The United Symbolism of America

August 26th

Check this, on page 217 we read that Nicholas Mann's research led him to conclude that L'Enfant's original and intended design can be found in the map held by the Library of Congress dated August 26, 1791; which would lead to you believe that you go to the LOC and find a map labeled L'Enfant and August 26, but you can't. There is however one dated August 19, 1791.

It is also suggested that this map in the LOC that is dated Aug 26th, is 'the one accepted by most mainstream academics as the last map produced by L"Enfant', implying that there were others that have been lost. This map is alternately called L'Enfant's first draft. If I could, I would like to expose the folly of this.

. . .

Columbian Historical Society Records list L'Enfant's Reports to President Washington on March 26, June 22, and August 19, 1791. The letters dated June 22 and August 19 still exist, and both speak of accompanying maps. The Aug 19 letter entitles the map with it as 'the annexed dotted line map'. In the Library of Congress map collection we find this map: g3851b ct000301 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g3851b.ct000301 "Dotted line map of Washington, D.C., 1791, before Aug. 19th Accompanied by positive and negative photocopies of L'Enfant's letter to George Washington, Aug. 19, 1791, the original in the L'Enfant papers, no. 0215-977, L.C. Ms. Div.".

On page 34 of Richard Stephenson's book A Plan Wholly New he identifies this map (figure 10 in his book) as probably drawn in December of 1791.

That is, the LOC is calling this the line map that accompanied the Aug 19 letter. This might lead you to believe that the other L'Enfant map in the LOC is the June 22 map. In 1991, the LOC published a book about the map written by an employee. An article about the book reads in part:

"Frenchman Pierre Charles L'Enfant's original plan for the city of Washington is the subject of a study recently published by the Library of Congress. A Plan Whol[l]y New": Pierre Charles L'Enfant's Plan of the City of Washington. The title of the book is taken from a sentence in L'Enfant's letter to George Washington dated August 19, 1791, in which he reports on the progress of the plan."

Actually what the letter talks about is that the accompanying map contained revisions of a first map that Washington had requested - which are clearly contained in the line map. But later we read:

"The original manuscript of L'Enfant's plan was transferred in 1918 from the Office of Public Buildings and Grounds, U.S. Army, to the Library of Congress. Exactly 200 years after L'Enfant presented his plan for the city to President Washington on August 26, 1791, the Library of Congress commemorated the event with the publication of a full- color facsimile reproduction of the plan."

Stepenson is claiming the the March notes are gone, we have the June letter but no map, and a August letter but not the map discussed in the letter. What we do have is an unrevised map (one that differs from the current configuration) supposedly presented the same time as the August letter.

The idea that backs this up is that the original manuscript being described is the other map that the LOC has, and that the June map has been lost. That the dotted line map went with the letter, but the manuscript map was presented on the 26th. The problem with this idea is that the dotted line map in the LOC contains the revisions attributed to Ellicott, like the straightening of Mass. Ave. The author of the book circumvents this problem by asserting that the dotted line map is missing too, and that the map that the LOC has was really done in August by Benjamin Ellicott working for L'Enfant. One person at the LOC has informed me that not everyone there agrees with this thesis, and the map remains entitled L'Enfant Aug 19, not 26th.

What is at issue is who made the revisions to the map. We have three maps, 1) the 'buisy' manuscript map, 2) the dotted line map and 3) the Ellicott map. I suggest that 1 is the June map, 2 is the August map and 3 is made in 1792. Stpehenson's book says the June map is missing, and the dotted line is missing and that the maps that we have were not written about any where.

Try googling "L'Enfant August 19, 1791" and "L'Enfant August 26, 1791". Stepehnson writes that L'Enfant went to Philadelphia some time between Aug 19 and 25 and 'on or before August 26th" he submitted his written report with the dotted line map. He speaks of a meeting on the 26th where L'Enfant presented his plan. But to Stephenson, the map that he presented was the one commemorated in 1791.

Again, in relationship to the claim that Mann based his study on a LOC map labeled Aug 26th, it ain't so. The map was claimed to have been presented at a dinner on August 26th, but the one in question is labeled "Plan of the city intended for the permanent seat of the government of t[he] United States : projected agreeable to the direction of the President of the United States, in pursuance of an act of Congress, passed on the sixteenth day of July, MDCCXC, "establishing the permanent seat on the bank of the Potowmac" : [Washington D.C.] / by Peter Charles L'Enfant."