Among the government’s first tasks was choosing a home. Congress had met in seven different cities since 1774. In 1790, it passed the Residence Act, authorizing a new, 10-mile-square, federally controlled seat of government on the Potomac River. Andrew Ellicott—with the African-American mathematician and astronomer Benjamin Banneker and others—surveyed this federal territory.

President George Washington commissioned Pierre L’Enfant (he preferred Peter), a French-American artist and engineer, to plan the city. L’Enfant created a civic masterpiece of wide diagonal avenues, public plazas, and a great Mall. For the Capitol, he chose Jenkins Hill, calling it “a pedestal waiting for a monument.” The Capitol’s first two sections were built during this period.