The Washington Century chronicles the hundred-year rise of the nation's capital as it grew to become the most powerful city in the world -- a story made vivid through the history of three very different families, each representing an essential aspect of Washington: the Cafritzes, headed by a real estate mogul and his consummate hostess wife; the Boggs family, a political force in the ultimate political town; and the Hobsons, lead by a prominent black activist and civic leader in the first black-majority American city. Veteran journalist Burt Solomon uses these families to explore everything from the customs of Washington's elite society to the expansion of the federal bureaucracy, the District's own struggle for self-governance, and the influential role that politics and, increasingly, lobbying have played in the city. “Solomon paints vivid portraits of family monarchs and patriarchs while offering an engaging, breezy history of the nation’s capital.” - Library Journal “[A] page turner.” - U.S. News & World Report “ Solomon’s choice of families and their stories move the reader through the immense amount of history effortlessly.” - Roll Call We thought we knew everything there was to know about our federal city until reading The Washington Century . . . intriguing.” - Washington Times “Interesting . . . Solomon has a . . . clear understanding of how this city changed during the 20th century” - Washington Post Book World “Well-told stories about Washington by those who know the city and its history.” - Booklist “Solomon astutely tracks three families of American aristocrats who wielded power inside the Beltway through the 20th century. . . . An insider’s knowing and engaging portrait, not to be found in any guidebook.” - Kirkus Reviews The Washington Century chronicles the hundred-year rise of the nation's capital as it grew to become the most powerful city in the world -- a story made vivid through the history of three very different families, each representing an essential aspect of Washington: the Cafritzes, headed by a real estate mogul and his consummate hostess wife; the Boggs family, a political force in the ultimate political town; and the Hobsons, lead by a prominent black activist and civic leader in the first black-majority American city. Veteran journalist Burt Solomon uses these families to explore everything from the customs of Washington's elite society to the expansion of the federal bureaucracy, the District's own struggle for self-governance, and the influential role that politics and, increasingly, lobbying have played in the city. Burt Solomon is a contributing editor for National Journal , where he has covered the White House and many other aspects of Washington life. In 1991 he won the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Distinguished Reporting on the Presidency. He is also the author of the acclaimed Where They Ain't , a history of baseball in the 1890s. He lives with his wife and children inside the Beltway. The Washington Century Three Families and the Shaping of the Nation's Capital By Burt Solomon HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. Copyright ©2005 Burt Solomon All right reserved. ISBN: 0060937858 Chapter One Theodore Roosevelt to Hoover Before first light, young Morris Kafitz hitched up the horse and wagon and set out along the lanes of Georgetown. The gas lamps were still lit, and the reflections flickered off the cobblestones. As he rode south along Twenty-seventh Street, beneath a canopy of trees, the clopping echoed between the facing rows of houses. Morris was accustomed to the early hour. He had a sturdy build and a strong and stolid face, with dark hair and somber blue eyes that kept their own counsel. As the eldest of the three sons, he woke each morning at four thirty and made his way across the sleepy, shuffling city ofWashington, in the District of Columbia, to buy fresh produce at the Center Market and sometimes to shop for fish down at the wharf. Only after hauling these provisions back to his father's grocery store, at Twenty-seventh and O Streets, in the city's northwestern quadrant, would he rush the three and a half blocks to the Corcoran School, with its redbrick Romanesque tower. Soon his schooling would end, after the 1901?2 school year, once he had finished the seventh grade at age fourteen. What Morris wanted for himself in this land of liberty was not found in books. Surely there was no shame in living in unfashionable Georgetown, even in its shabbier eastern end. This was paradise compared to Lithuania. His family had fled the pogroms when he was eleven and by 1898 had wound up in Washington, where some cousins had settled. The seven of them, Nussen, Anna, and the five children, lived first in a shack twenty-some blocks north of the Capitol building, and then in an alleyway a dozen blocks closer. Pierre L'Enfant's grandiose design for the nation's capital, with its broad avenues and elongated blocks, had created a web of alleys, out of sight,