Introduction to the Transcription of the Washington Diary of Elizabeth L.C. Dixon
In November 1845, Elizabeth Lord Cogswell Dixon arrived for the “season” in Washington, D.C., with her family. Her husband, James Dixon, of Hartford, Connecticut, had been elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Whig, ultimately serving two terms, in the Twenty-Ninth and Thirtieth Congresses (March 4, 1845–March 3, 1849). In addition to their two little girls—4-year-old Elizabeth (“Bessie”) and 1-year-old Cl