On April 16, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill ending slavery in the District of Columbia. Passage of this act came 9 months before President Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation. The act brought to conclusion decades of agitation aimed at ending what antislavery advocates called "the national shame" of slavery in the nation's capital.

Taken on February 18, 1915, this photo shows a fruit and vegetable stand in Washington DC’s Center Market. The market once operated on the land now occupied by the National Archives Building.