This week for Now and a Long Time Ago, GM is going a long ways back, all the way to the Civil War. The above photo from the Library of Congress is of the Seminary Hospital on Washington and Gay (30th and N nowadays).
The building was originally Miss Lydia English’s Finishing School for Girls. As this writer recounts:
From 1820 to 1861 this was “Miss English’s Seminary for Young Ladies”. Many of the daughters of Washington’s elite families were educated here under the direction of Miss Lydia Scudder English.
Miss English wrote in her brochure that she would provide girls with “that amount of mental and moral culture necessary to render them amiable, intelligent, and useful members of society”.
About 140 girls boarded each year at Miss Lydia English’s Georgetown Female Seminary. One of the most famous was Harriet Williams, the teenage bride of the middle aged Russian nobleman whose marital home is at 3322 O St. NW. Continue reading
The Georgetown Metropolitan 
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