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Judiciary Committee Chair Portraits in the House Collection | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
The House Committee on the Judiciary oversees the administration of justice in the federal courts and agencies, from patents to presidential impeachment. The weighty responsibilities resulted in sober portraits of chairs who led the committee’s work on such landmark actions as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Watergate Investigation. Take a look at five of the earliest Judiciary Committee portraits.Hatton William SumnersHatton Sumners’ Judiciary Committee chair portrait by Boris Gordon is dated 1946, the year Sumners announced his retirement after 34 years in the House of Representatives. Typical of Gordon’s portraits from the mid–20th century, he depicted the subject seated and half-length, with an indeterminate background and limited anecdotal detail. The House ultimately acquired 10 portraits by Gordon.George Scott GrahamGeorge Graham’s portrait was given to the Judiciary Committee as a gift in 1950, nearly 20 years after the chair’s death. Painted in 1917 by artist Richard Partington, it is typical of the period, depicting the dignified gentleman in three-quarter length, with glasses in one hand, the other hand casually in his pocket. The plain, dark background contrasts with the strong light illuminating the sitter’s face, emphasizing Graham’s world-weary expression.Emanuel CellerEmanuel Celler noted that “the power to investigate is a great public trust.” Celler chaired the Judiciary Committee for 11 Congresses—the longest term of service in the committee’s history. His Judiciary Committee chair portrait was unveiled on March 19, 1963, coinciding with his 40th anniversary in the House of Representatives. Joseph Margulies—an Austrian-born, Massachusetts-based painter and printmaker—received the commission. In describing his experience of having a portrait made, Celler felt that the artist created a “painted biography,” reflecting his character and personality. Under his leadership, the committee played an instrumental part in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.Peter Wallace Rodino Jr.Peter Rodino is best known for his role in the Nixon impeachment hearings, from which he gained recognition for his calm, measured demeanor, a characteristic captured in this portrait. This is one of several portraits in the House Collection produced under the pseudonym C. J. Fox. It was later revealed that businessman Leo Fox took portrait commissions, but contracted artists—in this case, Irving Resnikoff—to make the paintings. The resulting works were all signed “C. J. Fox” or Charles J. Fox.Jack Bascom BrooksJack Brooks spent 42 years on the Judiciary Committee, with six as chair, and drafted the articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon. His portrait by Jason Bouldon, unveiled on October 29, 1997, captures his vigorous and forthright demeanor. Posed standing and shown nearly full-length, the legislator known as the “meanest man in Congress” gazes sternly at the viewer, his characteristic cigar in hand. The slight turn in his stance and other hand in his pocket, however, soften the pose, giving his no-nonsense look an air of casualness.Interested in seeing more of the committee’s history in paint?
Edition for Educators—Career Day | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
What do you want to be when you grow up? That seemingly simple question has inspired generations of students to think about their future and dream big. In elementary and middle school, many teachers host “career day,” where parents and guardians share with a class what led them into their current occupations. In high school and college, guidance counselors stand ready to help students find a career that seems to fit their talents and interests.Career day traditionally features a mix of occupations: lawyers, doctors, nurses, teachers, mechanics, scientists, and other professions. Only on a rare occasion, however, is a student presented with the possibility of becoming a United States Representative—fewer than 12,000 people have served in the House since 1789. Although students can study political science, there is no one path to a career in elected office. The fact that lawmakers come from a variety of backgrounds is perhaps best exemplified in the U.S. House of Representatives. While most Members have studied law, others have been journalists, athletes, teachers, actors, and farmers.The following Edition for Educators highlights the range of careers that Members have held prior to their election to Congress. Often, their backgrounds and unique career paths have helped them better understand their constituents and more accurately represent their interests in Congress.JournalismSeveral Members of Congress entered politics after a career in journalism. Speaker James G. Blaine of Maine edited the Kennebec Journal before joining the House, while Speaker Schuyler Colfax of Indiana owned and edited the St. Joseph Valley Register.Oral History Clip: Reporter, Helen Delich Bentley of Maryland Listen to a clip from The Honorable Helen Delich Bentley of Maryland who worked as a reporter for the Baltimore Sun.Historical Highlight: Radio Broadcaster, Clem McSpadden of Oklahoma After serving in World War II, Clem McSpadden embarked upon two separate careers: public broadcasting and politics. McSpadden worked as a radio broadcaster and then entered state politics in Oklahoma before winning election to the House. While a Member of Congress, McSpadden regularly returned home to Oklahoma and announced rodeo contests.FarmingMany Members of Congress have come from rural backgrounds or tended the land themselves.Oral History Clip: Jill Lynette Long Thompson of Indiana Listen to a clip from The Honorable Jill Lynette Long Thompson, who explains how her dislike of farm chores helped jumpstart her interest in politics.Historical Highlight: Lettuce Farmer, Dalip Saund of CaliforniaDalip Saund of California first won election to Congress in 1956, after serving as a judge in California’s Imperial Valley where he also owned a lettuce farm. Saund had been born in India and earned a PhD in mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley, but after learning that British authorities back home had been keeping track of his “anti-British utterances in America,” he moved to southern California near a community of other Indian immigrants and took up farming. Because of racial prejudice at the time, Saund’s career options were limited and state law prevented him from owning or leasing farmland.Business OwnershipRepresentatives have brought experiences running businesses large and small to the halls of Congress.Historical Highlight: Merchant, Benjamin Turner of North Carolina Born in 1830 in North Carolina, Benjamin Sterling Turner was taken by his enslaver to Alabama, where he would eventually be emancipated by Union troops in the midst of the Civil War. After the war, Turner remained in Selma, where he built up a livery stable and became a merchant. In 1870, he won election to the 42nd Congress (1871-1873).Historical Highlight: Circus Owner, James A. Haley of Florida In 1933, World War I veteran James A. Haley became the general manager of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Despite a disastrous big top fire in 1944, Haley continued to run the circus until 1948, when he won a seat in Florida’s state house of representatives to which he was reelected in 1950. Haley was then elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1953. Haley often joked that he was the one of the best trained Members of Congress, claiming: “I came from the greatest show on earth to the big sideshow.”MilitaryQuite a few individuals have won election to Congress after serving accomplished careers in the armed forces.Historical Highlight: General Ben Butler of Massachusetts Benjamin Franklin Butler was a lawyer who unsuccessfully ran for governor of Massachusetts in 1859. After the Civil War began, Butler successfully petitioned to be appointed as a general. Over the course of the war, Butler served in various roles, but it was his term as military governor of New Orleans that garnered him a national reputation. Butler’s popularity in the North, as well as his support from Radical Republicans, helped him win election to the House in 1867.Historical Highlight: General Joseph Warren Keifer of Ohio J. Warren Keifer’s military service helped launch his political career, which led to him eventually becoming Speaker of the House. Trained as a lawyer, Keifer rose through the ranks during the Civil War to become a major general. Returning to Ohio after the conflict, Keifer won election to the 45th Congress (1877–1879) and later served as Speaker during the 47th Congress (1881–1883).ArtistryThe ability to turn a phrase and command public attention has long been an advantage for those seeking election to the United States Congress.Collection Object: Actor, William Patrick Connery Jr. of Massachusetts William Patrick Connery Jr. dabbled in several professions before he became a Representative from Massachusetts. He acted, worked with an electric company, and manufactured candy. He certainly was not camera shy, as evidenced in this singing performance captured in the House.Blog: Author, Thomas Forrest of Pennsylvania Thomas Forrest served in the Revolutionary War, but beforehand he wrote one of the earliest American comedic operettas. You can read about the story of a fascinating man who enjoyed practical jokes, served in the House, and who fought alongside General George Washington here.AthleticsA few Members of the House got their start in the public eye by competing in professional sports or representing the United States in the Olympic games.Collection Object: Baseball Player, Jim Bunning of Kentucky Before he became a Member of the House of Representatives, Jim Bunning had a long and productive career in Major League Baseball. So productive, in fact, that he was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York.Collection Object: Olympic Sprinter, Ralph Harold Metcalfe of Illinois Ralph Harold Metcalfe ran track at Marquette University and won silver twice at the Olympics in the men’s 100 meter race. In Berlin in 1936, it was Metcalfe who came in second to Jesse Owens. Metcalfe later won election to Congress and helped found the Congressional Black Caucus.Other Featured CareersBlog: Iron Worker, Frank Buchanan of Illinois Frank Buchanan was an iron worker turned Representative from Illinois who found himself in trouble shortly before the United States entered World War I. Read about his story here.Blog: Teacher, Shirley Chisholm of New York Shirley Anita Chisholm was a public school teacher and worked for more than a decade as an educator before she entered Congress. Already a larger-than-life presence in the classroom, Chisholm made effective use of both the House Floor and the national stage. Read more about her story here and here.Blog: President, John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts John Quincy Adams was a former President who decided to return to public service and run for the House of Representatives, a feat yet to be repeated in the People’s House. Read about his return to elected office in the House of Representatives here.Whether they taught public school or played baseball professionally, the diverse array of occupations practiced by these lawmakers helped prepare them to serve the public in the House of Representatives. These careers, of course, are just a small fraction of those represented in the People’s House.Explore Members' more unique pre-Congressional careers: sickle maker, cowboy, candy maker, oleomargarine manufacturer, and fire-fighting equipment salesman.This is part of a series of blog posts for educators highlighting the resources available on History, Art & Archives of the U.S. House of Representatives. For lesson plans, fact sheets, glossaries, and other materials for the classroom, see the website's Education section.
Edition for Educators: Patricia Scott Schroeder | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
Since the First Congress opened in 1789, more than 11,000 people have served in the U.S. House of Representatives. Most served capably for a few terms and returned to their communities. But some lawmakers have left towering legacies and are remembered for their legislative prowess, path-breaking careers, and bold personalities. These Members of Congress, including powerful Speakers of the House, strong-willed legislators, trailblazing Representatives, and policy specialists, qualify as “Giants of the House.”On July 30, 1940, Patricia “Pat” Scott Schroeder was born in Portland, Oregon, to Lee Scott, an aviation insurance salesman, and Bernice Scott, a public school teacher. Schroeder forged a path that differed from many women of her generation, obtaining a pilot’s license at the age of 15, working her way through college, and eventually earning a law degree from Harvard in 1964.As a young mother of two with little financial backing and no state or national party support, Schroeder’s upset election to Congress in 1972 surprised experts and delighted supporters. In an era with few incentives or assistance for working mothers, Schroeder learned to navigate the halls of Congress while juggling the responsibilities of family and public service. As a Member of Congress, Schroeder used her national profile to challenge political, cultural, and societal norms that often restricted opportunities for women outside the home. Her intellect, sense of humor, and determination helped make Schoeder one of the most recognizable faces on Capitol Hill.Not interested in blending in or waiting her turn, Schroeder pushed for change directly. She championed issues affecting women during her time in the House making them the blueprint for her work: women’s health care, child rearing, expansion of Social Security benefits, and gender equity in the workplace. She was a vocal abortion rights advocate and a supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), leading the charge for the passage of the ERA back home in Colorado.In 1973, with the help of longtime Ways and Means Committee chair Wilbur Daigh Mills of Arkansas, Schroeder won a seat on the Armed Services Committee where she worked to curb defense spending, which at the time totaled nearly 40 percent of the national budget.Not everyone celebrated Schroeder’s appointment to the Armed Services Committee, including the committee chairman, Felix Edward Hébert of Louisiana, a Dixiecrat and 30-year congressional veteran. During the committee’s organizational meeting in early 1973, Hébert wanted to belittle the newest members of the committee and forced Schroeder and Representative Ronald V. Dellums of California, the first African-American lawmaker to serve on Armed Services, to share a chair. Schroeder recalled Hébert thinking that her and Dellums’s appointment to the committee was “the worst thing that’s ever happened. . . . [T]hese two people are only worth half of the rest of my Members, so they’re getting one chair.” Dellums later commented that he and Schroeder acted as if sharing a chair was “the most normal thing in the world,” in an effort to undermine Hébert’s hostility.This month’s Edition for Educators highlights the pathbreaking 24-year career of Congresswoman Patricia Scott Schroeder of Colorado.From Colorado to Capitol HillPEOPLE PROFILE—Patricia Scott Schroeder of ColoradoThough political rivals and some male colleagues at first dismissed her as “little Patsy,” Pat Schroeder became the forceful doyenne of American liberals on issues ranging from arms control to women’s reproductive rights during her 24-year House career. Congresswoman Schroeder’s wit and independence—from her seat on the Armed Services Committee, she once told Pentagon officials that if they were women, they would always be pregnant because they never said “no”—helped to make her a household name and blazed a trail for a new generation of women on Capitol Hill.ORAL HISTORY—The Honorable Patricia Scott SchroederPatricia Scott Schroeder began her 24-year career in Congress as a mother with two young children and evolved into a national leader determined to use her elected position as an advocate for women and families. A tireless supporter of women’s rights, she went from winning a spot on the Armed Services Committee—despite the chairman’s objections—to leading the Congresswomen’s Caucus. In her oral history with the Office of the Historian, Representative Pat Schroeder reflects on how she balanced motherhood and her congressional career. She also describes the obstacles women faced when she first arrived at the Capitol, including inadequate bathroom and exercise facilities, restricted areas set aside for men, and the refusal of some Members to treat their female colleagues as equals. HISTORICAL DATA—Co-Chairs of the Congressional Caucus for Women’s IssuesIn 1977, the women of the House formed a bipartisan Congresswomen’s Caucus (later called the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues) to publicize legislative initiatives that were important to women. The caucus became a forum for exchanging ideas and legislative strategy. Representative Lindy Boggs of Louisiana observed, “If we met regularly there would be mutual concerns that would be revealed that we may not think of as compelling now.” By honing their message and by cultivating political action groups to support female candidates, women became more powerful in the House. As the numbers of Congresswomen increased and their legislative interests expanded, women accrued the seniority and influence to advance into the ranks of leadership. Since its inception, the caucus has appointed bipartisan co-chairs. Representative Pat Schroeder co-chaired the Women’s Caucus for 16 years (1979–1995).BLOG—“Agony and Ecstasy”: The Fight for the Equal Rights AmendmentOver the course of a year, from October 1977 to the fall of 1978, the fight to extend the ratification deadline for the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) played out on a public stage in the nation’s capital. From the iconic National Mall to the House Judiciary Committee room, the debate over the ERA featured passionate pleas from those both for and against the amendment. Intrigue and drama often characterized the lead up to key votes, and lawmakers and activists worked to shape public opinion. Away from the spotlight, women Members, vastly outnumbered by their male counterparts in Congress during the late 1970s, designed a highly effective vote-counting operation to achieve an improbable victory and keep the hopes for ERA alive.HOUSE COLLECTION—Featured Objects and ImagesPatricia Scott Schroeder Lapel PinPat Schroeder used “She Wins. We Win.” as a campaign slogan for many of her 24 years in Congress. This button, from her 1972 campaign, evoked both her seriousness of purpose and the popularity of her antiwar, women’s rights message. Once in the House, she was asked how she could be mother and a Member simultaneously, to which she replied, “I have a brain and a uterus and I use both.”Patricia Scott Schroeder PosterIn this 1970s re-election poster, Pat Schroeder hearkened back to her famous first campaign slogan: “She Wins. We Win.” The design also contains oblique references to her stance as a passionate feminist and political outsider. Prominent placement of the term “Congresswoman,” in an era when some women in the House called themselves “Congressman,” emphasized that Schroeder was not interested in blending in. Similarly, the three casual photographs of the candidate, placed collage-style on a blank background, nodded to counterculture graphic design popular in alternative media in the 1970s.Patricia Scott Schoeder Supersisters Trading CardDuring her 24-year House career, Pat Schroeder of Colorado became a champion of liberal causes and a feminist icon, weighing in on issues from arms control to women’s reproductive rights. The Supersisters cards, created to provide an alternative to all-male sports trading cards, fit well with Schroeder’s feminist interests.ORAL HISTORY—Video Clips about Representative Patricia Scott Schroeder“You Think I’m Pat Schroeder”The Honorable Lynn C. Woolsey recalls being mistaken for Representative Pat Schroeder of Colorado.Reprimanding Tip O’NeillJudy Lemons recalls Representative Pat Schroeder of Colorado confronting Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O'Neill of Massachusetts about gender in the House.Sharing a Chair on the First DayThe Honorable Ronald V. Dellums recalls the unusual circumstances he and Congresswoman Pat Schroeder of Colorado faced on their first day on the House Armed Services Committee.Additional ResourcesThe primary research collection for Representative Patricia Schroeder’s congressional career can be found at the University of Colorado at Boulder.This is part of a series of blog posts for educators highlighting the resources available on History, Art & Archives of the U.S. House of Representatives. For lesson plans, fact sheets, glossaries, and other materials for the classroom, see the website's Education section.
The Records of Innovation and Transformation: Postwar United States (1945–1969) | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
The upheaval of World War II spurred widespread change in the United States. Social, political, and economic shifts reverberated throughout the country and new allies and adversaries emerged abroad. It was a period marked by changes and challenges that impacted the way Americans lived, worked, and engaged with each other. The civil rights movement, the space race, and the Cold War shaped the decades following the end of the war.As records of the past, some primary sources reflect outdated, biased, and offensive views and opinions that are no longer commonly accepted in the United States. Through civil discourse, active listening, and empathy, students should analyze these perspectives and their impact on the country’s development.Transcriptions and downloadable PDFs of these records are available at the links below.Discussion Questions:What were some of the causes of the civil rights movement following World War II?How did Cold War competition between the United States and the Soviet Union fuel advances in science?What motivated the rise in anticommunism among many Americans and politicians?What was the purpose of the House Un-American Activities Committee? Why might they have used the term “un-American”?Identify three political or social changes that occurred during this period. How do they continue to impact American society and politics today?Discuss how Congress addressed one of these themes: the space race, communism, or the civil rights movement. What were the legislative outcomes? Were they effective?1947, Report on Ronald ReaganThe House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) investigated allegations of communism and spying, and included Hollywood actors among their subjects. The records of the committee contain a report about then-president of the Screen Actors Guild—and future President of the United States—Ronald Reagan.1948, Alger Hiss SubpoenaThe House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) issued this subpoena requiring Alger Hiss to testify at a HUAC subcommittee hearing. Former spy Whittaker Chambers accused Hiss, a government official who had worked for the U.S. Department of State, of being a communist and Russian secret agent.1958, National Defense Education ActThe National Defense Education Act (NDEA) was passed in 1958 in response to Soviet acceleration of the space race with the launch of the satellite Sputnik. The law provided federal funding to “insure trained manpower of sufficient quality and quantity to meet the national defense needs of the United States.” In addition to fellowships and loans to students, the legislation bolstered education in the areas of science, mathematics, and modern foreign languages.1961, John F. Kennedy’s Message to CongressOn May 25, 1961, urgent national needs in the areas of foreign aid, international and civil defense, and outer space brought President John F. Kennedy before Congress again to deliver this address. Kennedy announced his goal of sending a man to the moon by the end of the decade and asked Congress to commit the funds to achieve success: “For while we cannot guarantee that we shall one day be first, we can guarantee that any failure to make this effort will find us last.”1963, March on Washington PamphletThis pamphlet was distributed in advance of the 1963 March on Washington and provided logistical and ideological information to marchers. This copy of the pamphlet ended up in the records of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), which monitored the actions of and participants in the civil rights movement. Throughout its existence, HUAC kept extensive reference files on individuals and organizations suspected of what it considered subversive activity.1963, Lyndon Johnson’s Assumption of Office AddressLess than a week after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, recently sworn-in President Lyndon Johnson addressed a Joint Session of Congress. Johnson praised his predecessor’s leadership and outlined goals for his administration. He urged Congress to pass civil rights legislation, declaring “no memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy’s memory than the earliest possible passage of the Civil Rights bill for which he fought.” President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law on July 2, 1964.1964, Call Book for Civil Rights Act of 1964On February 10, 1964, the House voted on H.R. 7152, known as the Civil Rights Act of 1964. As the first page of this call book shows, the bill passed the House, 290 to 130, following intense debate and legislative negotiation. The bill enforced equal access to public accommodations and desegregation of public schools and facilities and prohibited discrimination in hiring and employment. President Lyndon Johnson signed it into law on July 2, 1964.1965, Voting Rights Act of 1965Introduced on March 17, H.R. 6400 was crafted by the administration of President Lyndon Johnson, who understood that even after passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, stronger protections for voting rights were necessary to ensure unimpeded access to the polls. Signed into law on August 6, 1965, the Voting Rights Act protected the right to vote for all citizens and outlawed methods used to obstruct voter registration, such as poll taxes and literacy tests.Interested in more records from this era?1946, Conference Managers for National School Lunch Act1947, Communism in Hollywood1947, HUAC Minutes on May Day Parade1951, Letter to HUAC Chairman1953, Support for Gateway Arch Monumentca. 1953, Funding Construction of the Gateway Arch1956, Federal Highway Act of 19561958, Model Legislature Resolution for Hawaiian Statehood1958, Puerto Rican Senate Resolution on Alaska Statehood1959, NASA Appropriations Bill1959, Daniel Inouye Election Certificate1959, Testimony of Patty Duke1961, Kennedy’s First State of the Union1961, Territorial Deputy for Guam1963, Study of Maryland Beach Erosion1963, Lyndon Johnson’s Assumption of Office Address1963, Discharge Petition for the Civil Rights Act of 19641964, Mt. Pleasant Society Hall Ruins1964, Engrossing Copy of Civil Rights Act of 19641964, Letter Opposing School Prayer Amendment1964, Letter Supporting School Prayer1964, Ranger VII’s Photographic Flight1965, Letter Responding to the Violence in Selma1965, Telegram to Martin Luther King, Jr.1965, Letter Supporting Voting Rights Act1965, Letter Opposing Voting Rights1969, Shirley Chisholm Oath of Office1969, Martin Luther King Jr. National Holiday1969, Petition to Eliminate Electoral CollegeThis is part of a blog series about records from different eras of U.S. history. Explore “Tools for Teaching with Primary Sources” for additional tips and classroom activities.
