Georgetown's Retail Past

Step back in time and rediscover the bars and restaurants, mom-and-pop shops, and bustling storefronts that shaped historic Georgetown.

Georgetown’s Retail Past is a history of retail stores in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC, over the decades when the original eighteenth-century tobacco port became a working class neighborhood, later a restored historic enclave, and in the 1980s a retail destination. The history illuminates  trends that changed retailing, including the transition from horse-drawn to automobile transportation, the advent and growth of home appliances, the decline of the barbershop, and the evolution of the grocery and laundry businesses.

A chapter for each type of store provides sketches of businesses and their owners from various time periods. Many of the neighborhood stores were started by immigrants, and some immigrant families owned multiple stores over multiple generations; their entrepreneurial spirit is apparent throughout. Georgetown’s Retail Past is illustrated with more than 125 black-and-white images, including historic and current photographs, maps, and store advertisements.