Remember walking in to your grade school on a crisp fall afternoon? Remember looking up and reading the name etched into stone over the door? Who was the person anyway? What did they do that was so special they deserved to have a school named after them?

This exhibit looks at 26 of those individuals and begins to explore the links between those special people, public school buildings and the events and activities that shaped the District of Columbia. Some of the buildings still stand today - some continue as centers of education; others serve new roles. However, many of the structures were razed through the years. Often what remains now as a monument to those early leaders and educators is their name etched in a different sort of stone – their headstone. It is through these markers located at Historic Congressional Cemetery that we trace a unique social history of the city.

As you page through the exhibit, you will discover how public education developed in the city, learn fascinating tidbits about leaders in government and education who directly or indirectly impacted the system of education, and explore how a historic burial ground that links the past with the present serves as an educational tool today.