The Little Congress' Big Independence Day Celebration | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
The first session of the 75th Congress (1937–1939) stretched deep into the dog days of summer—far longer than was customary at the time when lawmakers aimed to head home for the summer recess earlier rather than later. The old, hopeful expression around Capitol Hill in that era was the expectation that Congress would adjourn, “Sine die by Fourth of July.” But events in the summer of 1937 forced Congress to stay in session past Independence Day, as many Americans expressed a nervous unknowing about the nation’s future.In the 1936 elections the previous fall, riding the coattails of incumbent Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt, House Democrats surged their majority to an all-time high: 334 Democrats took the oath of office on Opening Day in early January 1937, versus just 88 Republicans and a smattering of Progressives and Farmer-Laborites. During the 75th Congress, the House busied itself passing New Deal legislation to provide housing and farm loan programs and to set minimum wage standards in the landmark Fair Labor Standards Act. Looking abroad to gathering war clouds in Asia and Europe, Members bolstered U.S. Navy shipbuilding capacity to meet the grim potential of a two-ocean conflict.Emboldened by historic Democratic margins in Congress, President Roosevelt overreached. He hatched an ambitious, ultimately doomed, plan to “pack” the Supreme Court with sympathetic Justices who he hoped would uphold his New Deal agenda amid furious legal challenges. Backlash to his plan burned white hot among Republicans and southern Democrats helping to forge what would become a decades-long coalition of conservatives in Congress who opposed the expansion of many federal aid programs.Thereafter, the Democratic high-water mark in the House receded. In the summer of 1937, however, the court packing debate consumed Congress and kept legislators in session until the third week of August. Amid that turbulence on Capitol Hill, the Little Congress—a club of up-and-comers, composed of staff from the offices of Representatives and Senators, as well as support workers from elevator operators to Pages—busied itself, too. Since lawmakers would work through Independence Day, leaders of the Little Congress decided to hold a public celebration of the Fourth to recall the republic’s hallowed past, to dissect its unsettled present, and to prognosticate about its future.The Little CongressWhen the first House and Senate office buildings opened on Capitol Hill in the early 1900s, Congress experienced a series of rapid changes. Among the most consequential was the growth of congressional staff. With more office space, lawmakers began hiring aides to handle constituent business and assist with the lawmaking process.About a decade later, congressional staff began to organize clubs and other organizations which played an important role fostering connections and community on the Hill. In 1919, the Little Congress was born. One of its founders was Kenneth Romney, who would later serve many years as House Sergeant at Arms. For a $2 membership fee, the group provided a career forum and social outlet for the young cadre of men and women who flocked to the capital city from across the country. The Little Congress held regular meetings, elected a speaker and slate of officers (mirroring those positions in the real Congress), and gave tutorials on the ins and outs of parliamentary rules and the often opaque legislative process. Members of the Little Congress routinely debated the policy issues of the day, and held dinners, dances, and trips. The organization thrived for more than a decade until its activities waned with the onset of the Great Depression—and its numbers dwindled to several dozen.But in 1933, Lyndon Baines Johnson, an enterprising staffer from the Texas Hill Country who served as secretary to Representative Dick Kleberg of Texas, spurred the sleepy club to life. Johnson, then just 24 years old, quickly captured control of the Little Congress winning its speakership and injecting new life into the organization. The future U.S. President instituted weekly rather than monthly meetings, invited special guests to address the club, including populist Louisiana Senator Huey Pierce Long, and even led a special Little Congress delegation (nearly 300 strong) to visit New York mayor and former Representative Fiorello La Guardia. All along, Johnson courted press attention and built his reputation. Reporters obliged with news coverage and learned to track the real Representatives’ positions on bills pending before Congress by listening in on the speeches their staff made in the Little Congress’s shadow debates.Johnson was known to use heavy-handed tactics in the Little Congress, packing the ballot box with allies in the group’s internal elections. So pervasive was Johnson’s presence that a breakaway organization formed in 1935, the Congressional Secretaries Club (later the Congressional Staff Club), eventually supplanted the Little Congress. But the spirit of renewal Johnson had infused in the Little Congress and among congressional staff continued.The Once and Future CongressIn the spring of 1937, facing the prospect of working past Independence Day, Little Congress members began planning and rehearsing a theater production to commemorate America’s founding.The pageant took place on July 4 on the grounds of Rinehart’s Riding Range in Langley, Virginia, a horse-riding facility not far from the modern-day Central Intelligence Agency headquarters. The owner, Paul Rinehart, opened his stables and properties to the general public free of charge and guests were encouraged to bring picnic lunches and “spend the day” at the range. Events kicked off at 8:00 a.m. with a horse-riding show followed by lessons and an array of equine competitions: swimming races on horseback, roping, bronco busting, and a jousting tournament for “knights of all sexes” and ages.At 2:00 p.m., members of the Little Congress began their performance on a specially constructed stage situated in “a little valley” on the property in front of a large audience seated on the surrounding hillsides. The play, according to the Washington Post, depicted “the soul-stirring events that occurred at the time that the foundation was laid from which America gained her freedom to become the greatest Nation on earth.” “Once again on Virginia’s hallowed air will ring the mighty words of Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Edmund Pendleton, Archibald Cary and a host of other great men of that time,” the Post said.Among the Members of Congress who attended were then-Senator Harry Truman of Missouri and Representative Robert Alexis (Lex) Green of Florida, chairman of the House Committee on Territories. Their staffers were among the small committee of Little Congress leaders who had organized and produced the event.It was an elaborate production, spanning two acts and spread across eight chronological scenes set in the eighteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. The bulk of the play—its first six scenes—covered the final years of America’s colonial ferment in the mid-1770s as sentiment built toward a final break from British rule. Elaborately costumed Hill staffers, decked out in knee britches, overcoats, powdered wigs, gowns, and petticoats, braved the midafternoon sun. They first recounted the royal governor’s dissolution of the Virginia house of burgesses in June 1774, in response to the colonials’ demands for representation and their opposition to new royal taxes. The next scenes depicted the subsequent Virginia Convention, followed by debates in the Continental Congress, culminating with the drafting and signing of the Declaration of Independence.The second act was much different and contrasted vividly with the reverence and sentiment of the Revolutionary era that had infused the first act. The second act, set in 1935, opened with a scene re-enacting what had famously been a meandering 15-hour and 30-minute filibuster by the late Senator Huey Long of Louisiana in protest of New Deal policies. Long’s speech included fried oyster recipe recommendations, comments on National Recovery Administration staffing, and a clause-by-clause analysis of the Constitution and the ways that President Roosevelt’s New Deal programs violated it. In Long’s telling, the administration had relegated the Constitution to little more than “ancient and forgotten lore.”Missing from the re-enactment of Long’s rambling oration was any of the idealism and promise of the founding generation depicted in earlier scenes of the performance. It hinted at an anxiety that underlay the Great Depression. In the sweltering heat of early July 1937, audience-goers and performers perceived the uncertainty about the experiment in American democracy, launched 161 years prior. And that persistent economic dysfunction, rising totalitarian powers overseas, and deep ideological divisions at home about the role and scope of government, as well as America’s place in the world, menaced its future course.Implicitly, the Little Congress posed the question: In an arc running from the eighteenth-century Declaration of Independence to the twentieth-century demagoguery of the late Senator Long, where did the line ahead bend and how would the nation arrive there?The Little Congress suggested a possible outcome in the play’s final scene, set in July 2037. And in this telling, wrote a Washington Post correspondent, the women of the Little Congress “hold sway.” As the all-woman ensemble took the stage, the audience noted that their costumes changed “to shorts, designed for comfort in the warm summer sessions.”Beyond the attire, the playwrights imagined a future political landscape that in July 1937 must have seemed every bit the realm of science fiction: a world in which women, many of whom had just been enfranchised in 1920, would fully supplant men by the opening of the 125th Congress in 2037. In 1937, just six women served in Congress (five in the House and one in the Senate; though three more would join their ranks by the end of the session). “The girls will have the final scene all to themselves. . . . All of the members will be women and the discussion will be on the question of whether or not men should have the right of suffrage granted to them again.”Past as PrologueWith the advantage of nearly a century’s hindsight, it’s clear that not all that the Little Congress pageant forecasted has come to pass. While congressional sessions still stretch well beyond July 4, shorts have not yet met the rules of decorum. The 155 women of the 119th Congress constitute a little less than 29 percent of the total membership. And men still retain the vote.But as the Declaration’s 250th anniversary approaches in 2026, the lesson that the Little Congress tried to convey remains clear: in an enduring continuity—with a spirit that transcends generations—the American people will propel the nation to revisit its founding ideals, to measure them against its great current issues, and to peer with imagination into the future.Sources: “Glenn Rupp Oral History Interview,” Office of the Historian, U.S. House of Representatives (27 April 2005 ); Los Angeles Times, 30 May 1920; New York Times, 23 December 1923, 11 June 1949; Washington Post, 26 April 1933, 3 May 1935, 26 June 1937, 27 June 1937, 4 July 1937, 25 July 1965; Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982); Stephen W. Stathis, Landmark Legislation, 1774–2002 (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2003); Senate Historical Office, U.S. Senate, “Huey Long Filibusters New Deal Legislation,” https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/filibusters-cloture/huey-long-filibusters.htm.
Farm Bills, Food Allergies, and Football: An Oral History Update | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
This spring, the Office of the House Historian published oral histories with three unique individuals who helped shape the House during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Two of these interviews were with former Representatives: Vicky Hartzler of Missouri, who served in the House from 2011 to 2023, and Nita M. Lowey of New York, who served in the House for 32 years, from 1989 to 2021. The third interviewee, Gary Hymel, was born in Louisiana and relocated his family to Washington to work as administrative assistant to Representative Thomas Hale Boggs Sr. of Louisiana in 1965.In their respective oral histories, Hartzler, Lowey, and Hymel shared stories of how their hometowns shaped their careers on Capitol Hill and informed their legislative priorities. Understanding their districts and their constituents was central to their approach to lawmaking and advocacy—but this was only the first step in the legislative process.Each interviewee also emphasized the key role interpersonal relationships played in the legislative process—reaching out to constituents and cultivating friendships on Capitol Hill, harnessing these connections to pursue their diverse legislative agendas.For Hartzler, the farm bill, a massive multi-year authorization bill which periodically set agriculture and nutrition policy for the nation, was important for her rural farming district.For Lowey, who chaired the mighty Appropriations Committee, the ability to change packaging labels to ensure consumers were aware of potential food allergies was key.And for Hymel, helping Majority Whip and later Majority Leader Hale Boggs as well as Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill Jr. of Massachusetts maneuver bills through the House, including a complicated antitrust exemption for the National Football League, proved invaluable.Together, Hartzler, Lowey, and Hymel unravel the sometimes-complicated process that enabled the House to enact legislation on a diverse range of issues.Representative Vicky Hartzler of Missouri (2011–2023)Vicky Hartzler was born in the small city of Harrisonville, Missouri, in 1960. In her oral history, Hartzler reflected on growing up in rural Missouri—her high school only had 38 students in her graduating class—and how her experience as a state legislator in Jefferson City helped prepare her for Congress. Once elected to the House in 2010, Hartzler was well equipped to work with other Members to help secure legislation that resonated with people throughout her district.To be an effective legislator, Hartzler recalled, she had to understand the needs of her district. She explained that every five years or so, during the drafting of the farm bill, she listened to the communities she represented. Although she could have relied on her personal experience as a farmer, Hartzler took the time to hear from her constituents and learn from them. “I proactively reached out to all the groups,” she recalled, “plus the commodity groups that represent corn, or soybean, or the hogs—pork producers—and cattlemen and things.” Hartzler organized coffee meetings, held tele-town halls, and participated in farm tours. “We take those concerns,” she summarized, “and then during the shaping of that bill, we try to prioritize some of those things.”Identifying the problem was only the beginning. Hartzler next had to work across partisan and regional lines to pass meaningful legislation. Once she arrived on Capitol Hill, Hartzler was pleased to find that the Missouri delegation regularly met to deal with issues affecting the state. “I was surprised that that was going on,” Hartzler admitted, “but it was encouraging too because the Democrats and Republicans and both the Senate and the House side would try to make it a priority, especially when I first got here. And we would focus the conversation mainly on bills that one of us may be working on that dealt with Missouri directly.” By working closely with other Members—from Missouri and elsewhere—Hartzler helped shape the farm bills and draft laws that served the interests of her home state.Representative Nita M. Lowey of New York (1989–2021)Nita M. Lowey was born in the Bronx, New York, in 1937. In 1988, she won election to the House from a district largely representing Westchester County, just north of New York City. During her more than three decades of service, Lowey worked on an array of legislation. In her oral history, Lowey explains how her constituents shaped her service in Congress and how she built relationships with other Members to secure support for her district’s needs.Lowey illustrated how a willingness to work across partisan lines benefited the people in her district, such as when she tried to secure funding for a waterfront development project. “I went to Washington, called for an appointment with Al D’Amato—I had never met him before—and we got along great even though he was a Republican,” Lowey remembered about the longtime New York Senator. “I managed to get funding for the program that would refurbish the waterfront and do other important work in the communities.” During her time in Congress, Lowey became close friends with her colleagues on the House Appropriations Committee, including Rosa L. DeLauro of Connecticut and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi of California. Lowey explained that “when there was a challenge there, the three of us would figure out a strategy and make sure we were successful.”One of Lowey’s proudest achievements resonated with people across America: food labeling. “When I came up with that issue,” Lowey reflected, “I remember working with my colleagues and how important that was for people with food allergies, to know they can go to a store and know what’s in it.” Despite many hurdles, Lowey managed to maneuver a bill through the House. “So every time I go to a store or I meet with groups who have various illnesses,” she fondly recounted, “they still thank me for getting food labeling.”Gary Hymel Administrative Assistant, Representative Hale Boggs of Louisiana and Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill Jr. of Massachusetts (1965–1981)Unlike Lowey and Hartzler, Gary Hymel did not move to Washington, DC, after winning a congressional election. Born in Alexandria, Louisiana, in 1933, he arrived on Capitol Hill after his weekly newspaper column in the New Orleans States-Item attracted the attention of Majority Whip Hale Boggs of Louisiana, who offered him a job as his administrative assistant in 1965. Upon Boggs’s untimely death in a plane crash in 1972, Hymel found a place in the office of future Speaker Tip O’Neill. In his oral history, Hymel explains what it was like to work for Boggs and O’Neill and describes how both men wielded power and sought to maneuver legislation through the House.Hymel had the unique experience of working closely with Representatives in House leadership who possessed a deep understanding of the legislative process. A striking case was a bill to provide an antitrust exemption to sanction a proposed merger between the National Football League (NFL) and the American Football League (AFL) in 1966. In his oral history, Hymel provides a detailed explanation of how Boggs’s knowledge of the levers of power in the House helped secure the bill’s passage. Boggs knew that he needed Representative Wilbur Daigh Mills of Arkansas, chair of the Ways and Means Committee and his longtime friend, on his side since the issue dealt with tax and antitrust issues. Mills backed the bill and shortly after it passed, the NFL awarded a team to New Orleans, Louisiana—the home town of Hymel’s boss, Representative Boggs. “And the Saints were born,” Hymel chuckled. Hymel goes on to describe the way Boggs climbed the leadership ladder in the House, rising to the post of Democratic Whip and Democratic Leader by cultivating genuine friendships with other Members.Hymel was also impressed by the fact that even after gaining power Tip O’Neill remained accessible to lawmakers who had trusted him with the responsibility of being Speaker of the House. Once, when a Member inquired with Hymel about making an appointment with the Speaker, Hymel responded, “‘You just walk up to the rostrum and talk to him.’ And he said, ‘You can do that? Back in my state legislature you had to make an appointment.’ Not with Tip. You know, everything was informal.”Hartzler, Lowey, and Hymel all attest to the importance of teamwork and trust in the legislative process. Only by working together could legislators from distant regions address food allergies and farm bills and enact legislation that enabled the sport of football to flourish. As Lowey poignantly noted: “I will always be grateful not just for the work but for the friendships with other extraordinary women and men with whom I served. These are people who are committed. They care, and working together, we are an effective team.”This is the first of an ongoing series on recently published oral histories designed to highlight new additions to the House oral history collection.
Recent Artifacts Online, Summer 2025 | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
From Abe Lincoln to “artistic French human hair goods,” there’s something for everyone in this season’s batch of recently digitized House Collection treasures.A. Simonson, Importer AdvertisementThe image of the Capitol added visual appeal to a bafflingly wide range of products in late 19th-century advertisements. Here, “A. Simonson, Importer of Cosmetiques & Fine Toilet Articles,” located near Union Square in New York City, surrounds the Capitol’s dome with cherubs and colorful flora on the front of its lithograph advertisement card. The reverse lists the products available from the retailer, many of which have names as flowery as the front design: Rouge de Venus (a liquid cosmetic cheek color), Fountain of Beauty (“best staying and transparent Face Liquid ever sold”), and the mysterious “Somyka,” which this ad instructs the shopper to “please call for a circular, as it is too valuable to mention in short its wonderful quality.”Abraham Lincoln Free FrankAbraham Lincoln mailed this envelope as a freshman in Congress, only a few weeks into his single term in the House. He addressed it to James Berdan, a fellow Whig politician in Illinois, and marked it as official mail by writing “Free” and signing his name. After that, it was just a short walk across the House Chamber to drop it in the mail at the House Post Office. Lincoln left Congress and the Capitol in 1849, not to return to national service until he was sworn in as President in 1861.Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Ebony Magazine“I met Hazel a long time ago,” begins Adam Clayton Powell’s paean to domesticity. Ebony, iconic magazine of the post–World War II Black community, invited Representative Adam Clayton Powell Jr. to write an essay that focused less on politics than on life as half of the most glamorous power couple in Black America. Powell described his wife, celebrated musician Hazel Scott, and their home life, with just enough political insight to support Powell’s bona fides as a savvy civil rights activist and Scott’s as an ardent campaigner against Jim Crow laws.Lucky Strike Cigarettes AdvertisementLike other professional orators, Members of Congress rely on their voices. The cigarette company Lucky Strike plays on Indiana Representative Albert Vestal’s vocal attributes in a 1927 advertisement. “In smoking I am careful, that’s why I prefer Lucky Strikes,” he explains. “They give me throat protection and greater enjoyment.” In 1932, Vestal collapsed on the House Floor and died shortly afterward of heart disease.EaselOhio legislator and long-term chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) Michael Kirwan monitored votes during the mid-20th century with this chart—a long list with multiple variables handwritten on a roll of coated canvas closely resembling a period roller shade for windows. It is essentially Kirwan’s spreadsheet, mounted on a wooden easel with horizontal guides to keep the roll stable and a bottom roller to take up slack. Water damage obscures the topic of this list dating from 1953 to 1954, but it likely tracks information related to either Kirwan’s role as DCCC chair or his position on the House Committee on Public Works. Exactly when or for how long Kirwan used the stand is also not known, but the apparatus never left the House. It was discovered in a storage closet in the Longworth House Office Building decades after Kirwan’s death.But wait! There’s even more to see on Collections Search:For additional new paintings, photographs, and objects on Collections Search, check out other Recent Artifacts Online blogs.
