The Almanac of 1792 / The Naming of a Neighborhood

The Almanac of 1792, also, The Naming of a Neighborhood. . , The Almanac of 1792 , Almanacs were among the most popular publications in 18th century America. Almanacs consisted of an ephemeris, a mathematical table predicting the position of celestial bodies during the course of a year, along with unrelated materials selected by the printer ranging from poetry to recipes. Banneker's first almanac was published in 1792. Prior to publication, Banneker sent a handwritten copy of his ephemeris to Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson with a letter on the injustice of slavery. Jefferson responded and sent the manuscript ephemeris to a noted French scholar. The last printed edition appeared in 1797., The Naming of a Neighborhood , Earlier names for the Shaw neighborhood include Northern Liberties, Bricktown, Hell's Bottom, MidCity, and Uptown. Parts of Logan Circle, Mount Vernon Square, U Street, Truxton Circle, Bates Street, Blagden Alley, Naylor Court, and Cardozo are located within the Shaw neighborhood's original boundaries. In 1966, boundaries of Shaw Junior High School (U Street/Florida Avenue, North Capitol, M and 15th Street, NW) were used to define a new urban renewal area named the Shaw School Urban Renewal Area., Shaw Junior High School was named after Colonel Robert Gould Shaw (1837-1863), the commander of one of the Union's first Black infantries: The 54th Massachusetts Regiment. Shaw led the troops in the Civil War battle at Fort Wagner on Morris Island, South Carolina in 1863.