DACOR Bacon House History: Academic Library




Most Recent Articles



Sallie Sprigg Carroll, DACOR Bacon House’s First Grande Dame: Part 1, Section 1: Sallie’s Youth and Married Life

Jul 7 2025
Sarah Sprigg Carroll, second owner of DACOR Bacon House, was born in 1812, the daughter of a wealthy farm and slaveowner in Prince George’s County who became governor of Maryland in 1819. She died in the house in which she had lived for 60 years in 1895. With her husband, William Thomas Carroll, Clerk of the Supreme Court, she entertained many political and judicial people in the city, making the house a much-cherished center of Washington society and hospitality. The Carrolls raised four sons and five daughters in the house. This section of a multi-section biography of Mrs. Carroll deals with her young days as a wife, mother, and manager of the bustling household.


Sallie Sprigg Carroll, DACOR Bacon House’s First Grande Dame: Introduction

Jun 30 2025
Sarah Sprigg Carroll was the first grande dame of DACOR Bacon House and left a lasting imprint on the history of the house. She came into the house in 1835 and lived the whole of her remaining life in the house until she died in 1895. She established the former Ringgold House as a center of Washington society, beginning in the 1830s. It was in the house that she gave birth to three of her four daughters and three of her five sons, married off all four of her daughters, held funerals for her husband and three of their sons, bought, sold, hired, and managed a staff of a near dozen enslaved and later free servants, and entertained the Washington elite, including presidents, congressmen and supreme court justices. By the 1880s, her home on F Street had become, in the words of a newspaper columnist, “the house that for over forty years has been famous as the scene of generous hospitality.” This is the beginning of a biographical series of postings on her life.


Virginia Murray Bacon and the Art of the Washington Salon

Jun 16 2025
DACOR Archivist Elizabeth Warner’s article on the life of Virginia Murray Bacon appears in the Spring 2025 edition of Washington History magazine and has been posted to the Academic Library page on our website. The last private owner of DACOR Bacon House, Virginia reigned at 1801 F Street from 1923 to 1980, burnishing its reputation as one of the toniest addresses in the city where she gathered together diplomats, policymakers and artists at her legendary salons and dinner parties. She traveled the world and promoted causes ranging from historic preservation to the establishment of the United Nations. Hers is a story of a life lived large during the time when Washington, DC, went from being regarded as a “country bumpkin” swampland to its status as the seat of a superpower.

For a searchable database of all posts, click here.



Please help us preserve The DACOR Bacon House
as a place where American history will continue to be written.
Thank you for your generosity.



Our Authors


Terence Walz is the resident historian at DACOR Bacon House. He is a historian of modern Egyptian history with a doctorate from Boston University. He is the author and editor of two published books and has recently contributed articles to the Journal of Supreme Court History and the website of the White House Historical Association. Dr. Walz’s work in international organizations led him to the DACOR Bacon House where he has been a member for six years. He has taken on the task of researching and documenting the history of the DACOR home, its history, and its inhabitants, particularly the first one hundred years. This archive is a growing collection of his work.



Elizabeth Warner, a lawyer by training and DACOR member, is researching the life of Virginia Murray Bacon, the last private owner of the DACOR Bacon House from 1925 to 1980. She is an adjunct professor at New England College, where she designs and teaches courses in law and political science. A long-term resident of the Washington, D.C. area, she also lived and worked throughout Europe, the Middle East and Asia for 14 years, often in extremely challenging environments. In addition to articles about Mrs. Bacon, she has published material on human rights, international law and other subjects. Ms. Warner has law degrees from the University of Michigan and Georgetown University.