From Bunker Hill to Capitol Hill: Representative Henry Dearborn and the New Nation | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
On April 19, 1775, future U.S. Representative Henry Dearborn, then a 24-year-old country doctor from Nottingham, New Hampshire, heeded an urgent call to arms and marched roughly 60 miles through the night to northeastern Massachusetts to confront British forces at the battles of Lexington and Concord. When Dearborn, one of nearly five dozen New Hampshire recruits who made the long march, arrived at the battle site on April 20, the fighting was over. The British regiments had hastily retreated to Boston after being turned back by colonial militiamen.Two months later, Dearborn, who was in just his third year practicing medicine, had been promoted to captain in the First New Hampshire regiment as American revolutionaries fortified and defended Bunker Hill, the largest of three hills surrounding the city of Boston.The British Army had largely been confined to a peninsula jutting into Boston Harbor, but on June 17 British red coats moved to capture surrounding land—including the hills guarded by Dearborn and his troops. Few had anticipated that this confrontation would lead to the first significant conflict between the rebel army and British troops in the American Revolution.On June 17, Dearborn’s New Hampshire regiment defended Bunker Hill in intense fighting. The Americans inflicted heavy casualties on the British, killing officers and infantrymen with ease from the high ground of Breed's Hill and Bunker Hill in Charlestown, just across the Charles River from Boston. With a larger fighting force, the British ultimately captured control of Bunker Hill but the Americans had won a symbolic victory, showed their mettle on the battlefield, and set the tone for a lengthy war of rebellion that ended with independence in 1783.Henry Dearborn remained in the Continental Army for the duration of the war, attaining the rank of colonel by the end of the conflict in 1783. Nearly 20 years after Bunker Hill, he was elected from the state of Massachusetts to two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 3rd and 4th Congresses (1793–1797). He went on to serve as the longest tenured U.S. Secretary of War in the nation’s history and returned to military service to lead the American invasion of Canada during the War of 1812.Of the many colonists who fought for America’s freedom, Dearborn was one of the few who had been there from the start. He was one of even fewer still who went on to shape the future of his young nation in the halls of Congress. As America commemorates the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill, Dearborn’s unique life helps us understand how veterans of the American Revolution influenced the creation of the federal government in the decades after the war.Eight Years of RevolutionBorn on February 23, 1751, in North Hampton, New Hampshire, Dearborn trained as a physician in the coastal city of Portsmouth. By 1772, he was living in Nottingham, New Hampshire, with his family. Three years later, the Battle of Bunker Hill became the starting point for Dearborn’s long, improbable journey from doctor to soldier to Congressman.Dearborn’s experience in the Continental Army sent him to points along the eastern seaboard where he participated in a series of significant battles during the ensuing eight years of war. A few months after Bunker Hill, in the fall of 1775, he accompanied American General Benedict Arnold in a failed campaign to capture Quebec. Taken prisoner in May 1776, Dearborn was paroled and returned to service the following year, just in time to play a key role in the American victory in Saratoga, New York. In his wartime journal, Dearborn recorded his satisfaction at defeating the “British Butchers,” many of whom he described as mercenaries fighting for wages rather than freedoms. The challenging conditions on the battlefield, Dearborn wrote, did not phase the American soldier, as “we who had Something more at Stake than fighting for six Pence Pr [sic] Day kept our ground til Night.”At the Battle of Monmouth in New Jersey in 1778, Dearborn led a pivotal maneuver to ward off a British attack, and in western New York in 1779, he joined an expedition to attack British loyalists and Native American tribes. Dearborn was also part of George Washington’s forces when they initiated the siege of Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781.Dearborn mustered out of service with the conclusion of the war in 1783, and moved to Maine, which was then a district of Massachusetts and would not become an independent state until 1820. He settled in the town of Gardiner in 1785, invested in land, owned a ferry, and pursued business ventures in timber and construction. He also became enmeshed in local politics, serving as a local selectman. Dearborn was named brigadier general of the district of Maine’s division within the Massachusetts state militia. He rose to major general of the state militia and was named U.S. Marshal for the district of Maine by President George Washington in 1789.A “Full Blooded Yankee” in the HouseIn 1792, Dearborn ran for and won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives representing the Maine district, what was then the Massachusetts Fourth Congressional District. Dearborn was one of three At-Large Members who represented the district; George Thacher and Peleg Wadsworth, the grandfather of the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, joined him in the House.Although Congress had approved the construction of a permanent national capital along the banks of the Potomac River, the new seat of government would not be ready until 1800. When the 3rd Congress (1793-1795) began in December 1793, Dearborn instead made his way to the temporary capital at Congress Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.During the early Congresses, partisan affiliations were loosely defined—more blocs than organized parties—and very different than they are today. President George Washington had pledged to remain nonpartisan, but conflicting ambitions in the new federal government had given rise to competing factions. On one side stood the Federalists who, like U.S. Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, aimed to centralize economic and political power in the federal government. On the other side, stood Dearborn and the Democratic Republicans who, led by Representative James Madison of Virginia, remained wary of concentrated power, opposed Hamilton’s agenda, and backed Thomas Jefferson for President in 1800. Dearborn, described by one observer as “a full blooded Yankee,” believed in a different set of politics than most in the Massachusetts delegation where 12 of the state’s 16 Representatives in the 4th Congress (1795–1797) won election as Federalists.In his two terms in the House, Dearborn’s legislative agenda focused largely on military affairs and international relations. Representative William Barry Grove of North Carolina described him as having a “strong natural sense, and in all a pretty clever man—better fitted for the Military than a Legislator.” But Dearborn competently navigated the amendment process on the House Floor and spoke clearly in defense of his legislative priorities.Appointed to several select committees on military affairs, Dearborn took the lead in assessing the nation’s frontier defense and evaluating the needs of the military. On several occasions he sought to limit military appropriations and proposed reducing the number of soldiers in America’s standing Army. In 1797, he opposed a series of bills designed to bolster the Navy, including measures to fund the construction of three ships, build a Navy yard, and secure access to adequate timber for shipbuilding. Dearborn twice introduced amendments to specify that only the hulls of the ships should be completed to prevent cost overruns. The amendments were rejected and the bills passed despite Dearborn’s vote against them.On international affairs, Dearborn backed several resolutions designed to stop trade with Great Britain and force the British government to comply with the terms of the 1783 treaty ending the Revolutionary War. In 1794, President Washington’s emissary, John Jay, secured a new treaty to improve maritime relations between the nations, remove British troops from frontier lands, and ultimately prevent war. In April 1796, Dearborn and Democratic Republicans tried in vain to kill a bill to fund the implementation of Jay’s Treaty. Dearborn suggested amending the funding measure to add a preamble stating that the House found the treaty “highly objectionable.” The House, however, defeated his amendment. Dearborn voted against the treaty, but the House approved it by a 51 to 48 vote.In 1796, Dearborn lost re-election to Federalist Isaac Parker in his bid for a third term in the House. He returned to the district of Maine, where he was elected to the Massachusetts house of representatives in 1798.U.S. Secretary of WarWhen Thomas Jefferson was elected President in 1800, he appointed Dearborn U.S. Secretary of War. This time, Dearborn’s role in the federal government necessitated a move to the District of Columbia, the nation’s new capital. Dearborn resided on Capitol Hill for several years and retained this appointment throughout Jefferson’s two terms in office.As the civilian head of the military, Dearborn set out to transform America’s defense forces. In collaboration with President Jefferson, Dearborn framed his changes as a way to cut spending and reduce the size of the standing military during peacetime. Democratic Republicans had also grown concerned that Federalists had appointed a class of officers who would perpetuate their control of the military. Dearborn helped devise a plan to enable a new generation of military leaders to gain access to officer commissions—and to appoint those who were sympathetic to Jefferson’s party.As Secretary of War, Dearborn lobbied Congress to implement these changes. He played an integral role in developing the Military Peace Establishment Act of 1802, a complete overhaul of the American military that enabled the Secretary to remove officers, make new officer appointments, and reorganize domestic garrisons and fortifications. The law also created a military academy at West Point, New York, to train officers and develop the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Jefferson and Dearborn hoped these reforms would create a new class of officers more representative of the American people—and more sympathetic to Democratic Republican principles.When Jefferson’s second term ended in 1809, Dearborn was appointed collector of customs at the port of Boston. As the nation engaged in another conflict with Great Britain during the War of 1812, President James Madison asked Dearborn to take control of the military in the northeast, leading troops from the Niagara River east into New England. He led the Army into Canada, seizing the city of York—now known as Toronto—as well as Fort George in Canada just north of Niagara Falls. After struggling to hold these positions, Dearborn was removed from his post in July 1813. During the final year and a half of the War of 1812, Dearborn led American forces in New York City and Boston.After he retired from the military, Dearborn lived in Boston. He was an unsuccessful candidate for governor of Massachusetts in 1817. In 1822, he entered the final chapter in his long record of service to the U.S. government. Appointed minister to Portugal, he spent almost two years in Lisbon before retiring to Roxbury, Massachusetts, where he died on June 6, 1829, at the age of 78.Bunker Hill Veterans in the HouseHenry Dearborn was not the only future U.S. Representative to participate in the Battle of Bunker Hill. Colonel John Paterson, who had been born in New Britain, Connecticut, but later represented New York in the House in the 8th Congress (1803–1805), was there. As was Artemas Ward, one of the first Major Generals of the U.S. Army, who issued the orders to defend Bunker Hill. Ward represented a Massachusetts district in the House for two terms between 1791 to 1795. Finally, William Eustis of Massachusetts had served as a physician at the battle and later held a seat in the House for parts of four nonconsecutive terms. Eustis died in February 1825, only four months before the fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill.At least one additional future House Member had been present near the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775. About 10 miles away from the fighting, from a hill at his home in Braintree, Massachusetts, a seven-year-old John Quincy Adams saw smoke and fire in the distance, heard the cannon volleys, and feared his family—especially his father John Adams, a leading revolutionary—was in danger of reprisals from British soldiers. After serving as President from 1825 to 1829, Adams held a seat in the House for 17 years, from 1831 until his death in 1848, capping a distinguished career in public service.50 Years after Bunker HillOn June 17, 1825, 74-year-old Henry Dearborn traveled to Charlestown to attend the ceremony commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill. That day, a large crowd watched as assembled dignitaries symbolically initiated construction of a planned 221-foot-tall granite obelisk to memorialize the battle. The French hero of the American revolution, the Marquis de Lafayette, who was in the final months of his yearlong tour of the United States, helped lay the cornerstone of the monument, which was later completed in 1843.Representative Daniel Webster of Massachusetts addressed the crowd. A rising star in the House, Webster was chair of the House Judiciary Committee and would later serve in the U.S. Senate and twice as U.S. Secretary of State. His speech praised the heroism, initiative, and achievements of the defenders of Bunker Hill and underscored the legacy of the battle, which he said set the stage for the founding of the nation and its great democratic experiment in self-government. Several lines from Webster’s 1825 address are enshrined in the House Chamber today:Let us develop the resources of our land, call forth its powers, build up its institutions, promote all its great interests, and see whether we also, in our day and generation, may not perform something worthy to be remembered.In 1775, Dearborn and others had helped plant the seeds of American democracy on the battlefield at Bunker Hill overlooking the Charles River in Massachusetts. Two hundred and fifty years later, in Washington, DC, the U.S. Capitol sits perched on a different hill within sight of a different river, the Potomac. But inside the grand domed building, the House of Representatives remains a place for Americans to strive to “perform something worthy to be remembered,” as Webster said, while enjoying the civil and political rights that Henry Dearborn had fought to guarantee.Sources: Annals of Congress, House, 3rd Cong., 1st sess. (21 January 1794): 1122–25; Annals of Congress, House, 3rd Cong., 1st sess. (13 February 1794): 1222; Annals of Congress, House, 4th Cong., 1st sess. (11 April 1796): 905–907; Annals of Congress, House, 4th Cong., 1st sess. (30 April 1796): 1282, 1291–1292; Annals of Congress, House, 4th Cong., 2nd sess. (23 January 1797): 1945–1971, 2332; Annals of Congress, House, 4th Cong., 2nd sess. (10 February 1797): 2113–2122; Annals of Congress, House, 4th Cong., 2nd sess. (2 March 1797): 2349–2352; Military Peace Establishment Act, 2 Stat. 132 (1802); Office of the Historian, U.S. House of Representatives, The People’s House: A Guide to Its History, Spaces, and Traditions (Washington, DC: Government Publishing Office, 2025); Boston Patriot and Daily Chronicle, 8 June 1829; Connecticut Courant (Hartford), 28 June 1825; Henry Dearborn, An Account of the Battle of Bunker Hill (Philadelphia: Harrison Hall, 1818); Lloyd A. Brown and Howard H. Peckham, eds., Revolutionary War Journals of Henry Dearborn, 1775–1783 (New York, Da Capo Press: 1971); Theodore J. Crackel, Mr. Jefferson’s Army: Political and Social Reform of the Military Establishment, 1801–1809 (New York: New York University Press, 1987); Harry L. Coles, “Dearborn, Henry,” American National Biography, vol. 6 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999): 299–301; Thomas Egleston, The Life of John Paterson, Major-General in the Revolutionary Army (New York, G.P. Putnam’s Sons: 1894); Richard Alton Erney, The Public Life of Henry Dearborn (New York: Arno Press, 1979); Daniel Goodwin Jr., The Dearborns; A Discourse Commemorative of the Eightieth Anniversary of the Occupation of Fort Dearborn, and the First Settlement at Chicago (Chicago: Fergus Printing Company, 1884); Nathaniel Philbrick, Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution (New York: Penguin Press, 2013); Alexander S. Twombly, ed., Daniel Webster’s First Oration at Bunker Hill (New York: Silver Burdett and Company, 1897); Henry Wagstaff, ed., The Papers of John Steele, vol. 1 (Raleigh, NC: Edwards & Broughton Printing Company,1924).
Great Outdoors: Natural Resources Committee Portraits | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
The House’s Natural Resources Committee oversees the nation’s vast public lands. What’s one way you can tell? Look at the portraits in the committee’s hearing rooms. The walls are lined with depictions of the chairs of this committee and its predecessors. For decades, its leaders have given visitors painted glimpses of the nation’s natural treasures, from shady palm trees to towering waterfalls. Take a look at a few of the outdoorsy paintings from the last half-century.James Andrew HaleyJames Haley retired in 1976 as chair of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, the Natural Resources Committee’s predecessor. He marked the occasion with a portrait that shows both the Capitol’s dome and the palm trees of Haley’s district in Sarasota, Florida. It was the first time a bit of nature from the chair’s district made its way into a committee portrait, an inclusion later leaders embraced with gusto. Artist Thornton Utz studied at Chicago’s American Academy of Art and came to portraiture after a career in magazine art. His affinity for the foibles of 1950s suburbia resulted in more than 50 gently-mocking covers for the Saturday Evening Post.George MillerGeorge Miller chaired the Natural Resources Committee for four years, and his portrait was the first to depict a specific location under the committee’s jurisdiction. Miller, a Californian with an interest in western water resources, chose to include Yosemite Falls, one of the highest waterfalls in the world, in his portrait. Like many a visitor before him, Miller sits on a low wall in Yosemite National Park, with the upper falls in the background.Nick Joe Rahall IIWhen Nick Rahall’s portrait was painted to mark his tenure as chair of the Natural Resources Committee, it followed a tradition of including elements related to the committee’s jurisdiction. The West Virginian stands atop Diamond Point on the Endless Wall Trail in his home state’s New River Gorge, a misty river view behind him. Rahall had an enduring interest in wild and scenic rivers in West Virginia, introducing legislation that helped preserve the New, Gauley, and Bluestone Rivers.Richard William PomboRichard Pombo also followed the committee’s tradition of including vistas from back home. For his portrait as chair of the Natural Resources Committee, the Sacramento Representative included a painting of the nearby Shasta Dam and Lake Shasta, the largest reservoir in California. Pombo asked the artist to include other historical aspects of his district: longhorn cattle horns, model logging truck, Native American blanket, and the Pombo family cattle brand embroidered on the chair’s shirt cuff.Prefer portraits that are more indoorsy? The Natural Resources Committee has plenty of those, too:
Edition for Educators: Norman Mineta of California | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
Since the First Congress opened in 1789, more than 11,000 people have served in the U.S. House of Representatives. Most served capably for a few terms and returned to their communities. But some lawmakers have left towering legacies and are remembered for their legislative prowess, path-breaking careers, and bold personalities. These Members of Congress, including powerful Speakers of the House, strong-willed legislators, trailblazing Representatives, and policy specialists, qualify as “Giants of the House.”Around the time of his 11th birthday in 1942, future U.S. Representative Norman Mineta of California and his family were imprisoned by the federal government in an internment camp at Heart Mountain, Wyoming, created to house Japanese Americans during World War II. Released in 1945, the family returned to San Jose, California, to rebuild their lives. Mineta would later graduate from college, serve in the U.S. Army and lead the city of San Jose as mayor, before embarking on a 22-year career in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served one term as chairman of the Public Works and Transportation Committee.In the House, Mineta sought to work with other Members on issues that impacted Asian Pacific Islander Americans, helping to create the Asian Pacific American Caucus.Well, as a member of Congress I would look at the success of the Congressional Black Caucus or the Hispanic Caucus and think, ‘Gee, we don’t have . . . a caucus that looks out after the interest of Asian Pacific Islanders.’ And so I started enquiring about [how] the Congressional Black Caucus and the Hispanic Caucus operated. And then called on not only Asian Pacific American Members of Congress, but more importantly those Congressional districts across the country where you would have a relatively large Asian Pacific American population, and enlist those members to join the caucus. And so we had a bipartisan caucus that dealt with . . . Asian Pacific American issues.Throughout his career, Mineta worked to address challenging issues including reparations for victims of internment. Mineta’s generation of lawmakers valued accountability and accessibility, but perhaps none more so than him. “It goes back to my own experience in terms of the evacuation and the internment of those of Japanese ancestry,” he said years later. “We didn’t have access to our political leaders at the time.”This month’s Edition for Educators highlights the historic career of Representative Norman Y. Mineta of California, a victim of internment who became a Congressman and later a Cabinet member under two different presidential administrations.From the California to the House ChamberPEOPLE PROFILE—Norman Y. Mineta of California Thirty years after being imprisoned by the United States government because of the happenstance of his ancestry, Norman Y. Mineta helped change forever the inner workings of the United States House of Representatives. Over a 20-year career in the House, the San Jose Congressman worked to make the federal lawmaking process more accountable. From the federal budget to the nation’s highway system, Mineta and his generation of reform-minded legislators redefined expectations on Capitol Hill. With the moral authority derived from having been unjustly incarcerated as a child, Mineta convinced Congress to address wartime internment and helped the country understand the sins of its past.BLOG—Edition for Educators—Asian Pacific Heritage Month California Representative Norman Mineta spent nearly four years of his childhood in an internment camp for Japanese Americans during World War II. First elected in 1974, Mineta served 11 terms in the House of Representatives and worked to hold the legislative process accountable and address the mistakes of the past. Learn more about the efforts and accomplishments of Mineta and other Asian and Pacific Islander Americans in Congress for Asian Pacific Heritage Month. BLOG—Edition for Educators— Transportation and Infrastructure Since the First Continental Congress, America’s national legislature has taken responsibility in different ways for America’s transportation, communication, and trade. To bolster the nation’s defenses and develop the country’s commerce, early federal lawmakers used public resources to fund the construction of military installations, postal routes, lighthouses, and ports and harbors. This Edition for Educators highlights the role the House has in setting transportation and infrastructure policy, including the work of notable committee chairman Norman Mineta of California.RECORD—Internment records The United States entered World War II in December 1941 after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, authorizing the government to evacuate persons of Japanese descent. On March 17, 1942, the Committee on Military Affairs issued House Report No. 1906, recommending the passage of H.R. 6758, which gave teeth to the executive order by creating a “penalty for violation of restrictions or orders.” Learn more about House Committee interment records.Leadership and OrganizationESSAY—From Exclusion to Inclusion, 1941–1992 In the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, the federal government, afraid that immigrants or their family members with Japanese ancestry had helped orchestrate the attacks from U.S. soil, uprooted more than 120,000 Japanese Americans living along the West Coast and placed them in internment camps out of “military necessity.” For these people, the war was a period of remarkable emotional and psychological trauma. Beginning in the nineteenth century, Congress and the courts prevented Japanese immigrants from becoming citizens and from participating in the political process. After 1924, Congress made them ineligible for admission into the United States entirely, and the federal government considered them a direct threat to the nation. The native-born children of Japanese immigrants were U.S. citizens, yet they were imprisoned by their own government, including four who years later would serve in the U.S. House of Representatives. Because their community lacked a voice at almost every level of government, mainland Japanese Americans’ political exclusion was quickly compounded by their physical exclusion with internment.HISTORICAL DATA—Asian Pacific American Caucus Chairman and Chairwomen In 1994, Members of Asian and Pacific Islander descent created the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC). Inspired by the Congressional Black and Hispanic Caucuses, CAPAC was created for Members to formally coordinate efforts to advance legislation pertaining to the interests of Asian Pacific American communities. Since its formation, the bipartisan and bicameral caucus has educated congressional colleagues on the history of the growing Asian Pacific American community in the United States and continues to build recognition in Congress. Representative Norman Mineta became the first caucus chair. This chart provides a list of individuals in caucus and conference positions. HOUSE COLLECTION—Featured Objects and ImagesNorman Y. Mineta Lapel PinCalifornian Norman Mineta represented a Silicon Valley district for 20 years. This relatively simple campaign button contained key pieces of information for his constituents, namely, the fact that he was an incumbent running for re-election and the district he represented. Mineta cofounded and chaired the Asian Pacific American Caucus, and chaired the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure in the 103rd Congress.Norman Yoshio Mineta PortraitThe portrait of Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Norm Mineta tracks his life and career from an internment camp for Japanese-Americans during World War II to the halls of Congress. Artists George and Jim Pollard used their signature blue-and-white background and layered it with a dream-like image of Mineta and his parents in Heart Mountain internment camp, and the Capitol appears at lower right.Additional ResourcesLearn more about Representative Norman Mineta, his life, and his achievements in these oral histories available through these institutions:Densho Digital Archive:Japanese American National Museum CollectionLibrary of Congress Veterans History ProjectLibrary of Congress, John W. Kluge Center:Protecting National Security & Civil LibertiesUnited States Capitol Historical SocietyThis is part of a series of blog posts for educators highlighting the resources available on History, Art & Archives of the U.S. House of Representatives. For lesson plans, fact sheets, glossaries, and other materials for the classroom, see the website's Education section.
