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    "label": "Who Built Washington? The Labor History of the Construction of the White House, 1793-1800, May 16, 1996",
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    "title": "Who Built Washington? The Labor History of the Construction of the White House, 1793-1800, May 16, 1996",
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    "ocrText": "Robert J. Kapsch\nMay 16, 1996\nWho Built Washington? - The Labor History of the Construction of\nThe White House, 1793-1800.\nPierre L'Enfant was the planner of Washington. President\nGeorge Washington and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson were the\nprincipal policy makers for the new city. The designers of the\nfirst public buildings in the new city of Washington, the White\nHouse and the Capitol, were James Hoban and William Thornton. The\nnational capital was constructed under the direction of\nCommissioners Daniel Carroll, Thomas Johnson, and David Stuart\nThese would later be replaced by Commissioners Gustavus Scott,\nWilliam Thornton and Alexander White. But who built Washington?\nFrom the records in the National Archives, a fairly complete\npicture of the work force used during the first Federal\nconstruction program (1793-1800) can be had. It was a very mixed\nbag -- black slaves worked alongside free whites and blacks and\nindentured servants. The work force was actively recruited from a\nnumber of countries, principally England, Scotland, Ireland,\nGermany and, of course, America. Although women didn't work\ndirectly work on the construction sites, they did work in support\npositions for the overall construction program. Besides the\nbuildings themselves, the first Federal construction program had to\nbuild the infrastructure necessary to support building operations -\n- such as the Commissioners' wharves, the bridge over Rock Creek,\nthe Aquia Quarries, the Post road, housing for the workers, and\nother facilities needed to support the construction program in a\nsparsely populated area.\nBy happenchance, the first Federal construction program for\nthe\nnew city of Washington (1793-1800) overlapped the great\ntransformation of the building trades from its medieval past to its\ncapitalism-based present. At about the time of the first Federal\nconstruction program, a new way of building was emerging throughout\nthe United States. The professional architect, such as Benjamin\nLatrobe, was beginning to emerge and the traditional\nmaster/journeyman/apprentice triad was beginning to be replaced by\nthe building contractor and wage labor. Traditional building\norganizations, such as Washington's Architects and Builders\nSociety, were beginning to dissolve. Traditional building\npractices, such asworking-by-the-piece, with its reliance on price\nbooks, was beginning to be replaced by lump-sum contracts, such as\nwere used by Washington's Commissioners. George Washington'\nbuilding regulations for the new city, were the beginning of the\nextensive regulations which are used in the building industry\ntoday In short, the labor history of the construction of The\nWhite House in the new Federal city, 1793-1800, provides us with a\nglimpse of the major transformation that the American building\nindustry was experiencing and the emergence of the modern building\nindustry."
}