(Bob Malesky is a 40-year Brookland resident and previous poster to Brookland Avenue who has just completed a new book. It’s a photographic history, entitled “The Catholic University of America,” for Arcadia Publishing. He offered to write a little preview for Brookland Avenue.)
Almost all the pictures in the book come from the CUA Archives, or to give it its full name, the American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives. It’s a great resource, and the school’s archivists are all first rate and extremely helpful. I spent most of last summer there, going through box after box of photos. I found most everything I wanted to find, with a few exceptions. The founder of Catholic University was a young heiress, Mary Gwendolen Caldwell. You would think the archives would have had a picture of her, but they didn’t. I began a concerted search of other sources. For a long time, the closest I was able to get was this engraving from an 1889 edition of Harper’s Weekly:
As you can see, it’s far from perfect. For one thing I wanted a real photo, not an engraving, plus it’s small and fuzzy and wouldn’t reproduce well, even if I found a better copy. Ms. Caldwell had no children, so there were no descendants to contact about family photos. After months of looking, I finally located one photo in an 1889 magazine. It still wasn’t perfect, but it was a photo, and my publisher was willing to accept it because of its rarity:
Mary Gwendolen Caldwell was only 21 years old when she pledged $300,000 to start the school, and she had the final say on where the school would be located. The majority of the nation’s bishops voted for the campus to be in Washington, D.C. and Ms. Caldwell agreed. After looking at available properties, they chose the grounds of the Middleton estate. Next door was the estate of Jehiel Brooks. Occasionally I’ve heard the question asked, which came first, Catholic University or Brookland? The answer is they started at the same time. Ms. Caldwell offered her financial pledge in 1884, but the school didn’t become official until Pope Leo XIII approved it, and that didn’t happen until 1887. Jehiel Brooks died in 1886, and his heirs sold the land to developers the next year, so both CUA and Brookland started in 1887.
Finding good pictures of Brookland was harder than anticipated. The CUA archives had some, mostly of the buildings of the various Catholic institutions that affiliated with the school. I used many of those pictures, but wound up going to the Library of Congress, the Historical Society of Washington and other sources for a few other photos. Here’s one of the original wooden frame St. Anthony’s church from about 1905.
It opened in 1896. For a few years before that, masses had been held in the home of Antoinette Margot, who had a large house at 10th & Bunker Hill Rd. When the new church was opened, Ms. Margot built a new home directly across 12th St. from it, about where the Brookland Post Office is today. She called it “Villa Marie,” and lived there for the rest of her life. I did find a photo of Villa Marie in the CUA archives. You can see the steeple of St. Anthony’s across the street:
I was surprised and pleased when I found a photo of my house on Newton St. from 1911, when Sisters of Mercy were living there as they attended Sisters College. I managed to find an excuse to put it in the book. That was fun. And there were a few pictures I didn’t use. Here’s one of another house on 12th St. This was next door to Villa Marie on 12th St., near the intersection with Monroe. At the time, Dr. Charles McCarthy lived there. I love the design of this one, especially the turret:
Nonetheless, I couldn’t find a good reason to include it in the book. I just wish there were more photos of early Brookland available, particularly from the very first years. I imagine descendants of the Brooks family have some, and probably some of the other older Brookland families. Perhaps someday someone will write one of these books just about the neighborhood, and maybe then we’ll be able to see more of old Brookland.
I’ll include one last picture that is in the book. This is the National Shrine as it is was approaching completion in the late 1950s. After three decades with just the foundation level and crypt church completed, construction finally zoomed along from 1954-58. It must have been fun for the neighborhood to watch. The Shrine was dedicated in 1959.
The book was published on Monday, May 17th. It’s available now from Amazon as well as other online sources, and should be in the local bookstores too.
– Bob Malesky
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