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The Whole Spiel

Doing the Work of the Nation

by Sarah Leavitt, Curator
February 5, 2025

The future of the US Civil Service has been in the news a lot lately. But beyond the headlines, who are these federal workers? What stories do they have to tell? What are the Jewish stories embedded within the halls of the federal government? This year, the Capital Jewish Museum is kicking off a special initiative to collect artifacts, photographs, and papers from federal workers in agencies and offices across the government. We started by choosing items from the collection to highlight some stories of federal workers, as the nation considers the future of government service.

There are more than 2 million federal workers who do the nation’s business across the country. According to the Washington Post, the DC region is home to about 310,000 federal workers, about 15% of the nationwide total. DC is, in many ways, a company town. Beyond the accountants, lawyers, security guards, engineers, archaeologists, and procurement specialists are hundreds of thousands of additional jobs in town, including contractors and those who rely on business generated by vast federal outsourcing.

The United States federal civil service—the non-military and non-elected public sector federal workforce—officially began in 1871. In that period, after the Civil War, the Jewish population of DC was over 2,000 people, and there were 3 synagogues in the area already, two in DC and one in Alexandria, VA. Many of DC’s late-19th century Jewish residents worked for the federal government, most famously the attorney and recorder of deeds Simon Wolf. With the growth of the civil service in the late 19th century, DC became a center of commerce as well, and Jewish grocers and other small business owners enjoyed a steady income from federal workers.

Republican politicking carried Indiana printer William Bass to a job in the Government Printing Office in 1872. References from leading politicians, including Benjamin Harrison and Theodore Roosevelt, kept him printing for the government for the next 40 years. A Civil War veteran with connections to Republican politics, former Union Army flagbearer Leopold Karpeles was awarded a federal job in the Treasury Department that he held until his death in 1909.

Jews from around the country came to serve the expanding federal government and the mobilization for World War I. And the growth continued. Washington continued to expand as its primary employer, the federal government, grew by leaps and bounds during the New Deal and WWII. The city’s population exploded to an all-time high of 800,000 by 1950. For Washington, this meant both business and real estate prosperity as the city brought in thousands of new workers and also new opportunities for white-collar professionals within the expanding government. Jewish business owners and government workers alike were drawn to the city and found success here. By 1956, more than a third of Washington Jews were federal workers.

The significance of the federal government to employment in the region means that many activists have worked to press the government to be an equal opportunity employer. In fact, Jewish Washingtonians have been at the forefront of these movements. For example, one focus of the gay rights activism of the 1970s was the effort to end discrimination against LGBTQ+ people in federal employment and in the military. Washington, DC, became an important site for LGBTQ justice work, building on efforts led by Frank Kameny and the DC Mattachine Society. This story will be told more fully in our upcoming exhibition, LGBTJews in the Federal City which opens this May. The disability rights movement, another pivotal civil rights initiative, also shows up in the Museum collection, especially through materials collected from Judy Heumann (1947-2023). In 1977, Heumann led a sit-in movement at federal offices around the country to demand national protection against discrimination for people with disabilities. Her activism laid the groundwork for the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, and she later directed federal and local DC disability service offices.

These are only some of the stories of the Jewish civil service represented in the Museum’s collection. We would love to know more stories! Is there a box of artifacts or photographs in your house somewhere that might help us preserve and teach the stories of Jewish federal workers? Do you have a history of working for the government, or do you know somebody who does? Please have them email our curatorial staff at: [email protected]. Thank you!

This initiative is supported by Sue Ducat in memory of Stanley Cohen, z”l

[2009.38.3] Naomi Biron and co-workers in offices of legal section of Federal Register, 1947. Gift of Naomi Biron Cohen, Capital Jewish Museum Collection.

Ribbon with cameo of President Benjamin Harrison, documenting membership in the Republican Club of Washington, worn by William Bass, c. 1890.

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Janice Eichhorn (right) standing in front of the Capitol with Ceci Matthews (left), 1968. Eichhorn worked in the office of Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin. Matthews was a member of the Democratic Central Committee as well as a Capitol Hill worker.

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Judy Heumann (1947-2023) at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in DC, 1997.

Naomi Biron and co-workers in offices of legal section of Federal Register, 1947. Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum. Gift of Naomi Biron Cohen.