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Interesting life events led these poets to live or spend extended periods of time in Washington, D.C.:
• Walt Whitman came to DC during the Civil War to care for his injured brother. Seeing the need for help, he stayed to work in the city hospitals for eleven years.
• Louisa May Alcott volunteered as a Civil War nurse. After she became permanently ill, she wrote Hospital Sketches from Washington.
• Langston Hughes’s talent was discovered by a guest at the Wardman Park Hotel where Hughes worked as a busboy.
• Ezra Pound spent thirteen years in a DC hospital after being arrested for treason.
– Rebecca Hastings, The 100 Companies