Mon, Oct 06
|Washington
Profs & Pints DC: Washington's Spookiest Days
“Washington’s Spookiest Days,” on local seances and other efforts to communicate with the beyond during the early 20th century
Time & Location
Oct 06, 2025, 6:00 PM – 8:30 PM
Washington, 801 E St NW, Washington, DC 20004, USA
About the event
Profs and Pints DC presents: “Washington’s Spookiest Days,” on local seances and other efforts to communicate with the beyond during the early 20th century, with Mark Benbow, lecturer in American history at George Washington University and former historian at the Woodrow Wilson House Museum.
What do Harry Houdini, Woodrow Wilson, Arthur Conan Doyle, the famous Washington brewmaster Christian Heurich, and the spirit of a Native-American “Princess” named Monotowah have in common?
They’re all part of an eerie chapter of Washington history, the 1910s and 1920s, when seances were the focus of both harmless parlor games and serious religious practices and when skeptics of the occult clashed with its believers in the halls of Congress.
Learn about this fascinating time with Mark Benbow, a historian who wrote two books on Wilson and one on Heurich, and who has given several excellent Profs and Pints talks in the past.
He’ll discuss how…