PAST EXHIBITS
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Decatur House opened its newly-renovated exhibition gallery in 2002. Located on the second floor of the service wing, this former slave quarter today hosts changing exhibitions as well as the permant exhibition on the urban slave experience.

June 2007 - February 2008

Decatur House featured this exhibit on loan from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum entitled, Gifts from the World to the White House: Caroline Kennedy’s Doll Collection (1961-1963).

The exhibit displayed over 70 dolls from 30 countries given to Caroline Kennedy between 1961 and 1963. Italy’s Prime Minister Amintore Fanfani, Côte d’Ivoire’s first President, Felix Houphouet-Boigny, India’s Indira Gandhi, Monaco’s Princess Grace, and France’s President and Madame de Gaulle, all presented dolls as state gifts, while others came from ordinary foreign citizens who were captivated by the youthful Kennedy Family.

October 2006 - May 2007

SILVER MYSTERIES: BLACK & WHITE PHOTOGRAPHS OF 1930s WASHINGTON BY VOLKMAR WENTZEL

In the winter of 1935, Volkmar Wentzel, a gifted young man of twenty from Binghamton, New York, arrived in the nation’s capital and soon found lodging in a tiny room in a boarding house on Washington’s fabled Lafayette Square and employment in the darkroom of Underwood & Underwood, a portrait studio and news agency. So began a love affair with Washington – and photography – that would result in an enduring chronicle of the city, and propel Wentzel into the career of a lifetime as a staff photographer and writer at the National Geographic. More than seventy years ago on Lafayette Square, Volkmar Wentzel discovered the power of photography and the beauty of a city. In looking back to the place and events that spawned a lifetime career, Silver Mysteries was a fitting tribute to this nationally-renowned Washingtonian, his photographic legacy, and the bygone character of the nation’s capital.

February – October 2006
Digging Deeper: Architectural Discoveries across the National Trust
The process of historical archaeology uncovers items of everyday life that
speak volumes about a particular time and place. The dynamic discoveries of National Trust archaeology came together for the first time ever in Digging Deeper, revealing how this exciting discipline is practiced at the organization’s historic sites and displaying the highlights of an impressive archaeological collection, which numbers in the hundreds of thousands and spans hundreds
of years of history.

April 2005 – December 2005
The First and Second Wars for Independence
On loan from the Navy Art Collection, The First & Second Wars for Independence exhibit featured 30 historic prints and engravings that depict
the major naval personages and battles of the American Revolution and the
War of 1812. In the era before photography, prints and broadsides were an important way of disseminating news and ideas to the new nation.

September 2004 – April 2005
First Neighbors: Decatur House Residents and the Presidents
In celebration of the 2004 presidential election, the Decatur House presented
an exhibit tracing the long association between its former residents and their neighbors at the White House. From rumors of Stephen Decatur’s own presidential aspirations; to Martin Van Buren’s controversial role in Andrew Jackson’s cabinet; and to Edward Beale’s close friendship with Ulysses S. Grant, Decatur House has been witness to a series of important relationships with the executive branch. Through objects and images, the exhibit explored past presidents and the many significant political and personal events that resulted from these as related to Decatur House.

February - May 2004
The Making of an American Hero: Stephen Decatur in Tripoli, 1804
On the 200th anniversary of one of the most celebrated events of the early 19th century, the burning of the American frigate Philadelphia in the Bay of Tripoli, Decatur House examined the heroism of Stephen Decatur, as well as the meaning of an American hero currently and in the past, through objects and art.

November 2003 – January 2004
Open Doors: Vietnam POWs Thirty Years Later
Decatur House hosted this traveling exhibition of photographs by Jamie
Howren Quinn and profiles by Taylor Baldwin Kiland, who spent 18 months interviewing and photographing 30 extraordinary men, who demonstrated the real meaning of the word hero as prisoners of war in Vietnam. Open Doors
did not focus on the dark days in the lives of these men, but instead showed them in 2003, some 30 years later, changed and strengthened by their experiences.

April – October 2003:
Latrobe’s Washington
Latrobe's Washington examined architect, engineer and designer Benjamin Henry Latrobe's significant contribution to the tradition of public architecture in America. Specifically the exhibit focused on Latrobe's introduction of pure Greek Revival styles to the United States - initially at the Bank of Pennsylvania
in Philadelphia, but later more fully through his role as surveyor of public buildings for the new national capitol in Washington, DC. Through Latrobe's drawings, letters, and examples of his realized designs, Latrobe's Washington revealed an amazing architect whose designs set the precedent for public architecture in this country for the next two hundred years – and created a style of public buildings that most Americans can today immediately identify.

February - March 2003:
Freedom: A History of US
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and the Meserve-Kunhardt Collection presented a joint exhibition at Decatur House that documented and illustrated critical figures, events, and issues in Americans history from its founding through the Second World War. Featuring rare and unique documents such as a first draft and final official copy of the Constitution of the United States; autographed manuscript letters and documents from Presidents Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Jefferson as well as eminent leaders of the nation, among them Frederick Douglass and Harriet Beecher Stowe; and historical broadside, the exhibition came to Decatur House conjunction with the premiere of the PBS series "Freedom: A History of US."

September 2002 – January 2003
Marie Beale: Antiquarian, Ambassadress and Adventuress
Decatur House opened the inaugural exhibit of its newly-completed exhibit galleries by saluting the home’s last private resident, Marie Beale. Beale, who forever ensured the preservation of Decatur House by bequeathing it to the National Trust, established herself as one of the leaders of Washington society in the first half of the 20th century.