The Records of Resilience and Resolve: The Great Depression and World War II (1929–1945) | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
During the 1930s and 1940s, Americans endured economic catastrophe and world war. The 1929 stock market crash devasted the global economy and stripped many Americans of their livelihoods and property. The New Deal—a series of federal policies intended to boost the economy—aided suffering Americans and expanded the role of the government. As the United States struggled through the Great Depression and practiced isolationism, dictatorships in other countries gained power. Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939 ignited a conflict that would soon erupt into the Second World War. The U.S. entered the war in December 1941 following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor and declarations of war by Germany and Italy. Increased war production pulled the United States out of the Great Depression and changed the face of the workforce. When the war ended in 1945, the United States emerged with strengthened political, military, and economic power. Learn more about the United States during the Great Depression and World War II with these records from the House of Representatives.As records of the past, some primary sources reflect outdated, biased, and offensive views and opinions that are no longer commonly accepted in the United States. Through civil discourse, active listening, and empathy, students should analyze these perspectives and their impact on the country’s development.Transcriptions and downloadable PDFs of these records are available at the links below.Discussion Questions:What are the responsibilities of governments during times of crisis?What strategies did the government use to assist Americans during the Great Depression? Brainstorm other strategies and explain how they might have helped Americans.Were New Deal projects conducted in your area? Discuss their immediate and long-term effects on your community.Consider how isolationism and pacifism are different. What were the isolationist arguments for staying out of World War II? What were the pacifist arguments?During World War II, the roles and freedoms of some Americans changed. Identify specific examples and discuss how the historical circumstances of the period contributed to these changes.How did women contribute to the war effort? How did their contributions change their role in American society?Why is it important to examine records from this historical era?1933, Engrossed Copy of Glass–Steagall ActThe Banking Act of 1933, more commonly known as the Glass–Steagall Act, was passed in the wake of the October 1929 stock market crash that plunged the nation into the Great Depression. The act sought tighter regulation of the financial industry mainly by separating the interests of commercial and investment banks. The legislation also created of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation—a mechanism for insuring deposits through a pool of funds contributed by participating banks.1935, Letter Supporting Social SecurityOhio resident A.E. Bosley wrote this letter to Representative Dow Harter of Ohio on March 5, 1935, regarding the proposed social security legislation in the House. Mr. Bosley endorsed an “Old Age Pension Plan of the National Government.” The Social Security Act was considered part of the “Second New Deal” legislation, which shifted from emergency measures that propped up the economy to programs that sought to provide a long-term social safety net.ca. 1939–1944, Regionalized Types of Farming in the United StatesDuring the Great Depression of the 1930s, the large number of Americans migrating between states drew the attention of the House of Representatives. To study this phenomenon, the House formed the Select Committee to Investigate the Migration of Destitute Citizens in April 1940. The select committee used this map of regionalized types of farming to better understand the relationship between agriculture and interstate migration.1941, The Lend–Lease Act of 1941After two months of hearings and debate, the House of Representatives passed this bill, H.R. 1776, “An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States,” which became known as the Lend–Lease Act. President Franklin Roosevelt proposed a lend–lease system that distributed military aid to “the government of any country whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States.” This plan allowed the United States to continue to support the war against the Axis powers without involving American troops in a foreign war. Congressional isolationists, who opposed intervention in the war, asserted that a lend–lease policy disregarded American neutrality and gave the President “practically unlimited” authority.1941, Tally Sheet for Declaration of War against JapanThis tally sheet, documenting the House’s decision to declare war against Japan on December 8, 1941, is notable because of the lone “nay” vote. Despite pressure from her fellow Members, Montana Representative Jeannette Rankin, a lifelong pacifist who had voted against U.S. entry into World War I decades before, refused to vote yes, present, or to abstain from the vote entirely. She justified her position by remarking, “As a woman I can’t go to war, and I refuse to send anyone else.”1942, Japanese Internment BillThe United States entered World War II in December 1941 after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, authorizing evacuation of persons of Japanese descent. On March 17, 1942, the Committee on Military Affairs issued House Report No. 1906, recommending the passage of H.R. 6758, which gave teeth to the executive order by creating a “penalty for violation of restrictions or orders.” The bill became Public Law 77-503 on March 21, 1942, signaling the beginning of the relocation and internment of Japanese American residents of western states and the territory of Hawaii. Close to 120,000 individuals of Japanese descent, American citizens and Japanese citizens legally residing in the United States, were interned before the relocation order was rescinded in 1944.1944, Equal Pay for Equal Work BillWinifred Stanley of New York introduced H.R. 5056 in 1944 when the United States was nearing the end of World War II. The war mobilized women into the workforce in unprecedented numbers. Stanley had the foresight to see how the return of men serving overseas and the reduction of work related to war production could affect women’s employment. Equal pay for equal work eventually became law when John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act in 1963.Interested in more records from this era?1930, Star-Spangled Banner Telegram1930, Limiting Apportionment to Citizens1930, World War Veterans Request Bonus Payment1931, Exclusion of Non-Citizens from Apportionment1934, Oscar De Priest Discharge Petition1937, Letter Opposing the Fair Labor Standards Act1938, Letter Supporting Fair Labor Standards Act1938, Conference Report on the Fair Labor Standards Act1938, Supporting a National Vote to Declare War1939, Letter on Federal Art Projectca. 1941, Map of Florida Everglades Drainage District1941, Thanksgiving Holiday Bill1941, Small Businesses and National Defense1941, Radar Plot from Station Opana1942, Letter Supporting Internment1942, Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps Bill1942, Letter Urging Restraint in Internment1945, Defeat Un-Equal Rights AmendmentThis is part of a blog series about records from different eras of U.S. history.
Edition for Educators: The House and Shakespeare | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
Since the early nineteenth century, congressional debate has been recorded and distributed for public consumption. Congress initially entrusted this job to journalists working for the National Intelligencer and other newspapers. But in the years around the Civil War, lawmakers professionalized the responsibility, creating the Government Printing Office in 1860—now the Government Publishing Office—and printing speeches near verbatim in the Congressional Record starting in 1873. Debate can take many shapes on the House Floor. Members use their time to demonstrate their positions on legislation or current events. In some cases, they insert into the Congressional Record full speeches or remarks. To liven up their orations, legislators sometimes sprinkle in literary references. Before the internet became ubiquitous, the Congressional Research Service received so many requests for certain quotations from lawmakers that it published a book in 1989 titled Respectfully Quoted, which compiled more than 2,000 of the most frequently cited quotations by Members of Congress. Among the texts most quoted by legislators were the works of William Shakespeare, the famous sixteenth-century poet, playwright, and tormentor of twenty-first century high school students. Quotes from the Bard are often used to illustrate a point during congressional debate or to serve as a vehicle to tell a story. Second only to biblical references, the various works of Shakespeare are some of the most quoted or cited in congressional publications. To quote, or not to quote. That is the question Members of Congress must consider. The following Edition for Educators highlights examples of various works of Shakespeare found in the Congressional Record from debate on the House Floor and in the Extensions of Remarks.Earth Day and Shakespeare’s Birthday On Earth Day 1999, Representative Connie Morella of Maryland noted, I consider environmental protection to be national priority. I pledge to work with my colleagues to ensure the preservation of our natural resources and the protection of the public’s health. And this Earth Week, as we also celebrate the 435th birthday of William Shakespeare, we remember his words, ‘to nature none more bound.’ Today, as we observe Earth Day, let us reaffirm our commitment to a cleaner world. In this instance, Representative Morella is quoting Henry VIII, act 1, scene 2, line 129, when King Henry VIII, amid a discussion on taxation, refers to the Duke of Buckingham and calls for his execution: It grieves many: The gentleman is learn’d, and a most rare speaker; To nature none more bound; his training such, That he may furnish and instruct great teachers. Representative Morella, however, focused on the concept of being obligated to protect nature rather than the context of the play. Read more about Henry VIII from the Folger Shakespeare Library. Yielding the Floor to Shakespeare At the end of a five-minute special order speech titled “Truth in Speaking,” concerning the 1996 Whitewater investigation into President William J. Clinton, the Congressional Record captured an interesting back and forth between two Members. Representative Robert Kenneth Dornan of California yielded time to Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee of Texas by referencing Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice: "Mr. Speaker,” he said, “I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas, the Portia from the other side of the aisle." Representative Jackson-Lee, however, questioned the reference and replied, "Mr. Speaker, I do not know if I will accept that. I am the gentlewoman from Texas.” The Congresswoman went on to acknowledge that she nevertheless, “appreciate[d] the gentleman from California in his sincerity." Dornan felt he needed to explain. “Just to clear the record,” he said, “for those who were not forced to take 4 years of Shakespeare in school, that Portia, because I well know the gentlewoman’s distinguished name, means a lady lawyer of exceeding skill, as in Portia from the Merchant of Venice, who gave us the great soliloquy: The quality of mercy is not strain’d, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath. It is twice bless’d: It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. Afterward, Jackson-Lee showcased her own Shakespearian knowledge. Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas: Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield further, Shakespeare also said: The first thing we do is kill all the lawyers. Mr. DORNAN. That was in Henry VI. The barber said that. I do not want any part of that. Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate very much the gentleman’s compliment. I want it to be acknowledged I am just a humble servant from the 18th Congressional District of Texas. But I appreciate the kindness of the gentleman from California. Jackson-Lee’s quip about the lawyers comes from a brief line in Henry VI that focuses on the struggle for royal control and the British War of the Roses, which was a contest for power between to English families. The scene focuses on a plot against King Henry. Henry VI, part 2, act 4, scene 2, line 75:Dick (the butcher): The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers. Cade (leader of the Kentish rebellion): Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment? That parchment, being scribbled o’er, should undo a man? Some say the bee stings, but I say, ’tis the beeswax; for I did but seal once to a thing, and I was never mine own man since. Learn more about Henry VI and The Merchant of Venice from the Folger Shakespeare Library. Great Tragedy On April 21, 1936, Representative Ulysses Guyer of Kansas gave a stirring address in the House Chamber during a Memorial Program held in honor of seven lawmakers (two Senators and five Representatives) who had recently passed away. Not constrained by time since the House had recessed for the ceremony, Guyer’s remarks filled nearly two pages of the Congressional Record. In his speech, Guyer quoted excerpts from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Shakespeare, in his tragedy of greatness, puts upon the lips of Marc Antony the naked truth concerning human greatness. Antonius was standing above the body of his assassinated friend and comrade, that ‘piece of bleeding earth’, that pathetic clay that but yesterday was Julius Caesar, ‘whose word might have stood against the world.’ As he gazed upon this prostrate form he exclaimed: ‘0 Mighty Caesar! dost thou lie so low? Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils, Shrunk to this little measure? The phrase “piece of bleeding earth” derives from Julius Caesar act 3, scene 1, line 280, when Marc Antony, a close confidante of Ceasar, looks upon his dead compatriot following Ceasar’s murder. In act 3, scene 2, line 130, Marc Antony begins his eulogy of Ceasar: But yesterday the word of Caesar might Have stood against the world. Now lies he there, And none so poor to do him reverence.” Guyer’s final quote is from act 3, scene 1, line 164 where Marc Antony meets with Brutus and Cassius following the death of Ceasar:O mighty Caesar, dost thou lie so low? Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils Shrunk to this little measure.If Shakespeare had intended to underline the tragedy and treachery of Ceasar’s death in the play, Guyer’s use of quotations from Julius Caesar was instead intended to honored his deceased colleagues. Learn more about Julius Caesar from the Folger Shakespeare Library.Memorial Day On May 20, 1970, Representative William Bray of Indiana inserted a speech into the Congressional Record in honor of Memorial Day. To commemorate the service members who made the ultimate sacrifice by laying down their lives for their country, Bray cited a large portion of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, act 5, scene 8, lines 44 through 63. Said Bray: “Probably nowhere else in the English language is this so movingly described than in the last scene of Shakespeare’s Macbeth”: Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier’s debt: He only liv’d but ‘til he was a man; The which no sooner had his prowess confirm’d In the unshrinking station where he fought, But like a man he died. Then he is dead? Ay, and brought off the field: your cause of sorrow Must not be measur’d by his worth, for then It hath no end. Had he his hurts before? Ay, on the front. Why, then, God’s soldier be he! Had I as many sons as I have hairs, I would not wish them to a fairer death: And, so his knell is knoll’d. . . . They say he parted well, and paid his score: And so, God be with him! In this passage, Bray quotes verbatim the characters Siward (commander of the English Army) and Ross (a Scottish Noble) from Macbeth. Bray also cited musical compositions and 11 other authors including, Plato, Herodotus, Alfred Lord Tennyson, the Gospel of Mathew, Plutarch, Ecclesiticus, Abraham Lincoln, Allan Seeger, the Sioux leader Low Dog, Sir Edward Creasey, and Robert Ingersoll. Bray closes his tribute repeating the Macbeth line, “They say he parted well, and paid his score: And so, God be with him!” In 1989, the Congressional Research Service noted Respectfully Quoted “will be helpful to Members of Congress in their task of expressing our national purpose and in their debating the public issues.” With more than 38 plays to his name, Shakespeare has provided a very large and quotable body of work with which to illustrate modern events. Sources: Congressional Record, 21 April 1936, congress.gov; Congressional Record, 20 May 1970, congress.gov; Congressional Record, 05 May 1996, congress.gov; Congressional Record, 22 April 1999, congress.gov; Folger Shakespeare Library, https://www.folger.edu/; Suzy Platt, Library Of Congress, Congressional Research Service, Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations Requested from the Congressional Research Service. (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1989).
Objection Day | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
During the 33rd Congress (1853–1855), a Texas man named Joseph Clymer launched what would become a quarter-century effort to petition Congress for financial redress after the U.S. Army broke the terms of a multiyear shipping contract he had signed with the government. A few years earlier in 1851, Clymer had won a bid to transport military supplies from Fort Leavenworth on the Kansas-Missouri border to locations in Texas and New Mexico. Clymer subcontracted part of the job with another shipping outfit, and the Army agreed to pay Clymer and his associates at least $112,908 over two years to move goods and supplies by wagon train during the spring and summer of 1851 and 1852. After successfully making the deliveries in 1851, Clymer received notice from the Army in March 1852 that he would not be required to ship any goods at all that year. By then, Clymer had already prepared 30 wagons and hired three dozen teamsters and hundreds of work animals to transport the goods and materials that the Army had stipulated in his contract. Clymer protested the decision and noted that without the freight “he would lose much, and be put to great stress.”In 1854, Clymer’s case went before an auditor at the U.S. Treasury Department who determined that Clymer had been “greatly damaged, and a heavy loser” after the Army reneged on its contract. Another Treasury official agreed with the auditor’s conclusion and outlined the next steps: “Mr. Clymer, sustained damage and injury by the non-fulfilment of contract on the part of the government, and that in such a case Congress alone can afford redress.”On Friday, February 23, 1855, the House Committee on Military Affairs reported Clymer’s petition seeking that redress as House Joint Resolution 59, “for the relief of Joseph Clymer,” a private bill that dealt solely with his claim; private bills are different from public bills, which concern the country’s general citizenry. The committee, which supported Clymer’s claim, reported the bill with a requirement “authorizing the accounting officers of the treasury to settle the claim upon the principles of equity and justice.” The House placed it on the calendar for the next day’s debate, but the chamber adjourned for lack of a quorum and lawmakers never considered it.Clymer’s petition had been the victim of unlucky timing in 1855. But as a private bill, it faced long odds from the start because it was also subject to a requirement in the legislative calendar called “objection day,” during which opposition from just one lawmaker would kill a bill. From the time the House created objection day in 1839 until Members ended it four decades later, the House had effectively created a legislative veto over private bills. In an institution where the majority would eventually be able to exercise almost unchecked power, House Rules for a time governed the private calendar under the tyranny of the smallest possible minority: one. Clymer’s bill lingered in Congress, off and on, for more than a quarter century. Objection day had not killed his petition in 1855, but it nearly did 26 years later, when, in 1881, timing was finally on Clymer’s side.Private BillsBy the time the House considered Clymer’s petition in 1855, much of the legislation Congress passed came in the form of private bills. In the 33rd Congress, when Clymer first requested help from Congress, lawmakers approved almost twice as many private bills (352) as public bills (188). Before the creation of America’s social safety net in the twentieth century, private bills were the primary way everyday Americans sought help from their government. Private bills often came in the form of relief bills—money that Congress appropriated on a case-by-case basis for widows, wounded veterans, people experiencing hardship, or those like Clymer who had claims against the government. While many Members saw petitions and private bills as an extension of their constituent services, others saw them, in the words of one nineteenth century Georgia congressman, as “mediated robberies” of the federal purse.In 1810, lawmakers began blocking out time in the legislative calendar for the consideration of private bills when the House met in the Committee of the Whole. That year, on the motion of Representative Richard Mentor Johnson of Kentucky, the House reserved Fridays for debate on “reports and bills originating from petition,” giving private bills priority over all other matters in the House’s schedule that day. Sixteen years later, in 1826, as the demands on lawmakers grew, the House approved a new rule submitted by William Leigh Brent of Louisiana, that reserved both Fridays and Saturdays “for the consideration of private bills and private business, in preference to any other.”In early 1839, the House changed its rules again, creating what became known as “objection day.” The House reserved the first and fourth Fridays each month for the private calendar and stipulated that on those days “the calendar of private bills shall be called over, and the bills to the passage of which no objection shall then be made, shall be first considered and disposed of.” Bills that were objected to, however, were sent to the back of the private calendar, buried under a mountain of other legislation.“Vigilance” and “Long Delayed Justice”It’s not clear when the term objection day gained traction, but it is first mentioned in the Congressional Globe on Friday, June 2, 1848—“‘objection day,’ on which bills could be passed that were unobjectionable,” noted the editors of the Globe. Thirty years later, in 1877, the Boston Daily Globe newspaper highlighted perhaps the truer nature of the term. On December 7, the House went into the Committee of the Whole. “As this was what is known as ‘objection day,’ nearly all of the bills on the calendar were objected to.”For at least one reporter, objection day had both costs and benefits. On occasions when the Committee of the Whole cleared a large number of bills on objection day, consideration was “necessarily loose and imperfect,” wrote a New York Tribune correspondent in January 1849 after witnessing the proceedings in the House. “Great reliance must be placed on the vigilance and rectitude of the Committee reporting the bills.” But the author was confident that “seven eights” of the bills on the private calendar “were right, and that much long delayed justice was secured, much undeserved suffering relieved” during objection day proceedings.Reporting on a subsequent objection day, the Tribune was surprised that more private bills “were objected to than allowed to pass, there being a number of particularly hard cases on the Calendar.” The author suspected that some bills that deserved to pass ended up failing but ultimately concluded that objection day was “remarkably well done.” Most of the measures that succeeded “were grants of small pensions to men who lost their health or limbs in the public service, to widows of deceased Revolutionary soldiers, &c. &c.”Deserving though these cases may have been, the Tribune observed that there was always “some Member . . . with a sour stomach” who would object on Fridays and Saturdays, dashing the hopes of a downtrodden petitioner in the process. There were always Members “who grudge the days devoted to” the private calendar and vote to adjourn as soon as possible; always Members “who seem to detest most heartily the lobby influences with which these bills surround Congress and distract the attention of its Members.” The cumulative effect meant that “very dubious claims go through with a rush” one day, while “fair and just” claims get smothered the next day.“I am inclined to think there are a great many unjust claims presented before the Government,” Representative Alexander Stephens of Georgia said during consideration of a House Rules change in December 1852, “but I think there are a great many just ones which have been sleeping here for a half century, perhaps longer.” For Stephens—who would go on to serve as Confederate vice president during the Civil War—the problem wasn’t the type of private legislation the House considered, it was objection day itself. “That is a useless day,” he said. “No discussion is allowed. A claim is taken up, the Clerk reads a long report to the House until he is horse, to which perhaps not more than fifteen Members of the House are listening. Then someone says ‘I object!’ and thus ends the matter for that day.”For many years, Cave Johnson of Tennessee reportedly made it regular practice to oppose legislation on the private calendar, protecting “Uncle Sam’s strong box with the fidelity of a dog and the snarling combativeness of a genuine Cerberus,” the Louisville Daily Courier remembered in 1855, a decade after Johnson left the House. With the Tennessean gone, the role of chief objector fell to John Letcher of Virginia. Letcher “honestly” believed, the Daily Courier said, that “every man who seeks redress at the hands of Congress, or asks to be paid what he (the claimant) considers a just demand upon the government, is a dishonest man; not to say a rascal, and has a deliberate design to defraud the treasury.”Because objection day allowed just one Member to determine the fate of a bill, some observers found the practice, well, objectionable. In 1854, an editorial published under the penname “Jefferson,” critiqued the legislative mechanism as it existed in the House Rules, highlighting objection day as the most egregious example of the how “the rules work most onerously.” Under objection day, “Jefferson” observed, the good faith recommendation of a House committee to approve a private claim could be struck down by one lawmaker without a good faith debate on the floor. “The veto power is conferred by the constitution upon the President of the United States alone, but by the Rules of the House of Representatives each member can exercise this power as effectually as the President.” Some of the claims came from “widows and children imploring justice for years,” the author observed, and deserved to be considered. “An objection on the part of a single member should not be sufficient to defeat a just claim. The character of the country is involved in this matter.”In 1860, the House made a final adjustment to the objection day rule, giving bills that had already been objected to another chance at passage. On March 16 that year, the House approved an amendment that raised the number of objections required to effectively kill a private bill from one to five.The House ended objection day with a major overhaul of the rules in 1880 that, among other reforms, sought to better standardize the House Calendar. In a last-minute attempt to salvage objection day, Harry White of Pennsylvania offered an amendment to keep it on the books. Joseph Blackburn of Kentucky quickly snuffed out his effort. “What reason is there for continuing a practice which allows any bill on the Private Calendar to be passed over because of a single objection, when if by chance or luck it comes upon the next Friday it is not amenable to that objection at all?” he asked. “I would rather have the judgement of one of the standing committees of this House as to the merit or equity of a matter specially committed to it than to have the single unsupported opinion of any member on this floor.” White’s amendment to keep objection day was voted down overwhelmingly.Clymer’s PaydayA year later, in 1881, the House once again resurrected Joseph Clymer’s $18,325 claim against the government for lost revenue after the Army broke its shipping contract with him in 1852. Clymer’s bill had come up so often and been around for so long that in 1878 the House Claims Committee wrote that it was “most remarkable that a claim with so many recognitions of its justice should have been so long delayed of payment.” But some Members remained unwilling to approve Clymer’s claim, and Philip Hayes of Illinois rose to object when it was put to a vote. “It seems to me that bill ought not to be passed,” Hayes said. “If this claim has been running for twenty-five years, I think if there was any justice in it it would have been settled long ago. I wish to ask the Chair whether, under our new rules, there is an objection day, and if this be objection day?”“Under the present rules there is no objection day,” the presiding officer replied.Two other Members rose to defend Clymer’s claim, pointing out that it had already passed the Senate on two separate occasions but always failed in the House “for want of time.” Unable to wield veto power without the authority of objection day, Hayes lost the argument. The private bill compensating Clymer for $18,325 finally became law on March 2, 1881.Sources: House Journal, 11th Cong., 2nd sess. (22 January 1810): 189; House Journal, 19th Cong., 1st sess. (26 January 1826): 197; House Journal, 25th Cong., 3rd sess. (25 January 1839): 374; House Journal, Appendix, Standing Rules and Orders, 37th Cong., 3rd sess. (1863): 639; Annals of Congress, House, 11th Cong., 2nd sess. (19 January 1810): 1247; Annals of Congress, House, 11th Cong., 2nd sess. (22 January 1810): 1253; Congressional Globe, House, 25th Cong., 3rd sess. (25 January 1839): 446; Congressional Globe, House, 46th Cong., 2nd sess. (2 June 1848): 810; Congressional Record, House, 32nd Cong., 2nd sess. (20 December 1852): 98; Congressional Record, House, 46th Cong., 2nd sess. (24 February 1880): 1089; Congressional Record, House, 46th Cong., 3rd sess. (14 January 1881): 635; House Committee on Military Affairs, Joseph Clymer, To Accompany Joint Resolution No. 59, 33rd. Cong., 2nd sess., H. Rept. 110 (1855); House Committee on Claims, Joseph Clymer, 45th Cong., 2nd sess., H. Rept. 425 (1878); An Act for the Relief of Joseph Clymer, of Texas, 21 Stat. 637 (1881); Boston Daily Globe, 8 December 1877; Louisville Daily Courier, 12 January 1855; National Intelligencer, 11 January 1854; New York Tribune, 29 January 1848, 5 February 1849, 12 February 1849, 28 December 1858; Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, vol. 10, ed. Charles Francis Adams (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1876); Richard S. Beth, “Private Bills: Procedure in the House,” 21 October 2004, Report 98-628, Congressional Research Service; Joseph Cooper and Cheryl D. Young, “Bill Introduction in the Nineteenth Century: A Study of Institutional Change,” Legislative Studies Quarterly, 14, no. 1 (Feb., 1989): 67–105; George B. Galloway, History of the House of Representatives, ed. Sindey Wise (1962; rev. Thomas Y. Crowell Company: New York, 1976).
