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Famous people who grew up or lived in and around Washington, D.C.
8 notable people grew up or lived in and around Washington, D.C.. Each listing explores the home and neighbourhood, and how the place shaped the person they became.
Abraham Lincoln1861–1865
📍 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC, United States
I came to this house in March of 1861 and I knew immediately that it was not a home — it was a post. The country was already breaking apart before I had unpacked a single bag. I held…
Barack Obama2009–2017
📍 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC, United States
Barack Obama lived in the White House from January 2009 to January 2017 with his wife, Michelle, their daughters, Malia and Sasha, and Michelle's mother, Marian Robinson. He was the first…
Duke Ellington1899–1923
📍 U Street, Washington, DC 20009, USA
I was born Edward Kennedy Ellington in Washington, D.C., in April 1899, and grew up in the city's Black middle-class neighbourhoods near U Street, in a family that loved me and believed in…
Franklin D. Roosevelt1933–1945
📍 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC, United States
I moved into the White House in 1933 with a country in ruins and the deliberate intention of making this building feel like a working government again. We converted rooms into offices…
Frederick Douglass1877–1895
📍 Cedar Hill, 1411 W Street SE, Washington, DC 20020, USA
I was born into slavery on Maryland's Eastern Shore and never knew my birthday; my mother walked twelve miles at night to see me, and I barely knew her. I taught myself to read in secret on…
John F. Kennedy1961–1963
📍 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC, United States
Jackie transformed the White House in the first months we lived here — she treated it as what it actually was, the most important house in America, and she believed it should look like it…
Marvin Gaye1944–1957
📍 Deanwood, Washington, DC 20019, USA
I was born in Washington, DC, in 1939 and grew up first in the Southwest neighbourhood and then in the East Capitol Dwellings in the northeast of the city, the public housing I called…
Woodrow Wilson1921–1924
📍 2340 S Street NW, Washington, DC 20008, USA
I grew up in Augusta, Georgia, and later Columbia, South Carolina, during the Civil War and Reconstruction, the son of a Presbyterian minister whose study was my first schoolroom; one of my…