Alexander Robey Shepherd: The Man Who Built the Nation's Capital

by John P. Richardson, Tony Williams (Foreword by)

Overview

With Alexander Robey Shepherd, John P. Richardson gives us the first full-length biography of his subject, who as Washington, D.C.’s, public works czar (1871–74) built the infrastructure of the nation’s capital in a few frenetic years after the Civil War. The story of Shepherd is also the story of his hometown after that cataclysm, which left the city with churned-up streets, stripped of its trees, and exhausted.

An intrepid businessman, Shepherd became president of Washington’s lower house of delegates at twenty-seven. Garrulous and politically astute, he used every lever to persuade Congress to realize Peter L’Enfant’s vision for the capital. His tenure produced paved and graded streets, sewer systems, trees, and gaslights, and transformed the fetid Washington Canal into one of the city’s most stately avenues. After bankrupting the city, a chastened Shepherd left in 1880 to develop silver mines in western Mexico, where he lived out his remaining twenty-two years.

In Washington, Shepherd worked at the confluence of race, party, region, and urban development, in a microcosm of the United States. Determined to succeed at all costs, he helped force Congress to accept its responsibility for maintenance of its stepchild, the nation’s capital city.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780821422496
Publisher:	Ohio University Press
Publication date:	10/15/2016
Edition description:	1
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

John P. Richardson is a retired intelligence officer, Middle East specialist, and author of a previous study on the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He is an officer of two Washington area historical organizations and lives with his wife in Arlington, Virginia.

Table of Contents

Foreword vii

Preface ix

Chapter 1 "An Apollo in Form": Coming of Age in the Nation's Capital, 1835-1861 1

Chapter 2 "The Great Work of Improving and Beautifying Our Beloved City": First Steps in Business and Political Leadership, 1862-1865 26

Chapter 3 "We Want an Honest Board of Commissioners and No Broken-down Political Demagogues": Building His Business and Political Base for Civic Reform, 1865-1868 43

Chapter 4 "The Necessity for a Change in the Form of Government for This District": Promoting Territorial Government, 1869-1870 63

Chapter 5 "A Practical Experiment": Achieving Territorial Government, 1870-1871 77

Chapter 6 "Improvements Must Go On": The Board of Public Works, 1871 96

Chapter 7 "More Work of Improvement Was Undertaken at Once Than Was Wise": Meeting Opposition to the Board of Public Works, 1872 116

Chapter 8 "They Must Have a Republican Boss Tweed for Campaign Purposes": A Troubled Territorial Governor, 1873-1874 135

Chapter 9 "A Free Man Once More": Bankruptcy and Preparations to Move to Mexico, 1874-1880 157

Chapter 10 "A Life of Labor and Extreme Simplicity": Seeking El Dorado in Batopilas, 1880-1882 179

Chapter 11 "Anxieties, Expenses, Delays, and Losses": Journey's End, 1882-1902 202

Chapter 12 "The Law of Necessity": Denouement and Final Assessments 224

Acknowledgments 235

Note on Primary Sources 239

Index 243

Editorial Reviews

John Richardson's lucid biography of the central figure in Washington’s municipal history before the 1970s will benefit Washingtonians but also historians of all American cities. Through painstaking research, Richardson reveals common themes in the two seemingly disconnected segments of Shepherd’s storied career: as the visionary but imperious public works official who made Washington a modern city in the 1870s, and then as the imperialistic operator of American-owned mines in Díaz-era Mexico.”—Alan Lessoff, author of The Nation and Its City: Politics, “Corruption,” and Progress in Washington, D.C, 1861–1902


“This fascinating study of Shepherd—a kind of proto-Robert Moses—belongs on any bookshelf devoted to the evolution of the American cityscape. The strength of Richardson’s research and writing is in the care and balance he brings to the tale. Washington, D.C., comes alive here, and so does Shepherd: sometimes hero and sometimes villain, he is always compelling and utterly human.”—Scott W. Berg, author of Grand Avenues: The Story of Pierre Charles L’Enfant, the French Visionary Who Designed Washington, D.C.


“With skill, nuance, and the mining of primary sources, John Richardson brings visionary and/or corrupt political hack Alexander ‘Boss’ Shepherd, the remarkable ‘New Washington,’ and the heady early years of the Gilded Age to life.”—Kathryn Allamong Jacob, author of King of the Lobby: The Life and Times of Sam Ward, Man-about-Washington in the Gilded Age


“The controversy surrounding Shepherd’s legacy can be reduced to a single question: Do the ends justify the means? Richardson concludes that the physical development that Washington experienced during Shepherd’s leadership of the Board of Public Works did indeed justify the exorbitant financial costs, the questionable business practices, and the loss of self-government.…It is a tribute to Richardson’s careful research and balanced narrative that many readers may disagree with his assessments of this fascinating but flawed man.”—Washington History


“Shepherd’s story, told [here] with skill and confidence, is at once the story of a great American character, with all his great achievements—bold, visionary, pragmatic, entrepreneurial; and notable flaws.… It’s also the story of a great and complex American city’s recovery from the Civil War, growth in the industrial age, and implementation of one of the world’s greatest urban plans. In short, it’s how Washington became a city.”—From the foreword by Tony Williams, mayor of Washington, D.C., 1999–2007

From the Publisher