Edition for Educators—Edith Nourse Rogers of Massachusetts | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
Since the First Congress opened in 1789, more than 11,000 people have served in the U.S. House of Representatives. Most served capably for a few terms and returned to their communities. But some lawmakers have left towering legacies and are remembered for their legislative prowess, path-breaking careers, and bold personalities. These Members of Congress, including powerful Speakers of the House, strong-willed legislators, trailblazing Representatives, and policy specialists, qualify as “Giants of the House.”As a volunteer nurse and advocate for veterans across the country during and after World War I, Edith Nourse Rogers of Massachusetts won election to the House following the death of her husband, Representative John Jacob Rogers, in 1925 and went on to serve for 35 years in Congress. During her record-setting tenure, Rogers helped shape America’s role in World War II, provided a path for women in military service, and expanded the responsibilities of the federal government to care for veterans and their families.This month’s Edition for Educators highlights the pathbreaking career of Representative Edith Nourse Rogers, one of the longest-tenured women in Congress.The “Widow’s Mandate”HIGHLIGHT—Representative Edith Nourse Rogers of MassachusettsRepresentative Edith Nourse Rogers of Massachusetts, a renowned advocate for veterans and one of the longest-serving women in House history, was born in Saco, Maine, on March 19, 1881. Following an early career advising and assisting Congressmen and Presidents, she won a special election to succeed her husband, John Jacob Rogers of Massachusetts, following his death in 1925.HISTORICAL DATA—Women Members with Military ServiceThe experience Edith Nourse Rogers gained serving as a nurse during World War I shaped her congressional career and her deep respect for American veterans. Although she was not an official member of America’s armed services as a volunteer nurse, Rogers helped set the stage for women to join and serve in the nation’s armed forces.ESSAY—Widows and Familial ConnectionsMore often than not, the first generation of women in Congress gained experience in public affairs as political confidantes and campaign surrogates for the Congressmen to whom they were married or otherwise related. Ironically, it was personal tragedy rather than a shared interest in reform that provided political entrée for most early women in Congress. Beginning with Representative Mae Nolan of California in 1923, eight of the women who served in Congress between 1917 and 1934 were widows who succeeded their late husbands. None had held previous political office. But in these cases—in which special elections were called quickly to fill the vacancies, leaving little time for campaigning—party leaders believed in the value of having the same familiar last name on the ballot. Several of these women, however, shared much more than a last name with their predecessors: they were among their husbands’ most trusted political advisers, particularly Edith Nourse Rogers and Florence Kahn of California.This essay from the first chapter of Women in Congress discusses the “widow’s mandate,” as it was popularly coined, as well as the expectations political party structures had for women lawmakers and the ways in which women Members like Rogers set their own course as both leaders and legislators.Representative Rogers of MassachusettsPEOPLE PROFILE—Edith Nourse Rogers of MassachusettsDuring her 35-year House career, one of the longest tenures of any woman in American history, Rogers authored legislation that had far-reaching effects on American servicemen and women. Initially relegated to middling committee assignments, Rogers gradually rose within the ranks of the Republican Party. In 1933, she earned a seat on the Foreign Affairs Committee and began to address the rise of fascism in Italy and Nazi Germany. As isolationism gripped her party, Rogers voted against the Neutrality Act of 1937 and cosponsored legislation to assist Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution. Congresswoman Rogers’s crowning legislative achievements came during World War II and in the immediate postwar years, including the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps Act and the GI Bill of Rights.ESSAY—Onto the National Stage: Congresswomen in an Age of Crisis, 1935–1954 This second chapter from Women in Congress covers the tumultuous two decades that encompassed the Great Depression, World War II, and the start of the Cold War. Women participated in America’s survival, recovery, and ascent to world power in important and unprecedented ways; they became shapers of the welfare state, workers during wartime, and members of the military. Like their male counterparts, women in Congress legislated to provide economic relief to their constituents, debated the merits of government intervention to help the economy, argued about America’s role in world affairs, and grappled with challenges and opportunities during wartime. As a ranking member and later chair of committees that worked on veterans’ legislation, Rogers held a central role in the nation’s response to World War II and its aftermath.RECORD—Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps BillBefore serving in Congress, Representative Edith Nourse Rogers worked overseas during World War I inspecting field hospitals. In Europe, she saw women who served on a contractual or voluntary basis who received no legal protection or medical care for their essential contributions. When she served in Congress many years later, her experience as a field nurse influenced the legislation Rogers sponsored, including the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps bill. When the bill became law in 1942, it formalized the indispensable role women played in the military during wartime and compensated them for their service and in the event of injury or illness.PathbreakerBLOG—“The Most Gallant Lady from Massachusetts”The portrait of Edith Nourse Rogers as chair of the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs was unveiled on July 27, 1950. The artwork had been commissioned by the Massachusetts American Legion, and it still hangs in the Veterans’ Affairs Committee rooms in the Cannon House Office Building. The portrait shows Rogers as she appeared in the later part of her 35-year career—white-haired and dignified, set in a vague, dark, impressionistic space. It closely resembles artist Howard Chandler Christy’s other portraits of House Members, which include two Speakers of the House and two other committee chairs. Contrary to the business-as-usual depiction in her portrait, Rogers was exceptional in many ways. She was only the second woman—after her colleague Mary Norton of New Jersey—to have a portrait commemorating her time leading a committee hung in the House. By the time the portrait was painted, Rogers had served in Congress for a quarter of a century, chalking up major victories on behalf of veterans and military personnel.HISTORICAL DATA—Women with 25 Years or More House Service For more than half a century, Edith Nourse Rogers held the record as the longest-serving woman in Congress. Though her record has since been eclipsed, Rogers’s career remains among the lengthiest tenures for any woman in the U.S. House of Representatives. This chart provides a list of all women who have served in the U.S. House of Representatives for at least 25 years.BLOG—“You Start It and You Like the Work, and You Just Keep On”“The first 30 years are the hardest,” Edith Nourse Rogers of Massachusetts said of her more than three decades in the U.S. House of Representatives. The former Red Cross volunteer nurse compared her tenure in Congress to “taking care of the sick. You start it and you like the work, and you just keep on.” In an institution where long service often yields greater power, many long-tenured Members became some of the House’s most famous and influential people. With her 35 years in office, Rogers is among a select few—less than three percent of all lawmakers—to have served so long in the House.Additional ResourcesThe primary research collection for Edith Nourse Rogers’s congressional career can be found at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, in the Schlesinger Library. Additional material, including letters to constituents, is available through the Massachusetts Historical Society.This is part of a series of blog posts for educators highlighting the resources available on History, Art & Archives of the U.S. House of Representatives. For lesson plans, fact sheets, glossaries, and other materials for the classroom, see the website's Education section.
Recent Artifacts Online, Spring 2025 | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
See what’s fresh for spring with newly donated and newly digitized objects in the House Collection. Over the years, hundreds of people collected congressional treasures and gave them to the House of Representatives. Take a look at a few standouts.Visitors’ Gallery PassThis pass, donated by Daniel P. Smith, gave 10 days’ worth of access to the Visitor’s Gallery in the House. Albert Pearson of Ohio signed it in late July 1894 for aspiring lawyer Custer Snyder. Snyder saw debates on the federal budget, pensions for disabled military veterans, and West Coast shipping ports, among other legislative actions.Plant for More Beautiful Cities Postage StampIn 1969, the U.S. Postal Service released a set of four colorful stamps on the theme of beautifying America. Arranged in a perforated block, the six-cent stamps included illustrations of cheerful flowers and cherry blossoms brightening up parks, streets, and highways. One stamp in the set, donated by Janice and Harris Strizever, “Plant for More Beautiful Cities,” foregrounds pink azaleas and yellow-tinged white tulips. The flowers garner so much attention that the viewer could almost miss the Capitol Building in the background.Hastings Keith Lapel PinCampaign slogan alliteration beats strong in the hearts of many politicians, and Hastings Keith was no exception. This lapel pin, given to the House Collection by Will Plaster, urged the voters to “Keep Keith” in Congress. The Massachusetts native was born in Brockton and represented the district there for 14 years.Visitor’s Gallery PassRepresentative Wells Goodykoontz, who represented a West Virginia district from 1919 to 1923, issued this House Gallery pass, a contribution to the House Collection from Joe Shoemaker, to visitor Warren Bailey in 1919. For much of the early 20th century, gallery passes were decorated with steel engravings and produced by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. In addition to conveying the information necessary to gain admittance to the House Gallery, the passes include a female personification of Liberty, who gestures toward the House Mace, which she holds by her side. Behind the visitor information, a shield covered in stars and stripes, bracketed by laurel and oak branches, is printed in a lighter shade of gray.William Lacy Clay Jr. Baseball CardThe Congressional Baseball Game’s first trading cards arrived in 1972. In the 21st century, the tradition is still going strong. This William Lacy Clay card from 2011, part of a complete set provided by donor Joe Foley, follows the time-honored tradition of showing the player’s allegiance to a local team, in this case the St. Louis Cardinals.Want something more artful? We have new portraits, too:For additional new paintings, photographs, and objects on Collections Search, check out other Recent Artifacts Online blogs.
A “Very Close Division of the Next House”: The Dramatic Majority Flip Heading into the 72nd Congress | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
On March 4, 1931, Speaker Nicholas Longworth of Ohio stood on the rostrum, gavel in hand, and adjourned the 71st Congress (1929–1931), ending what had been a remarkably volatile term. The Congress had started two years earlier, in April 1929, when President Herbert Hoover called lawmakers to Washington for a special session to address a painful recession in the country’s agricultural sector. Just six months later, the stock market collapsed, sparking what would quickly become the Great Depression.In November 1930, the midterm elections became a referendum on the country’s economic conditions when voters largely held incumbent Republican lawmakers responsible for the depression. The results were stark. In the 71st Congress, the GOP held 270 seats. In the 1930 midterms, Republicans lost dozens of races but kept their majority heading into the 72nd Congress (1931–1933) with the slimmest possible margin. Out of 435 seats in the House, Republicans had won 218, Democrats captured 216, and the Farmer-Labor Party from Minnesota, which planned to caucus with Democrats, earned one. For all intents and purposes, the House would be 218 to 217.The close party division looked even more precarious during the fall and winter when three lawmakers died between late November 1930 and early March 1931: New York Democrat John F. Quayle died from pneumonia on November 27, 1930. A month later, New York Representative David O’Connell died at a shoeshine stand in midtown Manhattan. And on March 1, 1931, Republican Representative Henry Allen Cooper of Wisconsin, the oldest Member of the House and—with 18 nonconsecutive terms in Congress—the longest serving, died of a heart attack at the age of 80 in his room at a Washington, DC, hotel.When Longworth addressed the House three days after Cooper’s death in the final minutes of the 71st Congress, he acknowledged the sudden uncertainty heading into the next term, which, per the standing practice at the time, was set to open in December that year, a full 13 months after the previous fall’s election. “Perhaps this is the last time I will address you from this rostrum,” Longworth said, eliciting nervous laughter from the chamber. “I do not mean to insinuate that I regard it as a probability, but I must admit it is a possibility. . . . It is only an All-Wise Providence who is going to determine which of the two great political parties will organize the next House of Representatives.”Longworth, however, would not be there to see which party organized the next House. He died a month later, on April 9, 1931, while vacationing in South Carolina. Longworth’s death, along with that of Quayle, O’Connell, and Cooper, was just the beginning. By the time the 72nd Congress opened in December 1931, a total of 14 Members-elect had died. The special elections to fill their vacancies before the new term opened would upend the House majority.The Loss of the SpeakerThe 1930 midterm elections occurred a year after the stock market crashed in October 1929, sending the U.S. economy into a tailspin. Americans lost billions in personal wealth. Businesses across the country failed, plunging millions of people out of work. On top of the financial crisis, the passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff of 1930, which had raised fees on imports, exacerbated the economic hardship. Meanwhile, the continued enforcement of Prohibition, banning the sale of alcohol, grew increasingly unpopular. The combination of those forces led to significant electoral headwinds for House Republicans. The loss of 52 Republican seats heading into the 72nd Congress—and the resulting one seat GOP majority—left legislative plans tenuous. But the sudden deaths of multiple Members after the election—including Speaker Longworth—ushered in a period of remarkable uncertainty.While the deaths of Quayle and O’Connell did not alter the balance of power—both lawmakers represented safe Democratic seats—Cooper’s death posed a much more serious problem for Republicans intent on keeping their majority. Worried members of the Wisconsin delegation told reporters that replacing Cooper would be “titanic.” Wisconsin Republicans hinted that if large numbers of candidates entered the Republican primaries to succeed the late lawmaker, they could split the vote and enable a Democrat to win the seat.As Members returned home after the 71st Congress adjourned, the House suffered an additional blow. On March 16, Democrat James Aswell of Louisiana, the ranking member on the House Committee on Agriculture, died from heart disease. Louisiana was a Democratic stronghold, however, and Aswell was soon replaced by a fellow Democrat, John Overton, in a special election two months later in May.But when Speaker Longworth died suddenly from pneumonia while visiting Aiken, South Carolina, the House was thrown for a loss. The nation grieved as Longworth’s body was transported to Ohio by train. Democratic Leader John Nance Garner of Texas, who hobnobbed and sparred with Longworth for decades, told reporters, “I have lost one of the best friends of a lifetime, the country a good citizen, and the congress a most valued legislator.” President Hoover, who went to Ohio to attend the funeral service, recalled Longworth’s “happy character, his sterling honesty, his courage in public questions.”Longworth, a bon vivant who was just 61 years old when he died, had first won election to Congress in 1902. He lost re-election in 1912 but recaptured his seat in 1914 and served until his death. His final race in 1930 had been a nailbiter: Longworth, who usually won re-election by 10 points or more, defeated his Democratic opponent that year with just 51 percent of the vote. Many wondered if Republicans would be able to hold the seat in 1931 amid worsening economic conditions. For the Wall Street Journal, Longworth’s death raised the probability that a “very close division of the next House . . . may be altered in a special election.”Summertime SadnessBy mid-May 1931, party divisions in the House remained breathtakingly close: 216 Republicans, 216 Democrats, and one Minnesota Farmer-Laborer. That the House had lost five lawmakers between late November 1930 and early April 1931 was difficult enough. But over the next six months, the House would mourn the deaths of nine more Members-elect: four Democrats and five Republicans.On May 26, 1931, Democratic Representative-elect Matthew O’Malley of New York passed away. O’Malley had just won the special election to replace one of the deceased Members-elect, John Quayle. Then, three days later, Democrat Charles A. Mooney of Ohio died.July, however, was perhaps the cruelest month of all. In a little more than three weeks, the House lost Pennsylvania Republican and House Judiciary Committee chairman George S. Graham; Democrat Charles G. Edwards of Georgia; Republican Bird J. Vincent of Michigan; and Democrat Samuel C. Major of Missouri.By midsummer 1931, the House GOP had lost its longest-serving Member in Cooper, its beloved Speaker in Longworth, and a powerful committee leader in Graham. A simple majority required 218 votes, but the deaths of so many Members-elect in such a short amount of time meant the party division by August stood at 214 Republicans, 212 Democrats, and one Farmer-Laborer.Special ElectionsBy late summer, states began holding special elections to fill the House’s many vacancies. On September 9, 1931, Georgia Democrat Homer Parker won election unopposed to replace Democrat Charles Edwards. Three weeks later, Democrat Robert Johnson of Missouri was elected to replace Democrat Samuel Major. And on October 13, Republican Thomas Amlie of Wisconsin won election to Cooper’s former seat. Amlie’s victory meant the party division in the House at mid-autumn stood at 215 Republicans, 214 Democrats, and one Farmer-Laborer.In the span of four days in late October 1931, however, the House was plunged into uncertainty again. On October 18, Republican Ernest Robinson Ackerman of New Jersey died, followed by Republican Fletcher Hale of New Hampshire on October 22. There was such urgency to protect the slim GOP majority in the House, that New Jersey’s Republican governor called the state legislature into session to move the special election for Ackerman’s seat from January 1932 to December 1, 1931, just a week before the 72nd Congress was set to open.New Jersey’s gambit aside, many observers saw the special elections on November 3 as likely to determine the fate of the House majority for the 72nd Congress. It had been two years since the onset of the Great Depression, and on the eve of the special elections the Associated Press observed that, given high voter dissatisfaction with the Hoover administration, “tomorrow’s results will inevitably be interpreted as an expression of the public attitude toward the President.”On Election Day, voters initially seemed ready to uphold the existing party division in the House. In New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio Democratic candidates filled Democratic vacancies, and Republican candidates filled Republican vacancies, including that of former Republican Speaker Longworth.But in Michigan, Democrats picked up their first seat when Michael James Hart, who opposed Prohibition, cruised to victory with 55 percent of the vote, replacing Republican Bird Vincent. In a sign that the electoral landscape had started to shift, Hart’s victory was the first time a Democrat had won the central Michigan district in 32 years. “Democrats viewed the result as a protest against Republican policies,” the Associated Press reported on the Michigan race. “Republicans, still stunned, either blamed their defeat on economic conditions or a failure of the National Committee to take a more active part in the campaign.” By the end of the day on November 3, Democrats headed into the 72nd Congress with 217 seats. Republicans had 215 seats, the Farmer-Labor Party had one, and two seats remained vacant.On November 6, 1931, however, chaos struck again when Republican Representative Harry McLeary Wurzbach of Texas died in San Antonio. To fill the seat before the 72nd Congress, Texas officials scheduled a special election just two weeks later on November 24. After the short campaign, voters elected Democrat Richard Kleberg with 47 percent of the vote in a four-way race. Kleberg’s victory gave Democrats 218 seats heading into the 72nd Congress—an outright majority.All eyes then turned to the upcoming special elections in New Jersey and New Hampshire where economic concerns dominated the campaign. In New Jersey, especially, the New York Times observed that “the Democratic campaigners have held to one issue: That the Hoover Republican Administration, by refusing to face the facts of the depression and by vacillating in taking steps toward recovery, was responsible for the severity of the depression.” Having already secured control of the chamber for the next session, Democrats padded their margin when Percy Hamilton Stewart was elected on December 1 to fill the New Jersey seat previously held by Ackerman. Democrats had 219 seats when the Congress opened but they would soon have 220. In early January, Democrats flipped a fourth GOP seat when New Hampshire Democrat William N. Rogers was elected to replace Republican Fletcher Hale who had died in October.The 72nd CongressThe 72nd Congress convened on December 7, 1931, having undergone a stunning upheaval during the previous year. From November 1930 to November 1931, 14 Members-elect died before they could take their seats: seven Democrats (Representatives-elect Quayle, O’Connell, Aswell, O’Malley, Mooney, Edwards, and Major) and seven Republicans (Representatives-elect Cooper, Longworth, Graham, Vincent, Ackerman, Hale, and Wurzbach). In the special elections that followed, Democrats flipped three Republican seats to capture the House in an unprecedented majority change before anyone had even taken the oath of office for the 72nd Congress.Small though the Democratic majority was, it was enough to ensure the election of Democratic Leader John Nance Garner of Texas as Speaker and install the party’s committee chairs across the House—including Representative Mary Teresa Norton of New Jersey, who became the first Democratic woman, and only the second woman ever, to chair a House committee when she wielded the gavel of the Committee on the District of Columbia. After the House elected its officers and debated the rules on Opening Day of the 72nd Congress, it approved a series of resolutions expressing its “profound sorrow” at the deaths of their former colleagues. Just before 2:30 p.m., Democratic Leader Henry Thomas Rainey of Illinois moved to adjourn “as a further mark of respect to our deceased Members.”The Twentieth AmendmentFor more than 130 years, lawmakers had complained that the 13-month interregnum between an election and the opening of a new Congress was problematic. In times of crisis—during the Civil War, for instance—Presidents were forced to call Congress into session months ahead of schedule to address critical issues. The longstanding requirement that new legislative terms open in December also meant that lawmakers had just three months in which to legislate during the second session before the Congress ended in March. For those Members who had lost re-election, however, it meant they had three months in which to continue working as “lame ducks”—debating bills and passing laws after having lost the support of their constituents.That quirk of America’s legislative calendar did not last for much longer following the chaotic and uncertain period between November 1930 and December 1931. Legislation to set the start date of a new Congress in early January of each odd year—just weeks after the national elections—had been debated on Capitol Hill since the early 1920s. It passed both chambers during the 72nd Congress, was ratified by the states in early 1933, and went into effect as the Twentieth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution two years later.On January 3, 1935, the 74th Congress (1935–1937) convened only eight weeks after Election Day. Although the narrow window between the election and Opening Day made the transition smoother, the House could not fully escape the sands of time: Representative-elect Frederick Landis of Indiana had died on November 15 leaving one vacancy. But for one House Officer, at least, the focus at the start of the new term was about renewal as much as it was about loss. “We are erecting today a new milestone in the annals of the political history of this Nation,” the House Clerk announced before overseeing the election of the Speaker to start the new term. “This is the first time in 146 years that an old Congress dies and a new one is born on the 3rd day of January.”Sources: Congressional Record, House, 71st Cong., 3rd sess. (4 March 1931): 7395; Congressional Record, House, 72nd Cong., 1st sess. (7 December 1931): 15; Congressional Record, House, 74th Cong., 1st sess. (3 January 1935): 9; Atlanta Constitution, 10 April 1931; Boston Globe (daily), 10 April, 3 November, 5 November 1931; Chicago Daily Tribune, 10 April 1931; New York Times, 6 July 1930, 1 March, 2 March, 5 March, 10 April, 27 May, 20 October, 23 October, 4 November, 7 November, 14 November, 25 November, 29 November 1931; Wall Street Journal, 4 November 1930, 10 April 1931; Washington Post, 4 November, 14 November 1931; Michael Barone, Our Country: The Shaping of America from Roosevelt to Reagan (New York: Free Press, 1990); Michael J. Dubin, United States Congressional Elections, 1788–1997, The Official Results (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, 1998); David M. Kennedy, Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1932–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999); Donald A. Ritchie, Electing FDR: The New Deal Campaign of 1932 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007); Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives, “Election Statistics, 1920 to Present”; Office of the Historian, U.S. House of Representatives, “Party Divisions of the House of Representatives, 1789 to Present”; Office of the Historian, U.S. House of Representatives, “The Twentieth Amendment.”
