Caresse Crosby, born Mary Phelps Jacob, is the author of five books of poems, one memoir, and was editor of one of the earliest literary journals based in DC, Portfolio. Crosby was also the inventor, at age 19, of the first modern brassiere to receive a patent and gain wide acceptance.
In 1925, she founded Black Sun Press in France with her husband, Harry Crosby, publishing such writers as James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, D.H. Lawrence, and T.S. Eliot. In 1926 she left her expatriate life and bought Hampton Manor, a 486-acre estate in Bowling Green, Virginia, where she provided refuge to European artists during World War II. She lived in DC from 1937 to 1950, and opened a modern art gallery.
A peace activist and promoter of international artistic exchange, Crosby also founded Women Against War, and started an artist colony in a 15th century castle in Rome, Castello di Rocca Siniblada. Her poetry books are: Crosses of Gold (1925), Painted Shores (1927), The Stranger (1927), Impossible Melodies (1928), and Poems for Harry Crosby (1930). Her autobiography is The Passionate Years (1953).
The 20th Street address was the second location of the Crosby Gallery of Modern Art (which opened first at an address in Georgetown). The building had a printing press in the English basement, a second floor gallery with its high ceilings and ample natural light, and her residence on the floors above. Crosby began publication of Portfolio while living in this house, publishing a total of six issues.
The Homes
2008 Q St. NW, Washington, DC
1606 20th Street NW, Washington, DC
Caresse Crosby
2008 Q St. NW, Washington DC
Located in Dupont Circle neighborhood, Northwest - East of Rock Creek