Heather Schamal, Prairie View Junior High School, Tinley Park, Illinois

"Mom, can you fit him into the picture?" These were the words I uttered as I fought my way in to take a picture among the throngs of tourists awaiting their shot with the ultimate D.C. star, a larger than life statue of one of our great American figures, Abraham Lincoln. Carl Abbott refers to Washington D.C. as the "Los Angeles on the Potomac," which one can only assume that the many men and women honored in this great American sunbelt would be our nation's historical "movie stars." After all, men like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson had dreams of grandeur for this city within a city, within a state, within a region, within a nation.

In Abbott's book, he discusses the origins of Washington from our founding fathers' wishes to African Americans' frustrations to today's politicians. The early founders and organizers of the city wanted it to have southern character to reflect their cultural upbringing but also bring about a city that would tie prominent regions, if not the nation, together. Washington stayed extremely "southern" in thinking socially, politically, and culturally throughout its early beginnings. Abbott states, "It was expected to anchor and create a center of gravity that would draw Virginia, Maryland, and their Ohio Valley offspring into the dominant core region for the new nation." This was the intent of Washington. However Abbott further states, "The antebellum District of Columbia remained local rather than national in its economy and in the character of everyday life" (37-38). It seemed that the grand dreams of the city were not implementing themselves and blossoming into an economic, cultural, and political center because the city itself seemed stuck in its ways.

The Civil War brought a screeching halt to this way of life and thus entered a new northern climate to the tidewater town. This climate changed how people viewed Washington and, ultimately, how Washington viewed itself. Abbott does a fine job of comparing the North and South aspects of Washington D.C. Washington is born out of southern tradition but is eventually molded into a city comprised of two different cultures. In the transition, "Women, Work, and Region", Abbott characterizes southern women and northern women by analyzing their choice of career. Not only is it interesting to see what they chose, but how they come to rationalizations of choosing that career. Northern women chose office jobs doing clerical work. Southern women chose more domesticated work such as running boardinghouses. These reflect women's regional attitudes of this time. Abbott simply summarizes, "To be a northern woman was to be associated with social and economic change. To be a southern woman was to fill traditional roles and preserve traditional values" (97). Does this description of women also mirror Washington's character? Isn't it a city struggling to continually challenge its roots and become a superpower player for the nation and the globe?

Abbott continually addresses these topics and issues in his book. It seems that in a way Washington has come full circle from its birth to present day. It has embraced qualities from the dominant regions of the United States and created a cultural, intellectual, political, and global "think tank" which the nation and the world use as their backbone for ultimate decision-making.

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