To Make Democracy Live: The Legislative Legacy of Emmett Till | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
On April 29, 1955, the first Black Member of Congress elected from Michigan, Representative Charles Cole Diggs Jr., spoke to an outdoor audience of 12,000 in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, more than 800 miles south of his Detroit congressional district. In this all-Black town founded in 1887 by formerly enslaved African Americans, Diggs described his vision for change across the nation, holding onlookers “spellbound” in what the Chicago Defender called “a revival meeting about American democracy.”In his address, Diggs urged listeners to register to vote to destroy the system of segregation that divided the South and to engage in the hard work of building a representative democracy. He recognized “the present uneasy times and seemingly insurmountable odds,” but promised that “if we keep up the fight to make democracy live, we will get the justice espoused by the Almighty God and the Constitution of the United States.”By traveling to the South to speak to the citizens of Mound Bayou, Diggs continued a tradition that began in 1929, when Oscar Stanton De Priest, the first of three Black Representatives elected consecutively to the House from the First District of Illinois, visited several southern states. De Priest, Arthur Wergs Mitchell, and William Levi Dawson each represented a Chicago district with a Black-majority population and were eager to visit southern states to address Black audiences on the challenges facing African Americans across the nation.In August 1955, another Black resident of Chicago, 14-year-old Emmett Till, traveled south to visit relatives in Greenwood, Mississippi. After an alleged dispute with a White woman, Till was brutally murdered and his mutilated body was thrown in the nearby Tallahatchie River. The subsequent trial and acquittal of the two White men accused of this crime became a national and international story.On Capitol Hill, the lynching of Emmett Till quickly became central to the struggle to pass a civil rights bill in the 84th Congress (1955–1957), sparking a decade of legislative achievements on civil rights not seen since Reconstruction. In 1955, three Black Representatives served simultaneously in the House—Diggs, Dawson, and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. of New York—for the first time since 1891. Each was willing to turn their attention beyond the boundaries of their congressional district to embrace their larger national constituency of Black Americans everywhere—especially those living in the Jim Crow South.Chicago’s Representatives Head SouthThe dispute that led to the murder of Emmett Till occurred in a grocery store in Money, Mississippi. The town had been named for former Confederate soldier Hernando De Soto Money, who served on Capitol Hill in both the House and Senate for 14 nonconsecutive Congresses between 1875 and 1911. Hernando Money was one of many across the South who worked to implement the system of Jim Crow segregation at the state and local level, depriving Black citizens of their civil and political rights for decades.Systematically excluded from the ballot and under constant threat of violence, many southern African Americans migrated to northern states seeking a better life. In 1928, Oscar De Priest of Illinois, who had been born in Alabama and settled in Chicago, was elected to the House on the strength of Black voters in the city, many of whom had participated in the Great Migration.As the first Black Member of Congress in nearly three decades, De Priest embraced his role as the only elected Black official in the federal government. De Priest made periodic visits to his native South during his six years in office. “I’m in Washington to serve my race,” De Priest declared in Memphis, Tennessee, only months after taking office. In the summer of 1929, he visited Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, as well as stops in Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina. “I am going to continue my tours through the South, notwithstanding threats I have received,” he said. “I’m going to try to teach the colored people their rights under the constitution.”In 1934, Democrat Arthur Mitchell defeated De Priest for Illinois’s First District seat. Mitchell also organized tours of the South to study the social and economic conditions of African-American communities. In 1939, he visited nine southern states, returning to Washington ready to inform the House of the need to “render the proper aid, and to give the proper recognition to a group of its citizens who have always been loyal in every sense of the word.”Mitchell’s successor, William Dawson, began his House career in the 1940s by backing bills to ban employment discrimination, lynching, and the poll tax. In 1949, Dawson became the first Black Member to chair a standing House committee and in the early 1950s he regularly visited the South. On May 2, 1952, Dawson addressed an outdoor meeting in Mound Bayou, Mississippi—the first time a sitting Black Member of Congress had visited Mississippi since the nineteenth century. Black schools closed for the day so students could be among the 7,000 in attendance for what residents called “Dawson Day.” The following year Dawson traveled to Birmingham, Alabama; Columbia, South Carolina; and Atlanta, Georgia; making the case for voter registration to combat Jim Crow at each stop.“A Lynching of the Statue of Liberty”Diggs’s visit to Mound Bayou, Mississippi, in the spring of 1955 to rally support for voting rights carried on the tradition of his predecessors. Diggs made his next trip to Mississippi just a few months later to accompany Emmett Till’s mother, Mamie Bradley, at the September trial of her son’s accused murderers, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam. As the sole federal official present in the Tallahatchie County courthouse in the town of Sumner, Diggs felt welcomed by the local Black community, who appreciated that he was “a representative in the Federal Government—one of their own—and he was on the scene with them.” He joined the NAACP in calling for a federal investigation of the crime, especially when the fate of the defendants was placed in the hands of an all-White jury. Because the defendants had been charged with state crimes, the U.S. Department of Justice declined to intervene.During the trial, Diggs used his status as a Member of Congress to secure better seating arrangements for Black reporters in the courtroom, who were segregated from their White counterparts. Diggs also worked with Representative Dawson to assist the witnesses who agreed to testify against Bryant and Milam and were forced to flee Mississippi for their own safety. For his part, Dawson provided financial support behind the scenes. When Till’s mother wanted to bring her son’s body back to Chicago, Dawson intervened to halt Till’s burial in Mississippi and helped cover costs of transporting his remains.Both Diggs and Dawson attended the September 3 funeral in Chicago. Till’s mother decided to have an open casket so that the public could see the terrible violence inflicted on her son’s body. In September, images from the funeral were published in several Black-owned publications, including Jet magazine, the Chicago Defender, and The American Negro: A Magazine of Protest, which was edited and published by future Representative Gus Savage of Illinois, who held a Chicago House seat from 1981 to 1993.On September 23, the jury acquitted Milam and Bryant on all charges. The defense, led by attorney John W. Whitten—the cousin of Mississippi Representative Jamie Lloyd Whitten—asserted that the body found in the river was not Emmett Till. Diggs called the defense’s argument “strictly fictional and sheer nonsense,” and described the trial as “so filled with perjury, illegal and unethical practices of withholding evidence that undoubtedly a democratic nation could not imagine happening in its halls of justice.” The verdict inspired several weeks of protest in cities across the country.Representative Powell had been traveling in Africa and Europe during the trial. When he returned to the United States in October, the Harlem Representative noted that the events in Mississippi undermined the reputation of United States as the standard bearer of democracy around the world. According to Powell, Till’s murder was, in effect, “a lynching of the Statue of Liberty.”In October, two months after the House had adjourned in August, Powell appeared in Manhattan before a crowd of 20,000 to protest the verdict. He called for a boycott of everything “made in Mississippi,” hoping to punish the state with economic sanctions so long as it allowed lynchings to continue with impunity. Powell also demanded President Dwight D. Eisenhower call a special session of Congress to immediately take up civil rights legislation.Both Powell and Diggs threatened to challenge the right of Mississippi’s all-White delegation to their seats in the House, insisting they were only elected because of the exclusion of Black voters from the polls. Speaking at a rally in Detroit that October, Diggs denounced the verdict and the ongoing threat of violence facing African Americans, adding that he would push the House to pass civil rights legislation in the new year. “It is obvious that although I was elected from Michigan’s 13th Congressional District, I also represent every Negro in Mississippi,” Diggs said. Along with his House colleagues Dawson and Powell, Diggs noted that “we represent 15 million Negroes. We intend to do just that.”“A Year Loaded with Political Dynamite”When the House reconvened on January 3, 1956, the Chicago Tribune forecasted “a year loaded with political dynamite” on Capitol Hill. Republican Gordon Canfield of New Jersey, a longtime civil rights advocate in the House, was the first of several Members to introduce a federal antilynching bill following Till’s murder. Since January 20, 1900, when Representative George H. White of North Carolina introduced the first federal antilynching bill, several attempts had been made to enable the federal government to intervene without success.In January, Diggs spoke on the House Floor to urge his colleagues to empower the U.S. Attorney General to “intervene in those cases where individual states refuse to provide equal protection of the law to all citizens.” By March, 26 Representatives—including Diggs and Powell—described by one reporter as the bipartisan “House civil rights bloc” met to coordinate strategy. They appointed a delegation of six Members, led by Republican Hugh Doggett Scott Jr. of Pennsylvania and Democrat Edna Flannery Kelly of New York, to meet with the U.S. Department of Justice, House Judiciary Chair Emanuel Celler of New York, and Thomas Joseph Lane of Massachusetts, the chair of the Judiciary subcommittee on civil rights bills, to discuss how to pass legislation before the end of the session. By June, the House Rules Committee had held a hearing on H.R. 627, which created a national commission to investigate civil rights violations and a new civil rights division within the Justice Department, as well as empowered the U.S. Attorney General to bring civil suits in federal courts to protect individual rights.Southern state delegations mobilized against these efforts. In remarks in the Congressional Record, Elijah Lewis Forrester of Georgia claimed that if the accused men had killed Till, “there was certainly great provocation.” He added that “murders in Chicago are daily occurrences,” yet there was not a call for federal intervention in Illinois.The Mississippi House delegation also defended their state and questioned the role of the federal government in the South. In June, Mississippi lawmakers testified before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, where Representative Whitten backed the integrity of the Mississippi justice system and insisted that the body found in the river was not Emmett Till. Mississippi Representative John Bell Williams denounced the proposal to increase the power of the Justice Department in civil rights matters, which he said would create a federal “police state.” The Supreme Court, Williams said, was trying to “abort the Constitution and take over the prerogatives of the States.” Each Member of the Mississippi delegation joined a group of 83 House Members who signed a statement read into the Record denouncing the civil rights bill on July 13.On July 17, Diggs and Powell spoke on the House Floor to back the pending civil rights bill, demanding voting rights to fortify democracy in the South. Powell accepted that the bill was not perfect but emphasized that it “symbolizes the authority and willingness of the Federal Government to protect certain basic rights of the United States citizenship.” Diggs noted that jury duty was tied to voter registration, and no African Americans were on the jury during the Till murder trial. The bill passed the House on July 23, but the Senate did not take it up before the end of the session.The bipartisan group of legislators advocating for civil rights legislation found more success in the 85th Congress (1957–1959). In debates and committee hearings in the House and Senate, the Till case remained a key part of the push for civil rights legislation on Capitol Hill. The resulting Civil Rights Act of 1957 included the main provisions of the 1956 bill that passed the House, including the proposal to expand the role of the U.S. Attorney General in civil rights cases and the creation of both a civil rights division in the Department of Justice and a U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.Although the law did not immediately reverse the system of Jim Crow segregation in the South, it was the first federal civil rights legislation passed since 1875. Within a decade the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 created a robust role for the federal government in protecting the civil and political rights of all Americans.More than half a century later, Black lawmakers who had grown up in the 1950s, including Representative John Lewis of Georgia, often reflected on the significance of the murder of Emmett Till. Inspired by his memory, they eventually secured the passage of a federal antilynching law—a legislative victory more than 120 years in the making.Sources: Congressional Record, House, 84th Cong., 2nd sess. (13 July 1956): 12760–12761; Congressional Record, House, 84th Cong., 2nd sess. (17 July 1956): 13176–13178, 13181–13182; Congressional Record, Extension of Remarks, 84th Cong., 2nd sess. (24 July 1956): A5819; H.R. 4004, 78th Cong. (1944); H.R. 228, 80th Cong. (1947); H.R. 230, 80th Cong. (1947); H.R. 383, 81st Cong. (1949); H.R. 7879, 84th Cong (1956); H.R. 627, 84th Cong. (1955); Hearings before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Poll Taxes, 78th Cong., 1st sess. (1943); Hearings before the House Committee on Rules, H.R. 627, 84th Cong., 2nd sess. (1956); Hearings before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Civil Rights Proposals, 84th Cong., 2nd sess. (1956); Devery S. Anderson, Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement (Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2015); Christopher Manning, William L. Dawson and the Limits of Black Electoral Leadership (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2009); Wright Thompson, The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi (New York: Penguin Press, 2024); Afro-American (Baltimore, MD), 15 December 1934, 8 October 1955, 3 March 1956; Afro-American Red Star (Washington, DC), 31 January 2003; Atlanta Daily World, 6 November 1953, 17 November 1953, 3 May 1955; Baltimore Sun, 12 October 1955; Boston Globe, 25 September 1955; Call and Post (Cleveland, OH), 16 March 1939, 15 January 1955, 24 September 1955; Chicago Defender, 26 April 1952, 14 May 1955, 27 August 1955, 1 October 1955, 8 October 1955, 28 July 1956; Chicago Daily Tribune, 2 January 1956; Detroit Tribune, 1 October 1955; Journal and Guide (Norfolk, VA), 14 August 1937; Los Angeles Times, 24 July 1956; Memphis Triangle (TN), 27 July 1929; Michigan Chronicle (Detroit), 8 October 1955, 21 January 1956; New Journal and Guide (Norfolk, VA), 10 May 1952, 24 January 1953, 1 October 1955; New York Times, 12 October 1955, 13 July 1956, 28 August 2005; Pittsburgh Courier, 8 October 1955; Wall Street Journal, 15 March 1990; Washington Post, 16 July 1929, 12 January 1956, 3 November 2015; Washington Post Magazine, 27 February 2000.
