Circumnavigate the White House Tour w/Richard Hyde of Veritas Tours

We will consider the impact of Harvard on the nation, the world and on the City of Washington.


 
Circumnavigate the White House Tour
Limited to HCW Members and their Guests 
 
We will meet at the statue of Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Square in front of the White House, take a look at statues of Lafayette and Rochambeau, the White House, the Old Executive Office Building and the 1st Division Memorial.  If time permits, we will walk over to the Washington Monument and enjoy the four directions view from the base before we take in the Statue of General Sherman, the Treasury Building (with statues of Hamilton, and Gallatin - who?) and conclude our tour where we began.
 
The most important aspect of a walking tour is the total sensory world that opens when you step into the magnificent open space of the nation’s capital.  I may invite you to enjoy some bending, stretching and breathing in order to wake up your sense of wonder at this environment.
  
 
There are plenty of good places nearby for food and coffee, as well as sports bars for people who want to look at college football afterward.  Notably:
 
Peets Coffee at Pennsylvania and 17th
Big sports bar on L Street east of 17th.
 
Among other things, we will consider the impact of Harvard on the nation, the world and on the city of Washington.  The following Harvard graduates served as  president of the United States:
John Adams  A.B. 1755, A.M. 1758,
John Quincy Adams  A.B. 1787, A.M. 1790
Rutherford B. Hayes  LL.B. 1845
Theodore Roosevelt  A.B. 1880
Franklin D. Roosevelt  A.B. 1903
John F. Kennedy  S.B. 1940
George W. Bush  M.B.A. 1975
Barack Obama  J.D. 1991
 
The McMillan Commission, which remade Washington along the lines of Pierre L’Enfant’s original plan, included three Harvard graduates, Charles McKim, Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. and secretary Charles Moore.  They all studied at Harvard during the forty-year presidency of Charles Eliot, 1869-1909.  The impact of the Commission on Washington was akin to Eliot's impact on Harvard.  Most influential upon McKim, Olmsted and Moore was Professor Charles Eliot Norton.  President Eliot – they were cousins - appointed Norton to be the first lecturer of Fine Arts at Harvard in 1873.  His lectures were influential upon all  undergraduates from that first year until the last, 1898.

Here's a testimonial from DC University of California Alumni Club:
 
Dr. Hyde's tour of the Washington Monuments was an amazing experience during which I gained so much knowledge about architectural features and the historical significance of each famous monument. The most memorable highlights for me was learning about the significance of the dome on the Capitol building and learning about the meaning behind the hand posture of Lincoln's statue. It was a wonderful tour!
 


 
BIO:

Richard Allen Hyde’s lectures and tours place monumental Washington in the context of American history and contemporary debates about personal freedom, national unity and the rule of law.  He has given tours for the National Civic Art Society, the University of California Alumni Club, the board of directors of the Center for Public Justice and members of GraceDC Presbyterian Church.
 
His doctoral dissertation, from the University of California, is American Acropolis: The West End of the National Mall.  He was a teaching assistant at Berkeley for Huston Smith, renowned authority on the religions of the world whom Bill Moyers has interviewed on television.  Richard earned a master's degree from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he studied with historians Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May, and earned an M.Div. from Union Theological Seminary in New York.  He has been a chaplain and lecturer at Dartmouth College, a pastor of small churches in New England and California, a lecturer at the School of Advanced International Studies and the State Department and given talks at Rotary Clubs in Washington, DC and northern California. 
 
Harvard Club members will surely would find him a stimulating, challenging and congenial guide to the world of Washington, American history, international relations, religion and public life. 
 
For more about Richard’s tours, please see his website, veritastours.net.