A Capital City
A Site is Chosen
 The new capital was called the Federal City
 It would be on its own piece of land called the District of
Columbia

Not in any one state
 It was in the middle of the country

How does that make sense??
Federal City
 Planned by Pierre
Charles L’Enfant
 Wide grassy area in the
center
 Rectangular city blocks
 Broad diagonal avenues
cutting through the
rectangles
 Why is this a good plan?
Buildings of the Capital
 Held contests to decide
the design of the Capitol
building and the
President’s House
 James Hoban won the
contest to design the
White House
 William Thornton
designed the Capitol
Counting Noses
Census
 First census was taken in
1790
 Counted almost 4 million
people


697,681 slaves
Indians were not counted
 Why is it important to
count the people?
 Look at the map on p. 34
 What state had the
highest population?
 What states had fewer
than 100,000 people living
in them?
Census
 Taken every 10 years since 1790
 Population doubled about every 24 years at the
beginning
 Today there are almost 311 million people in the United
States
 http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html
Life in the Early Nation
 Most people (95%) lived
on farms
 3% lived in the 6 biggest
cities
 Philadelphia, New York,
Boston, Charleston,
Baltimore, Salem
 Why were these the
biggest cities?

Think about what they
have in common
Not just the Colonies Anymore
 The United States
stretched to the
Mississippi River
 Frontier was between
the Appalachians and
the Mississippi
 When people said they
were going west, they
usually meant they were
going to Ohio