Part 1, on Friday, July 11, will be a screening of the film “The American Artist: The Life & Times of George Caleb Bingham."
YouTube Film Preview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k-dRkM5-2M

Part 2, on Saturday, July 12, will be an art history lecture on the life and artistic career of George Caleb Bingham.
YouTube Lecture Preview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev6Of24sm8E

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The American Artist is a biographical docu-drama about George Caleb Bingham. His childhood was spent in the American frontier along the Missouri River. A self-taught painter, his natural talent, relentless ambition, and strategic friendships propelled him into the world of politics. He was a successful artist, politician, and family man ... but it all fell apart. His home, family, career, and life s work were all but lost as the American Civil War split his world in two. A century after his death, George Caleb Bingham s work was not only rediscovered, it is celebrated as a National Treasure. His paintings, his politics, his life are a testament to his perseverance, ingenuity, and unwavering determination. An America, long since forgotten, is preserved through his life s work.
Film Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k-dRkM5-2M

George Caleb Bingham (March 20, 1811 - July 7, 1879) was an American artist, soldier and politician known in his lifetime as "the Missouri Artist". Initially a Whig, he was elected as a delegate to the Missouri legislature before the American Civil War where he fought against the extension of slavery westward. During that war, although born in Virginia, Bingham was dedicated to the Union cause and became captain of a volunteer company which helped keep the state from joining the Confederacy, and then served four years as Missouri's Treasurer. During his final years, Bingham held several offices in Kansas City, while also serving as Missouri's Adjutant General. His paintings of American frontier life along the Missouri River exemplify the Luminist style.
YouTube Preview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev6Of24sm8E

***

Zoom Connection Link
Click (or Copy and Paste) and Follow the Instructions:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87970768403?pwd=OTBWRHMwTWVzcFhPckt0c3FhekRrUT09
Meeting ID: 879 7076 8403
Passcode: 053792
One tap mobile
+16694449171,,87970768403#,,,,*053792# US
Dial by your location
• +1 646 931 3860 US
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kpmid1hRf
Connecting a few minutes early is recommended.
When all else fails please read and follow the directions. : )

***

Your host for this program is Robert Kelleman, the founder/director of the non-profit community organizations Washington, DC History & Culture and Texas History & Culture.

Washington, DC History & Culture
Experience the history and culture of Washington, DC - and the world!

YouTube Previously Recorded Programs:
http://www.Youtube.com/c/WashingtonDCHistoryCulture

Donations Support Our Non-Profit Community Programs - Thank You!
PayPal: DCHistoryAndCulture@gmail.com
Venmo: @DCHistoryAndCulture
GoFundMe: https://gofund.me/d29491c0

We look forward to seeing you. Thanks!

Robert Kelleman
rkelleman@yahoo.com
202-821-6325 (text only)
https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertkelleman/
116 attendees+111

Past events (2647)

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Sat, Jun 7, 2025, 8:00 PM UTCBrooklyn Bridge by Ken Burns - Film History Livestream
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145 attendees+140

Washington, DC History & Culture

What we’re about

Upcoming events (4+)

Past events (2647)

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Washington, DC History & Culture

What we’re about

Upcoming events (4+)

Past events (2647)

Group links

Find us also at

Related topics