Donald R. Kennon


Donald R. Kennon is the chief historian of the U.S. Capitol Historical Society. He is the general editor of the society’s publication program with Ohio University Press, which includes this series and Perspectives on the Art and Architectural History of the United States Capitol.


Editor of…

Cover of The United States Capitol

The United States Capitol

Designing and Decorating a National Icon

The United States Capitol is a national cultural icon, and among the most visually recognized seats of government in the world. The past quarter century has witnessed an explosion of scholarly interest in the art and architectural history of the Capitol.…


Cover of Neither Separate Nor Equal

Neither Separate Nor Equal

Congress in the 1790s

Scholars today take for granted the existence of a "wall of separation" dividing the three branches of the federal government. Neither Separate nor Equal: Congress in the 1790s demonstrates that such lines of separation among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, however, were neither so clearly delineated nor observed in the first decade of the federal government's history.…


Cover of Establishing Congress

Establishing CongressOn Sale

The Removal to Washington, D.C., and the Election of 1800

Establishing Congress: The Removal to Washington, D.C., and the Election of 1800 focuses on the end of the 1790s, when, in rapid succession, George Washington died, the federal government moved to Washington, D.…


Cover of Montgomery C. Meigs and the Building of the Nation’s Capital

Montgomery C. Meigs and the Building of the Nation’s Capital

At the age of thirty-six, in 1852, Lt. Montgomery Cunningham Meigs of the Army Corps of Engineers reported to Washington, D.C., for duty as a special assistant to the chief army engineer, Gen. Joseph G.…


Cover of American Pantheon

American Pantheon

Sculptural and Artistic Decoration of the United States Capitol

Like the ancient Roman Pantheon, the U.S. Capitol was designed by its political and aesthetic arbiters to memorialize the virtues, events, and persons most representative of the nation's ideals—an attempt to raise a particular version of the nation's founding to the level of myth.…


Cover of The House and Senate in the 1790s

The House and Senate in the 1790s

Petitioning, Lobbying, and Institutional Development

Amid the turbulent swirl of foreign intrigue, external and internal threats to the young nation’s existence, and the domestic partisan wrangling of the 1790s, the United States Congress solidified its role as the national legislature.…


Cover of Inventing Congress

Inventing Congress

Origins and Establishment of the First Federal Congress

On March 4, 1789, New York City's church bells pealed, cannons fired, and flags snapped in the wind to celebrate the date set for the opening of the First Federal Congress. In many ways the establishment of Congress marked the culmination of the American Revolution as the ship of state was launched from the foundation of the legislative system outlined in Article I of the Constitution.…


Cover of Congress and the Emergence of Sectionalism

Congress and the Emergence of Sectionalism

From the Missouri Compromise to the Age of Jackson

In 1815 the United States was a proud and confident nation. Its second war with England had come to a successful conclusion, and Americans seemed united as never before. The collapse of the Federalists left the Jeffersonian Republicans in control of virtually all important governmental offices.…

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