DAR

April 1922 was a busy time for Washington socialites and the newspapers that followed them, as the city hosted no less than five national and international women’s groups in the span of a few short weeks. DC had long been a party town (pun intended) but these gatherings provide a glimpse of the changing dynamics of womens’ political involvement during the 1920s, immediately following the passage of the nineteenth amendment.

Years after Marian Anderson was famously barred from performing at D.A.R. Constitution Hall because of her race, she gave a concert at venue. It was an overdue coda to a painful chapter in America’s cultural history.