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Heurich House Museum

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This is a contributing entry for Heurich House Museum and only appears as part of that tour.Learn More.
Today a trendy yet expensive destination for Washington’s professionals, the Dupont Circle neighborhood has long been home to members of the elite class. However, less affluent residents also found their place. Belle Stone shared an apartment in the neighborhood with her mother while working as a seamstress for the Heurichs.

Dupont Circle in 1910, when Belle lived in the neighborhood.

A black and white aerial photograph of Dupont Circle

1910 DC Census, with Belle Stone listed on line 23.

Page from 1910 DC Census with information written in by hand

Before World War I, Dupont Circle attracted well-off families with its lavish mansions and brick or stone row houses. The introduction of streetcars around the end of the 19th century and into the 20th led wealthier people to move to DC’s “streetcar suburbs” in the north and opened the neighborhood to people who worked as laborers, clerks, and craftsmen. As luxury apartment buildings came into fashion, families who could not afford their own residences also moved to Dupont. 

Belle Stone and her mother, also named Belle, came from Pennsylvania to DC around 1900. They moved around the Dupont neighborhood for about a decade until settling into their apartment at 2016 P Street NW. For skilled workers like this pair, Dupont would have been a good location - near many wealthy potential employers, relatively safe, and deemed “respectable” by the middle class.

While we do not know the exact date that Belle Stone began working for the Heurich family, we do know from diary entries that her mother was a family friend of Amelia Heurich. How did Belle’s connection with the Heurich family affect her ability to get a job? What was her relationship like with the Heurichs? 

Beauchamp, Tanya Edwards. "The Dupont Circle Historic District." Brochure, The Historical Society of Washington, 1999. https://dcpreservation-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Dupont-Circle-Brochure.pdf

Cherkasky, Mara. Slices of the Pie: Black and White Dupont Circle from the 1920's to the 1950's. Thesis, George Washington University, 1985.

Wheeler, Linda. "Dupont Circle: Fashionable In-Town Address." In Washington at Home: An Illustrated History of Neighborhoods in the Nation’s Capital, edited by Kathryn Schneider Smith, 180-195. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010.

Image Sources(Click to expand)

https://www.loc.gov/item/97505327/

Ancestry.com