On June 2, 1919, a militant anarchist named Carlo Valdinoci blew up the front of newly appointed Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer’s home in Washington, D.C.—and himself up in the process when the bomb exploded too early.
Black and white photo depicting damage to Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer's home in Washington, D.C., with investigators and responders working outside following a June 1919 bombing. (Library of Congress photo)
Attorney General Palmer's house after the 1919 bombing (Library of Congress photograph)
A young Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, who lived across the street, were also shaken by the blast.
The bombing was just one in a series of coordinated attacks that day on judges, politicians, law enforcement officials, and others in eight cities nationwide.
About a month earlier, radicals had also mailed bombs to the mayor of Seattle and a U.S. Senator, blowing the hands off the senator’s domestic worker. The next day, a postal worker in New York City intercepted 16 more packages addressed to political and business leaders, including John D. Rockefeller.