Edition for Educators—Shirley Chisholm of New York | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
Since the First Congress opened in 1789, more than 11,000 people have served in the U.S. House of Representatives. Most served capably for a few terms and returned to their communities. But some lawmakers have left towering legacies and are remembered for their legislative prowess, path-breaking careers, and bold personalities. These Members of Congress, including powerful Speakers of the House, strong-willed legislators, trailblazing Representatives, and policy specialists, qualify as “Giants of the House.”Fiercely independent, Shirley Chisholm broke barriers for both women and Black Americans as the Congresswoman from Brooklyn, New York. She entered the House in the 91st Congress (1969–1971) and quickly challenged convention on Capitol Hill. Initially assigned to the Committee on Agriculture, she rejected the seat and appealed to Speaker John W. McCormack of Massachusetts and the Democratic Caucus before receiving a new seat on the Veterans’ Affairs Committee. She also made it a point to employ young women, Black and White, in key leadership positions in her congressional office at a time when many were relegated to secretarial positions with little hope of significant advancement.Throughout her career, Chisholm challenged leadership and spoke out about challenging issues—discrimination, abortion, and war. Chisholm embraced her national profile, “I think my role is to break new ground in Congress.”Chisholm’s boldness unsettled many of her colleagues, some of whom occasionally cautioned the Congresswoman that she risked losing re-election. In her memoir, Chisholm countered, “Sometime [sic] somebody has to start trying to change things, start to say something, do something, be politically expendable.” Despite her own early prediction that she might be in Congress “only six or eight years at most,” Chisholm served seven terms, secured a coveted seat on the Rules Committee, earned a role in party leadership, and made a historic run for the Democratic nomination for President.This month’s Edition for Educators highlights the historic career of Representative Shirley Chisholm of New York, the first Black woman elected to Congress.From the Classroom to the House ChamberPEOPLE PROFILE—Representative Shirley Chisholm of New York The first African-American Congresswoman, Shirley Chisholm represented a U.S. House of Representatives district centered in Brooklyn, New York. First elected in 1968, Chisholm was catapulted into the national limelight by virtue of her race, gender, and an outspoken personality that she balanced with deft skill as a political insider. Four years later, in 1972, she campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination. From her seat on the powerful Rules Committee, “Fighting Shirley,” as she was known, moved into Democratic leadership and advocated for increased federal spending and expanded programs to help low-income and working-class Americans. “I am the people’s politician,” she once told the New York Times. “If the day should ever come when the people can’t save me, I’ll know I’m finished. That’s when I’ll go back to being a professional educator.”BLOG—Unbought and Unbossed Shirley Chisholm was on the fence about running for Congress when a woman came to her Brooklyn apartment. The visitor, a poor mother, said that she and her friends wanted Chisholm to run. “She gave me a dirty envelope containing $9.62 in nickels, dimes and quarters that they had raised and promised that if I ran they would sponsor fund-raising affairs every Friday night to help finance my campaign,” Chisholm told Ebony. After the woman left, Chisholm sat down, took off her glasses, and cried.It was her first campaign contribution.HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHT—The First African-American Woman Elected to Congress On this date, at the opening of the 91st Congress (1969–1971), Shirley Anita Chisholm of New York became the first African-American Congresswoman. Trained as a school teacher, Chisholm served two terms in the New York state legislature before winning election in November 1968 to a newly created congressional district in Brooklyn. The only woman among the first-term class of lawmakers in the 91st Congress, Chisholm took the House by storm. “I have no intention of just sitting quietly and observing,” she said. “I intend to focus attention on the nation’s problems.”RECORD—Shirley Chisholm Oath of Office Representative Shirley Chisholm of New York signed this oath of office card on January 21, 1969. Representatives take the verbal oath of office en masse on the first day of each new Congress. Beginning in the 80th Congress (1947–1949), Members have also reaffirmed their commitment by signing oath of office cards. The cards are filed with the Clerk of the House and become House records that are open to the public after 30 years.Representative Chisholm of New YorkESSAY—“To Fight Doubly Hard” This essay from Black Americans in Congress explores the trials and triumphs of the first Black women elected to Congress. The five women profiled in this section (Permanent Interests: 1965–1990) were trailblazers, working to pass significant legislation and rising through the ranks of party and House leadership. Several gained influential committee positions: Shirley Chisholm on Rules, Yvonne Burke on Appropriations, and Barbara Jordan on Judiciary. Burke also chaired the Select Committee on the House Beauty Shop, while Cardiss Collins became the first Black woman to chair a subcommittee when she headed the Manpower and Housing Subcommittee of the Committee on Government Operations in 1977. Collins later rose to ranking minority member of the same committee, then renamed the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight. Both Burke and Collins also were elected to terms as chair of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC).Early in her congressional career, Chisholm spoke about the effort it took to make it to Congress. “My rise has been constantly fighting,” she explained. “And I have had to fight doubly hard because I am a woman. I am a very different sort of person than usually emerges on the political scene.”ORAL HISTORY—Representative Chisholm and the Women’s Rights Movement Muriel Morisey discusses Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm’s involvement in women’s rights organizations.BLOG—Guts, Stamina, Audacity: Shirley Chisholm’s House Career Shirley Chisholm, the charismatic and outspoken Brooklyn educator and politician, made history when she became the first African-American woman to serve in Congress in 1969. Small in stature, but with a larger-than-life persona, “Fighting Shirley” was a tireless advocate for her constituents, quotable and stylish and unyielding. Chisholm encapsulated the resolve of the civil rights movement of the 1960s and brought national attention to the issues she championed.Beyond the headlines and iconic reputation she built across party lines, the New York Representative had to fight just as hard within the House for the causes she supported. Run by an old guard resistant to change, the House in the late 1960s was not the most welcoming of institutions to new Members. But Chisholm’s political career embodied a spirit of independence and her 1968 campaign slogan, “Unbought and Unbossed,” challenged the status quo. During her initial run for Congress, Chisholm proudly remarked, “I have always spoken out for what I believe: I cannot be controlled.”ORAL HISTORY—“She Empowered Her Staff Enormously” Muriel Morisey recalls the relationship between Representative Shirley Chisholm and her staff.Leadership and OrganizationESSAY—The Rise of the Congressional Black Caucus As the number of African-American lawmakers serving in Congress grew, a long-desired movement to form a more unified organization among Black legislators coalesced. Frustrated that Black Representatives lacked a forum to discuss common concerns and issues, Charles Diggs proposed the organization of the Democratic Select Committee (DSC) at the opening of the 91st Congress (1969–1971). He maintained that the DSC would fill a significant void by fostering the exchange of information among the nine African Americans serving in Congress at the time, as well as between Black Representatives and House leadership. Newcomers Bill Clay, Louis Stokes, and Shirley Chisholm embraced the idea, and the organization grew in the 92nd Congress (1971–1973), when it changed its name to the Congressional Black Caucus. This essay from Black Americans in Congress explores the early days of the CBC and its founding membership.HISTORICAL DATA—Black Americans in Party Leadership Positions In 1977, Shirley Chisholm became the first Black woman to serve as Secretary of the Democratic Caucus after an unsuccessful campaign for the position of caucus chair. This chart provides a list of individuals in caucus and conference positions based on research conducted by the Congressional Research Service.ORAL HISTORY—“Give Your Chair to a Lady” Muriel Morisey recalls Representative Shirley Chisholm’s campaign to become Democratic Caucus chair.Presidential CandidateBLOG—“Catalyst for Change”: The 1972 Presidential Campaign of Representative Shirley Chisholm Since its first publication in 1951, Jet magazine had been on the forefront covering news and issues important to its African-American readership. Widely popular for its commentary on politics, culture, and the lives of everyday people, Jet posed a question in June 1971 that would soon prove prophetic: “Should a Black Politician Run for President?”Six months later, in January 1972, Chisholm formally announced her candidacy for President and worked to forge what she called a “union of the disenfranchised.” With limited funding and a small staff, she used her platform to advocate for federal aid programs, opposed the Vietnam War, and called to empower everyday voters. She developed a strategy to win delegates in key presidential primaries, and, if need be, was ready to continue her quest for the nomination into the July 1972 Democratic National Convention in Miami, Florida. But almost immediately, Chisholm faced opposition from other Democratic presidential hopefuls, prominent Black politicians, members of the CBC, and political rivals back home in her Brooklyn congressional district. Throughout the campaign, she dismissed criticism that her candidacy was self-serving or merely symbolic. “I am for real, and I am very serious about what I am doing.”Remembering Shirley ChisholmBLOG—Collection Spotlight: The Portrait of Shirley Chisholm The Shirley Chisholm portrait in the House Collection of Art and Artifacts—the most viewed painting in the House’s online Collections Search—is difficult to miss when you pass it in the Capitol. The subject looms large on the canvas, the background a bright, saturated blue. The House commissioned the portrait by artist Kadir Nelson as part of an initiative started at the turn of the 21st century to commemorate noteworthy former Members with significant legislative achievements or symbolic importance in House history who did not fall into the limited group who traditionally had portraits painted. Representative Chisholm of New York was part of this group—the first Black woman in Congress, taking her seat in 1969. She became nationally famous for her strong principles and willingness to stand up for them, earning the nickname “Fighting Shirley.”HOUSE COLLECTION—Featured Objects and ImagesAdditional ResourcesShirley Chisholm authored two books: Unbought and Unbossed in 1970, and The Good Fight in 1973. Her research collections can be found through Rutgers University Library. Brooklyn Colleges hosts a smaller collection on Chisholm’s historic campaign for the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination as part of the Shirley Chisholm Project documenting women’s grassroots activism in Brooklyn, New York.In addition, the Library of Congress has compiled a research guide on Shirley Chisholm.This is part of a series of blog posts for educators highlighting the resources available on History, Art & Archives of the U.S. House of Representatives. For lesson plans, fact sheets, glossaries, and other materials for the classroom, see the website's Education section.
Edition for Educators—John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts remains the only President elected to the U.S. House of Representatives after his service as chief executive. When Adams took his seat in the House in 1831, he had already enjoyed a long career in some of the federal government’s most powerful posts. The son of the second U.S. President, Adams brought a stubbornness and a lifetime of experience to his job as Representative. Adams served for 17 years in the House, representing his Massachusetts district from 1831 until his death in 1848. From both committee rooms and the House Floor, Adams argued ceaselessly against the expansion of slavery and remained steadfast in upholding the right of the American people to petition their government. Thanks in large part to the voluminous diary entries he left behind, historians enjoy ample access to Adams’s various musings and frustrations during one of the most tumultuous periods in House history.Relying on a wealth of material published on the History, Art and Archives website, this month’s Edition for Educators highlights the life and congressional career of Representative John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts.Son, Senator, Secretary, PresidentPEOPLE PROFILE—John Adams of MassachusettsJohn Adams was one of the most famous men in early America. As a Member of the Continental Congress, Adams proposed George Washington to head the Continental Army and helped write the Declaration of Independence. While his new nation grappled with the Articles of Confederation, Adams represented American interests abroad in France, Holland, and England. He returned to the United States in 1788 to serve as the first Vice President under Washington. When Washington declined to run for a third term in 1796, Adams won election as the second President of the United States. Adams, a Boston lawyer of esteem long before joining the Continental Congress, ensured his children received excellent educations. His oldest son John Quincy Adams was schooled in Europe before following his father’s path through Harvard College and into law in Boston and diplomacy abroad.HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHT—The House of Representatives Elected John Quincy Adams as President On February 9, 1825, the House of Representatives elected Secretary of State John Quincy Adams as President. Following an inconclusive Electoral College result, in which no candidate won a majority, the House performed its constitutionally prescribed role of deciding the 1824 presidential election. Andrew Jackson of Tennessee had won the popular vote and commanded 99 electoral votes. He was followed in the electoral tally by Adams (84), Treasury Secretary William Crawford (41), and Speaker of the House Henry Clay (37). Despite Jackson’s lead following Election Day, lawmakers in the House elected Adams President on the first ballot.From the White House to the House of RepresentativesHISTORICAL HIGHLIGHT—The Election of John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts The 1830 midterm election made Adams the first and only former President to be elected to the House of Representatives. Adams sought a second term as President in 1828 but lost to former Representative and Senator Andrew Jackson of Tennessee. Two years later, Adams handily won election to the House to represent a district encompassing southeastern Massachusetts in the 22nd Congress (1831–1833). Prior to the election, Adams reflected on his candidacy for the House in his journal, “no person could be degraded by serving the people as a Representative in Congress . . . [nor] would an ex-President of the United States be degraded by serving as a selectman of his town, if elected thereto by the people.”BLOG—“Planting Laws and Institutions”: The Election of Representative John Quincy Adams On November 6, 1830, former United States President John Quincy Adams spent the day at his family’s farm near Quincy, Massachusetts, planting trees. On the edge of what would become the orchard, he laid out five rows of chestnuts, oaks, and shagbark hickories. Adams ate lunch at home and went back to the farm “to lay out the ground for the Orchard,” all the while debating what else he would plant there. Toward the end of the day, he read the evening newspapers and nonchalantly noted in his diary that the news had “brought the last returns of the Congressional Election for the District of Plymouth. Twenty-two Towns gave 2565 votes, of which 1817 were for John Quincy Adams, 373 for Arad Thompson (Jacksonite), 279 for William Baylies (federal), and 96 scattering votes.” The final line in Adams’s diary that day: “I am a member elect of the twenty-second Congress.”Antislavery CrusaderHISTORICAL HIGHLIGHT—The House “Gag Rule” On May 26, 1836, during the 24th Congress (1835–1837), the U.S. House of Representatives instituted the “gag rule,” the first instance of what would become a traditional practice forbidding the House from considering antislavery petitions. Representative John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts raised the first and most impassioned objections to the procedure. Adams shouted during the roll call vote, “I hold the resolution to be a direct violation of the Constitution of the United States.” For the next four Congresses, Adams fervently fought against the gag rule, declaring it a restriction on free speech. Despite his efforts, the House successfully reintroduced the gag rule each Congress until Adams finally mustered enough votes to repeal it on December 3, 1844.HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHT—A Motion to Censure Representative John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts On February 7, 1842, the House voted 106 to 93 to table a motion censuring Representative John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts for antislavery agitation. Weeks earlier, Adams had masterfully manipulated the public debate over slavery by baiting proslavery Representatives into a prolonged dialogue. Because the House had instituted the “gag rule” in 1836—preventing floor discussion of abolition petitions—Adams manufactured a debate by submitting a petition, allegedly drafted by a group of Georgians, to have Adams removed as Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman. (Historians doubt the authenticity of the petition—some implying that Adams or one of his allies authored it). Through this sleight of hand, Adams used the defense of his chairmanship to hold the floor for days delivering a far-ranging harangue against “slave mongers,” as one observer recalled, “till slaveholding [and] slave trading . . . absolutely quailed and howled under his dissecting knife,” inspiring the effort to censure Adams.“Old Man Eloquent"HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHT—Congressman and Poet John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts A man of many talents, Congressman John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts was a poet as well as a statesman. During his first term as Representative, Adams penned the epic poem, “Dermot MacMorrogh, or The Conquest of Ireland.” Adams once confessed, “Could I have chosen my own genius and condition, I should have made myself a great poet.” Another poem, “Fragments From an Unfinished Manuscript: An Epistle To the Muse of History,” captured a poignant moment in his House career. While seated at his desk in the old House Chamber (now National Statuary Hall), Adams wrote the poem honoring Clio, the Greek muse of history. He was inspired by a marble clock, located over the north door of the chamber, depicting Clio riding in the “Winged Car of History” and recording the deeds of Congress.HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHT—The First Parliamentary Procedure to Limit House Floor Debate On July 7, 1841, the House adopted the first rule intended to limit the time a Representative could speak in debate on the House Floor. Concerns about long speeches impeding House business had dated to at least 1820, when the irascible John Randolph of Virginia held the House Floor for a four-hour speech on the Missouri Compromise bill. This 1841 rule, adopted on the motion of Lott Warren of Georgia, required that “no member shall be allowed to speak more than one hour to any question under debate.” It passed the House by a vote of 111 to 75—with John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts (known as “Old Man Eloquent” by his peers) among those dissenting. Warren’s amendment, however, only temporarily altered the House Rules. According to Hinds’ Precedents the one-hour limit did not become a standing rule of the House until June 1842.BLOG—Father Knows Best Shortly after noon on an unseasonably mild Thursday in late February 1842, a hush fell over the House as the venerable John Quincy Adams creakily arose from his chair. Just weeks earlier, the House had considered censuring the gray-haired Massachusetts Congressman whom many knew as “Old Man Eloquent” to punish him for manufacturing a crippling debate about the evils of slavery. But on this day Adams eulogized North Carolina’s Lewis Williams, whom colleagues revered as the “Father of the House”—the Member with the longest continuous service. The prior afternoon Williams had succumbed to pneumonia. His abrupt passing shocked colleagues and ended an unbroken run of House service reaching back to 1815—far longer than any of his peers in that 27th Congress (1841-1843), Adams included.Mr. ChairmanBLOG—A Mob in Search of a Speaker During the chaotic first two weeks of the 26th Congress (1839–1841) in December 1839, three separate men presided over the House of Representatives: Clerk Hugh Garland of the previous Congress, Representative John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts in an entirely invented position, and finally Robert M.T. Hunter of Virginia, the youngest Speaker of the House ever to hold the office.BLOG—The Apportionment Act of 1842: Legal, When Convenient Throughout his 17-year career in the House, Representative John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts existed in a state of almost perpetual irritation. Whether it was debate over tariff rates or his fight against slavery, the House’s daily business routinely left Adams exasperated but nevertheless resolute that he was right and everyone else was wrong. Adams was in no mood then, when on June 25, 1842, a curious decision by President John Tyler stretched Adams’s already short patience to its breaking point. After failing to convince the House to take up his bill providing back payments to the American victims of French privateers, Adams sat in disbelief as John Tyler Jr., the President’s son and aide, delivered a message to the House from his father explaining his decision to begrudgingly sign the Apportionment Act of 1842.RECORD—Smithsonian Fund Stocks After his death in 1829, British scientist James Smithson left $500,000 to the United States to found an institution dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. The House Select Committee on the Bequest of James Smithson, chaired by Representative John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts, determined what should be done with the windfall. This House record shows how the United States Treasury used these funds while the select committee worked. The Secretary of the Treasury primarily invested the bequest in the states of Arkansas, Michigan, Illinois, and Ohio, with a rate of interest around six percent. As this record shows, Smithson’s capital temporarily supported the Detroit and Pontiac Railroad Company and canals in Ohio, among other economic and infrastructural projects. In 1846, the Smithsonian Institution was officially created by law.Death and LegacyBLOG—The Last Hours of John Quincy Adams The morning of February 21, 1848, was bright and clear. Representative John Quincy Adams left his house on F Street for the Capitol for the last time. Age had made him frail and a little hunched over in the winter air, but still with a piercing gaze. Adams knew he was nearing the end of his career. But he likely did not suspect that his last hours in the Capitol would become a national media event, driven by brand-new technologies and nostalgia that Adams represented.HISTORICAL HIGHLIGHT—The Death of Representative John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts On February 21, 1848, Representative and former President John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts suffered a fatal stroke on the House Floor. Members moved the 80-year-old former President to the Rotunda for fresher air and then relocated him to the Speaker's Room (the present-day Lindy Claiborne Boggs Congressional Women’s Reading Room). Adams mustered the strength to thank the Officers of the House for their service. He then lapsed into a coma and died two days later. A funeral to celebrate the life of the great sage took place on February 26, 1848, in the House Chamber which was attended by political friends and foes alike. Until arrangements could be made to move his remains to the family burial grounds in Quincy, Massachusetts, his body was laid to rest in Congressional Cemetery. A cenotaph marker remains in the cemetery to honor the former President.Extra ResourcesLearn more about the career of John Quincy Adams as a Senator from Massachusetts, U.S. Secretary of State, and the sixth President of the United States—the opening acts to his tenure as Congressman from Massachusetts.John Quincy Adams kept a diary for much of his life, which is publicly available online through a number of databases, including the Massachusetts Historical Society and the Library of Congress.This is part of a series of blog posts for educators highlighting the resources available on History, Art & Archives of the U.S. House of Representatives. For lesson plans, fact sheets, glossaries, and other materials for the classroom, see the website's Education section.
Development of the Industrial United States and the Emergence of Modern America (1870–1931), Part II: The Records of Progress | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
As the United States expanded, developed, and went to war overseas, Americans and their government responded to the rapid changes happening in the country and abroad. Citizens petitioned Congress for consumer protections, better working conditions, assistance for vulnerable people, voting rights, and conservation of the country’s natural landscapes. The government responded with reforms—both welcome and unwelcome, depending on one’s perspective. Learn more about how the country navigated the shift from the unregulated excess of the Gilded Age to social and political reforms of the Progressive Era with these records from the House of Representatives.Transcriptions and downloadable PDFs of these records are available at the links below.Discussion Questions:How did the country’s workforce change during this period?Identify at least three areas that Americans worked to reform during this period. Are Americans still working to bring about change in these areas today?How did changes in communication, transportation, and industry during this period bring about government reform?What methods did Americans use to advocate for changes for themselves and for others?What connections can you make between this period and today?Is what is considered progress by some always positive for everyone? Why or why not?1890, Give Us Pure Lager Beer PetitionThis petition was sent to the House from citizens of Avon, New York, who supported H.R. 8522, a bill that defined the required ingredients of lager beer. The petitioners warned that “adulterants such as corn, rice, starch, glucose and other substitutes,” when used instead of malt and hops, may affect the purity of beer, as well as the drinker’s health. The petition is an example of the demand for more government regulation of consumer goods that culminated in the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.1893, John Muir Yosemite LetterA founding member of the Sierra Club, John Muir served as president from its inception in 1892 until his death in 1914. Muir and his fellow club members petitioned Congress to preserve Yosemite National Park’s boundaries when California Representative Anthony Caminetti proposed opening it up to farming and mining in 1893. The petition includes a four-point list detailing the damage to the park if it were developed, along with a map illustrating the reduced size advocated by the legislation. Congress eventually sided with the conservationists and decided to maintain the original boundaries for the time being.1900, Anti-Lynching PetitionPetitioners from New Jersey protested the lynching of African Americans in the South. The petition was submitted on the House Floor on February 21, 1900, by Representative George Henry White of North Carolina, the only African American in Congress at the time, in support of H.R. 6963, anti-lynching legislation he introduced on January 20, 1900. White left at the end of that Congress, and it was nearly three decades before another African American served in Congress.1902, Letter Supporting Anti-Injunction and Anti-Conspiracy LegislationThe Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, Bradford Lodge No. 288, in McKean County, sent this petition to Congressman Joseph C. Sibley of Pennsylvania in 1902. The union encouraged the consideration of H.R. 11060, which would limit the meaning of the word “conspiracy” and the use of “restraining orders and injunctions.” As a labor union for railroad employees, the group had a vested interest in legislation that protected its right to organize and protest, which had been curtailed by allegations of civil conspiracy and court ordered injunctions against strikes and boycotts.1912, Child Labor PhotographIn 1908, Lewis Wickes Hine began documenting the conditions of young workers in Washington, DC. The notation Hine typed on the back of the photograph observed that the three boys were about 9 years old. One newsboy was a “chronic truent [sic],” and another had already been working as a newsboy since the age of 6. Their work required them to rise early and work long days, until all their papers were sold. Hine’s documentary photographs, often depicting gritty, true-to-life scenes, made their way into the investigative files of the Committee on the District of Columbia to bolster proposed legislation that would ban child labor in the District.1917, Student Resolution for ProhibitionIn 1917, a group of high school students from Flemington, New Jersey, submitted a resolution supporting a bill introduced by Congressman Asbury Lever in support of the prohibition of alcohol to conserve resources for the impending war. H.R. 4961 included the “limitation, regulation, or prohibition of the use of foods, food materials, or feeds in the production of alcohol.” Although the bill became the Lever Food and Fuel Control Act and was signed into law on August 10, 1917, nationwide Prohibition would not take effect until 1920.1919, House Joint Resolution 1 for Women’s SuffrageH.J. Res. 1 proposing an amendment to the Constitution extending voting rights to women was introduced in the House on May 19, 1919, and referred to the House Committee on Woman Suffrage. H.J. Res. 1 passed the House on May 21, 1919, followed by the Senate on June 4. The amendment achieved ratification in three-fourths of the states, and the U.S. Secretary of State certified it as the 19th Amendment to the Constitution on August 26, 1920, allowing women nationwide to head to the polls that November.1927, Funds for a Veterans’ HospitalThis petition, a concurrent resolution from the state legislature of Indiana, urges the U.S. Congress to establish a hospital for veterans within the state. The resolution argues that, “As Indiana is the center of population of the United States, a nucleus of the agricultural and industrial elements, the greatest railroad center of the world, and easily accessible by highways,” a veterans’ hospital would serve the area well. After the creation of the Veterans Administration, a health facility serving veterans opened in Indiana in 1932.Interested in more records from this era?1886, Postcards to Label Oleomargarine1886, Resolution to Create a Bureau of Labor for Women1875, Railway Joint Tariff1879, Letter against the Comstock Actca. 1890, Petition against Obscene Literature1894, Normal and Industrial Schools Billca. 1902, Petition for National Appalachian Forest Reserve1902, Resolution on Enforcement of the 14th Amendment1902, Higher Education for People Who Are Blind1905, Letter to Amend the Interstate Commerce Act1906, Report on Chicago Stock Yards1908, Supporting a Child Labor Bill for DC1910, Letter to Julius Kahn on Establishing a Children’s Bureau1910, Letter in Favor of a Children’s Bureau1911, Support for a National Archives Building1915, Letter Regarding Mount Baker1916, Letter for National Park Service1917, Urging Prohibition During Wartime1917, Letter against Prohibition1918, Maternity and Infancy Hygiene Bill1922, Red Record of Lynching Map1924, Letter against Child Labor AmendmentRead the first part of this blog, “Development of the Industrial United States and the Emergence of Modern America (1870–1931), Part I: The Records of Power,” here.This is part of a blog series about records from different eras of U.S. history.
