Washington Board of Trade: Document View
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| Title: | Brochure advertising the Greater Washington Board of Trade |
| Author: | the Greater Washington Board of Trade |
| Date: | 00/00/1979 |
Document Information
Bibliographic Metadata
| Author: | the Greater Washington Board of Trade |
| Title: | Brochure advertising the Greater Washington Board of Trade |
| Date: | 00/00/1979 |
| Archive: | Special Collections, Gelman Library, George Washington University |
| Collection name: | the Greater Washington Board of Trade |
| Document location: | Box 1, Folder 15 |
| Publication location: | Washington D.C. |
| Publisher: |
Descriptive Metadata
| Editorial notes: | |
| Description: | This is a two panel brochure sent to metro area businesses advertising the Board to prospective members. This brochure outlines the accomplishments over the past 90 years of the Board of the Trade, offers a very brief history of the Board, and looks to the future. The Board emphasizes their work in infrastruture development, transportation issues with the Dulles, National, and the Metro; social programs related to employment and education, and cultural venues with the Kennedy Center, RFK Stadium, and the forthcoming covention center. Interestingly, there might be some revisionist history taking place with this publication, namely with identifying Beriah Wilkins as the founder of the Board of Trade. This is probably an inaccurate way to describe the role of Wilkins in the formation of the Board. A Washington Post article from November 1889 credits retailer Isadore Saks with the floating the idea of forming a trade board for the District during the push for the festival to be awarded by Congress to a city that will commemorate the 400th anniversary of Columbus "discovery" of America (that article appears in this module). Subsequently, a series of articles appear in Star and Post advocating the formation of a Board of Trade for Washington. Wilkins did indeed provide leadership to convene the first meeting where the Board was formally organized on November 28, 1889 at the Ebbitt House, as evidenced from the image of the letter embedded in this brochure on Washington Post letterhead written and signed by Wilkins himself. But, the Board came together arguably by a series of forces, people, and event converging together at once, mostly the push to win the bid from Congress to host the aforementioned festival (Washington's bid fell a distant fourth to Chicago's winning proposal). There is one more slightly incorrect detail in this brochure. The Board was not incorporated by a December 2, 1889 Special Act of Congress, as is stated on the second page of this brochure. As is seen in the document available in this module entitled "Formal Incorporation of the Board of Trade for the District of Columbia," the Board incorporated with a simple two page notarized document stating the name of the organization, the men acting as directors of the Board, and that the Board exists (quoting from their formal incorporation document) "pursuant to, and in conformity with the provisions of Section 605 of Chapter 18, of an Act of Congress entitled 'An Act to revise and consolidate the Statutes of the United States, general and permanent in their nature, relating to the District of Columbia, in force on the first day of December, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and seventy-three', approved June 22nd, 1874." |
| Subjects: | the Greater Washington Board of Trade;; 20th Century Washington, D.C.;; |
Technical Metadata
| Date scanned: | 02/27/2006 |
| Person scanning: | Craig Clarke |
| Date converted: | 02/27/2006 |
| Person converting: | Craig Clarke |
| Scanner used: | Fujitsu FI-4220C |
| OCR program: | PixEdit 7 Rev. 7.3.6 |
| Technical notes: |