Bob Arnebeck

I was born in Washington, D.C., in 1947, graduated from Montgomery Blair High School in 1965 and then Beloit College in 1969, and then tried to make it producing my epic dramatic poem history of the Ford Motor Company. A reviewer in Boston After Dark hailed it as a "fascinating failure." Then I worked for the Federal government's American Revolution Bicentennial Commission, leaked documents to Jeremy Rifkin's People's Bicentennial Commission, wrote a story for the Washington Post Magazine about leaking documents, and then began a career as a freelance writer. I specialized in humor, out of which grew Proust's Last Beer: a History of Curious Demises, and history, out of the which grew Through A Fiery Trial: Building Washington 1790-1800. I also did commentaries on historical topics for NPR's Morning Edition for a couple years. I wrote a manuscript on Benjamin Rush and the yellow fever epidemics of the 1790s but could not find a publisher. In 1994 I left Washington for an island in the St. Lawrence River. I write about beavers and otters, especially, and have continued writing web articles on Washington History, expanding on my research on the use of slaves in building the early city, which i expanded again in my book Slave Labor in the Capital: Building Washington's Iconic Federal Landmarks. You can find links to web pages on mammals, yellow fever, my Ford Motor Company poem, and Washington history at www.bobarnebeck.com