The neighborhood thrived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as the pre-Harlem, national center of U.S. black intellectual and cultural life. During this time, President Andrew Johnson signed Howard University's founding charter. Furthermore, in 1925, Professor Alain LeRoy Locke advanced the idea of "The New Negro" while Langston Hughes descended from LeDroit Park to hear the "sad songs" of 7th Street. Another famous Shaw native to emerge from this period—sometimes called the Harlem Renaissance—was Duke Ellington. Carter G. Woodson, an important historian of African American culture and society, lived in the neighborhood during the prime of his career and life in early- to mid-1900s.
