Georgetown's Retail Past

Step back in time and rediscover the bars and restaurants, mom-and-pop shops, and bustling storefronts that shaped historic Georgetown. Georgetown’s Retail Past is a history of retail stores in Washington, DC’s Georgetown neighborhood, from the town’s eighteenth-century founding as a tobacco port through its evolution after it became part of the city of Washington and into the 1980s. That history reflects and illustrates trends in the economy generally and in retailing specifically, such as the transition from horse-drawn to automobile transportation, the advent and growth of home appliances, the decline of the barber shop and changes in the structures of the grocery and laundry businesses. The book is organized into chapters by store type: groceries, clothing, jewelry, shoes, bowling alleys, barber shops, hardware, antiques, bars, restaurants, and more. Each chapter contains short histories of several businesses and their owners, from various time periods. There are 150 such historical sketches, ranging in length from a paragraph to several pages. Many of the neighborhood stores were started by immigrants and some immigrant families owned multiple stores over multiple generations; their entrepreneurial spirit is apparent throughout. Illustrated with 130 B&W images, including historic and current photographs, maps, and store advertisements.

Author Biography

Ken Peters is a retired real estate lawyer who came to Washington in 1971 to go to law school, fell in love with the city, and never left. This is the first book to result from his lifelong interest in the history of Washington. Ken and his wife Ann Marie live in Georgetown.