Hi Tiffany,
Solar eclipses are visible only on a very narrow region on the Earth's surface called the eclipse path. NASA has a nifty tool on the Internet that will tell you when solar eclipses will be visible from a particular city. Since you are interested in the eastern United States, I entered Washington, DC into the eclipse tool. I just picked this city since it is sort of in the middle of the east coast of the United States. According to the eclipse tool results, the next partial solar eclipse will be visible from Washington, DC near sunrise on November 3, 2013. Unfortunately, there will not be a total solar eclipse visible from Washington, DC during the 21st century, but there will be an annular eclipse visible from Washington, DC on August 4, 2111. If you want to see a total solar eclipse, I think it is easier to travel to the location of a solar eclipse than to wait until a solar eclipse is visible where you live. This is what a lot of scientists and other people who want to see solar eclipses do! I've never had a chance to do this yet, but I think some of the other Solar Week scientists have.
You can try the eclipse tool for yourself and input your city here: http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/JSEX/JSEX-index.html
Kris