Best of the Blog in 2024 | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
In 2024, the Office of the Historian and the Office of Art and Archives published 34 blog posts exploring the rich history of the House of Representatives. This year’s submissions covered a range of topics, including deep dives on the portrait of pathbreaking California Representative Dalip Singh Saund, the curious career of Pennsylvania Representative Thomas Forrest, and the history and development of the House Chamber’s electronic voting system.Additionally, the oral history program at the Office of the Historian celebrated its twentieth year of operation with posts looking back at two decades of interviews with remarkable Members of Congress, staff, and family members.House curators and archivists continued to update readers about new additions to the House Collection and Records Search. House historians maintained the long-running Edition for Educators series for teachers and students and provided an annual update for students competing in National History Day. The office also expanded its educational series by offering closer looks at two major events in modern House history: the 1954 shooting in the House Chamber and the first lying-in-honor ceremony in the Capitol. Finally, readers more inclined to statistics over narrative were treated to an updated snapshot of the House by its numbers.As the 118th Congress prepares to adjourn sine die, we’re featuring six of our favorite blog posts from the past year.An Empire or a Gavel: Speaker Thomas Brackett Reed’s Opposition to the Spanish-American WarIn late March 1898, Republican Speaker Thomas Brackett Reed of Maine found himself in an unfamiliar position. Known as “Czar Reed” for his iron-fisted control over the legislative process, Reed now struggled to maintain the direction of the House’s agenda as war loomed on the horizon. For months, lawmakers on Capitol Hill had worried as Spain suppressed a war for independence in Cuba, which Madrid controlled as a territory. By the spring, many in Congress sought to confront the European monarchy over its actions in the Caribbean. But Reed fiercely opposed conflict with Spain, and generally resisted America’s larger imperial ambitions overseas. A loyal Republican and the leader of his party in Congress, Reed felt he had certain obligations to adhere to party orthodoxy, even in the rare event that he disagreed with it. As the drumbeat for war grew louder in the GOP, Reed confronted an issue that pitted his party loyalty against his personal convictions and his duties as Speaker of the House.The Records of a Growing Nation: Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)As the United States grew in size and population, it grappled with the challenges of its expansion. Congress began the complicated process of dividing and parceling out land, much of it already inhabited, contended with pro- and antislavery activism, and started to determine what kinds of support and relief the government should provide its citizens. This second entry in an ongoing series about House documents focuses on a few of the most prominent issues facing Congress during the antebellum era. This overview invites readers to learn more about this turbulent period with these records from the House of Representatives.“A Favored Son of America”: the Marquis de Lafayette’s 1824 House ReceptionOn December 10, 1824, two dozen U.S. Representatives accompanied a 67-year-old French nobleman named Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier through the streets of Washington, DC, on the way to the U.S. Capitol. The reception scheduled for that day marked the first time the U.S. House had formally hosted a foreign dignitary—hundreds of others, including many heads of state, would follow over the next two centuries. But in that initial instance the guest was not the leader or a representative of any overseas government. In the United States, du Motier was better known as the Marquis de Lafayette, a French volunteer and general in the American Revolution who had served under George Washington in the Continental Army and whose leadership was pivotal to securing America’s independence five decades earlier. An entire lifetime had come and gone since the Revolution. The upstart democracy Lafayette had helped seed in the eighteenth century had, by the third decade of the nineteenth, grown into a force all its own.The House's Plot to Steal a LibraryIn June 1974, as the U.S. House of Representatives opened an impeachment investigation into President Richard M. Nixon amid the Watergate scandal, a construction crew was hard at work on a massive new building for the Library of Congress in the 100 block of Independence Avenue in Southeast, Washington, DC—near the heart of Capitol Hill. Congress had authorized the building in 1965 to help alleviate overcrowding across the library complex. Only steps away, a group of Representatives took stock of the House’s own office space and decided that it was overcrowded as well, packed with thousands of Member, committee, and support staff. Perhaps what the House required was a new office building. And perhaps the new library facility was just the space the House needed.The History of Member Pins“The first day I was here, I was just walking around,” newly minted Representative Roger Marshall reported. “Nobody even noticed me. Then I put this on and all of a sudden, the eyes started trailing me.” Marshall came to Congress in 2017 and quickly learned what gets you noticed on the Hill: the official, Members-only lapel pin. Like a hall pass, the little metal disc has identified Representatives to police, Members, and others in the know for 50 years. But for the previous 180 years, the House saw no need for them. What happened to make Member pins a must-have in Congress?Not Horsing Around: Speaker Sedgwick Attempts to Rein in the PressOn December 22, 1800, the U.S. House of Representatives held a somewhat routine debate on whether to examine the conduct of Mississippi’s territorial governor. As debate dragged on, Democratic Republican William Charles Cole Claiborne of Tennessee declared that he had heard enough, and recommended the House move swiftly to punish the governor, surmising that “a delay of justice is often equal to a denial of it.” Claiborne’s remarks struck a chord with a man named James Lane who watched the proceedings from the gallery. In a show of support, Lane began clapping. Lane’s disruption sparked an immediate rebuke from Speaker Theodore Sedgwick of Massachusetts, who ordered the House Sergeant at Arms to remove Lane from the chamber. The clapping may have lasted a split second, but it set in motion a lengthy series of events that underscored the power of the Speaker and House leadership’s contentious relationship with the press. It also, apparently, caused James Lane to lose his horse.Be sure to follow the blog in 2025 for more House history, art, and records!
Recent Artifacts Online, Winter 2024 | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
Everything old is new again—this season, treasures from 150 years ago take center stage in newly digitized additions to our online collection. Find the furniture in an 1858 print and compare the picture to examples that survive today.The Hall of Representatives in the New Extension of the Capitol at WashingtonThis print showing the details of the newly completed House Chamber, which had opened just months before, is also the earliest image of Pages in the House Collection. Small boys can be seen sitting alongside the lowest level of the three-tiered Speaker’s rostrum. By the late 1850s, Pages had been working in the Capitol for nearly half a century. Note the chairs and desks furnishing the new chamber. Surviving examples of these are also part of the House Collection, included below.Walter DeskIn 1857, the House met in its new chamber, with Representatives sitting at highly decorated desks designed for the room. Carved symbols on the desk’s front illustrate power: a shield with the nation’s stars and stripes anchors the top rail above a globe with “America” emblazoned across it.Walter ChairAs the House of Representatives prepared to occupy its new chamber in 1857, deadlines loomed. More than one company scrambled to build the many formidable oak armchairs needed for the chamber. The Hammitt Desk Manufacturing Company of Philadelphia provided 131 chairs, and Bembe & Kimbel, a New York City firm, supplied another 131. The two versions have slight variations. Look closely: this one, made by the Hammitt Desk Manufacturing Company, has circular decorations around the chair’s seat, with small wooden hemispheres in the center of each circle. The Bembe & Kimbel chairs use a variation on the circular design that marks them as works from that manufacturer.Formal Notice of the Impeachment of Andrew JohnsonThe full-page image on one side of this sheet from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper showed Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania and John Bingham of Ohio delivering the formal notice of the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson to the Senate. The reverse included five more images, building a narrative of the proceedings. Scenes include a crowd rushing to enter the Chamber to hear the message delivered, people at the Willard Hotel discussing the transpiring events, and a crowd in Baltimore reacting to the “impeachment telegram” being posted on the bulletin. As evidenced by this example, the story was followed in detail by the contemporary press.Our New President—General View of the Inauguration CeremoniesAfter a disputed election, Rutherford Hayes was sworn in as President in March 1877. This Harper’s Weekly print shows a sea of spectators—and two playful dogs—gathered near the East Front of the Capitol for the inauguration. Although the public ceremony took place on March 5, Hayes was sworn in privately at the White House two days earlier.Are you more of a modernist? Check out these 20th-century artifacts, new on the website:For additional new paintings, photographs, and objects on Collections Search, check out other Recent Artifacts Online blogs.
“A Favored Son of America”: the Marquis de Lafayette’s 1824 House Reception | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
On December 10, 1824, two dozen U.S. Representatives accompanied a 67-year-old French nobleman named Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier through the streets of Washington, DC, on the way to the U.S. Capitol. Other than the size of the entourage, little seemed to distinguish the caravan as it traversed the capital city. The Frenchman’s private secretary, Auguste Levasseur, noted that “the cortege was composed of a dozen carriages, but without escort, without pomp and without decorations. Our trip across the City was slow and silent.” Despite the apparent solemnity of the procession, the House and its visitors eagerly awaited the arrival of the French guest for whom they had prepared an official reception, set to begin promptly at 1:00 p.m.The reception scheduled for that day marked the first time the U.S. House had formally hosted a foreign dignitary—hundreds of others, including many heads of state, would follow over the next two centuries. But in that initial instance the guest was not the leader or a representative of any overseas government. In the United States, Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier was better known as the Marquis de Lafayette, a French volunteer and general in the American Revolution who had served under George Washington in the Continental Army and whose leadership was pivotal to securing America’s independence five decades earlier.By the time Lafayette stepped foot on America’s shores in 1824, the heroes of 1776 were fading from the scene and the responsibilities of governing—of upholding and propagating the ideals and promises of the American Revolution—had passed to the next generation. The youngest Member of the House in 1824, Kentucky Representative Thomas Patrick Moore, was around 27 years old, and was himself already a veteran of another more recent conflict with the British—the War of 1812—that helped reaffirm America’s independence.An entire lifetime had come and gone since the Revolution. As America’s 50th anniversary approached in 1826, Lafayette’s visit bridged the eras. But, in a sense, the reception the House held in Lafayette’s honor signified a new beginning entirely. The upstart democracy Lafayette had helped seed in the eighteenth century had, by the third decade of the nineteenth, grown into a force all its own.The Nation’s GuestCongress had done almost everything in its power to facilitate Lafayette’s visit. Ten months earlier, in February 1824, after lawmakers learned that Lafayette hoped to visit America, Congress passed a resolution reserving a U.S. ship for his voyage across the Atlantic and directed President James Monroe to communicate to the French war hero “the assurances of grateful and affectionate attachment still cherished for him by the Government and people of the United States.”When Lafayette arrived in New England to begin his grand tour of America in August 1824, the House was out of session. Over the next few months, Lafayette made his way south down the eastern seaboard and when lawmakers gathered in Washington to begin the second session of the 18th Congress (1823–1825) seven months later in December, Members rushed to organize a committee to determine how best to honor and welcome him. After conferring with the Senate—which decided to hold its own meet-and-greet with Lafayette—the House committee recommended that lawmakers invite Lafayette to visit the chamber at 1:00 p.m. on December 10, where he would be feted by remarks from Speaker Henry Clay of Kentucky.Lafayette had last visited America in 1784, and in the intervening 40 years much had changed—both for Lafayette and his American compatriots. After defeating the British and returning to France, Lafayette had helped spark the French Revolution in the 1790s and, with the help of Thomas Jefferson, authored the first draft of the Declaration of the Rights of Man. But Lafayette had barely survived the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution and spent years in prison after he fled the country. Across the Atlantic, meanwhile, America’s original 13 colonies had transformed into a country on the make: 24 states united under the Constitution, a population of roughly 10 million, and a foothold on the world’s stage.Lafayette’s visit to America in 1824 captured the country’s attention. Newspapers documented his every move and filled column after column with patriotic well wishes. Along the way, Lafayette visited sites and people important to the American Revolution. He reminisced with the 89-year-old John Adams in Boston and later visited Thomas Jefferson at his Virginia home, Monticello. Throughout it all, Lafayette made time to meet everyday Americans and surviving Revolutionary War veterans. During a private event in New York, a man was turned away as he tried to enter. Later, when an opportunity appeared, the man approached Lafayette to ask if the Frenchman remembered him. A reporter covering the event noted that “the General recognized him, called him by name, and extending his hand, said, ‘Yes, you assisted me off the field of battle, when wounded.’”The gravity of Lafayette’s visit was so strong that it even eclipsed the contested presidential election that year between John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. Newspapers across the country “closed their long columns to the passionate discussions of the parties in order to open them only to the unanimous expression of joy and national gratitude,” Levasseur, Lafayette’s personal secretary, noted.The ReceptionOn December 10, 1824, as Lafayette’s entourage approached the Capitol, Representatives waiting in the chamber extended an invitation to the Senate to join them for the reception. Extra seats were quickly arranged as Senators filed in. With the galleries filled to capacity with guests, additional spectators stood in the spaces and alcoves not already occupied by lawmakers on the floor. Before long, the 24 Members of the House welcoming committee organized to accompany and introduce Lafayette entered the chamber. Everyone in attendance removed their hats and stood. The committee chair, Representative George Mitchell of Maryland, ushered Lafayette in and presented him to Speaker Clay. Speaker Clay, born the same year Lafayette had arrived in America to support the country’s independence, stood and addressed his esteemed guest.“General,” Clay began, “the House of Representatives of the United States, impelled alike by its own feelings, and by those of the whole American People, could not have assigned to me a more gratifying duty than that of being its organ to present to you cordial congratulations upon the occasion of your recent arrival in the United States, in compliance with the wishes of Congress.” Clay acknowledged that while few in attendance that day had fought alongside Lafayette during the Revolution, everyone knew “of the perils, the sufferings, and the sacrifices, which you voluntarily encountered, and the signal services in America and in Europe, which you performed, for an infant, a distant, and an alien, people.”The Speaker celebrated Lafayette’s commitment “to regulated liberty, in all the vicissitudes of a long and arduous life” and commended the French general on his role as the “faithful and fearless champion” of freedom on two continents.Clay concluded by turning his attention to America and its future. Lafayette had been given a rare opportunity to witness the fruit of his revolutionary labors, Clay said. “You are in the midst of posterity!” the Speaker exclaimed. “Every where you must have been struck with the great changes, physical and moral, which have occurred since you left us.” Clay spoke of the “the forests felled, the cities built, the mountains levelled, the canals cut, the highways constructed, the progress of the arts, the advancement of learning, and the increase of population.” When Lafayette was last in America, Washington, DC, did not exist. But by 1824, “even this very city, bearing a venerated name, alike endeared to you and to us, has since emerged from the forest,” Clay said. But regardless of the physical changes America had undergone and would surely undergo in the future, Clay was confident that the nation’s esteem for Lafayette would “be transmitted, with unabated vigor, down the tide of time, through the countless millions who are destined to inhabit this continent, to their last posterity.”Standing in the chamber that afternoon, Levasseur, Lafayette’s assistant, observed that “the profound emotion that had swept over the Speaker, and which had visibly shaken him through his speech, passed rapidly into the hearts of all the audience.”Lafayette spoke next. He expressed his gratitude for the invitation to tour America and for the honor of the reception. “I am proud and happy to share those extraordinary favors with my dear Revolutionary companions,” he said. “My obligations to the United States . . . far exceed any merit I might claim. They date from the time when I have had the happiness to be adopted as a young soldier, a favored son of America. They have been continued to me during almost half a century of constant affection and confidence; and now . . . thanks to your most gratifying invitation, I find myself greeted by a series of welcomes, one hour of which would more than compensate for the public exertions and sufferings of a whole life.”After four decades away, Lafayette exalted “the immense improvements” made in America since his last visit—what he called “all the grandeur and prosperity of these happy United States.” Lafayette found it remarkable that the children of his revolutionary compatriots held him in the same regard as those he had fought alongside in the 1770s and 1780s. All these years later, Lafayette said, “I have the honor, and enjoy the delight, to congratulate the Representatives of the Union . . . upon the almost infinite prospects we can with certainty anticipate,” Lafayette concluded.After the speeches, the House adjourned for the day. Clay descended from the rostrum and saluted Lafayette, a gesture which the other Members emulated as Lafayette left the chamber.An Act Concerning General LafayetteLater that month, lawmakers on Capitol Hill sought to extend Lafayette’s honor by offering the French general a substantial gift. The original bill, drafted by the Select Committee on Services and Sacrifices of General Lafayette, gifted $200,000 to Lafayette for his contributions to America during the Revolution—this at a time when lawmakers earned $8 per day while the House was in session and a pound of coffee cost about 18 cents in New York. The Senate, after considering the bill, decided that Lafayette deserved even more, and added a 24,000-acre plot of land from the government’s public land holdings.When the House received the amended bill, several Members expressed concern over its cost. The House debated the bill for two days. At certain points, lawmakers sought to reduce the size of the compensation to $100,000 then $150,000. But, as debate wore on, fears of seeming ungrateful outweighed the expense, and the House approved the original $200,000 and 24,000 acres of land. The House voted 166 to 26. The bill became law on December 23, 1824.Lafayette was deeply in debt, and when he learned of the gift, he sent a letter to Congress expressing his immense appreciation for the money and land, later confessing his belief “that the American Nation has done far too much for me.”Lafayette’s Legacy in the HouseOne legacy of Lafayette’s visit to the House exists to this day. On the same day the House approved Lafayette’s gift, Clay read a letter from a French artist, Ary Scheffer, dated October 1824. In the letter, Scheffer explained that he had sent a full-length portrait of Lafayette as a gift of gratitude “for the national honors which the free people of the United States are, at this moment, bestowing on the friend and companion in arms of your illustrious Washington, on the man who has been so gloriously received as ‘the Nation’s Guest.’” Scheffer’s portrait arrived at the Capitol in December, having been delayed by headwinds as it left France, and was displayed in the Capitol Rotunda during the remainder of Lafayette’s trip. It was later moved into the House Chamber, where it still hangs.Much like the invitation extended to Lafayette, Congress has often asked foreign leaders to speak to affirm the friendly relations between the United States and the individual or, in more recent decades, the country that person represents. Since 1824, the House has invited 55 foreign dignitaries to address its members; many more international guests have addressed both the House and Senate in Joint Meetings—most of which have been held in the House Chamber. Since the first official address before a Joint Meeting in 1874 by King David Kalakaua of Hawaii, there have been more than 130 addresses by foreign dignitaries and heads of state.It is perhaps fitting that the ally who helped an upstart nation throw off the yoke of British colonialism set the precedent. As much as Lafayette’s reception on December 10, 1824, linked the new republic to its roots in the Revolution and advertised its youthful achievements, it also presaged America’s place as a rising world power and made Congress the place where the world has since come to speak to the American people.Sources: Annals of Congress, House, 18th Cong., 1st sess. (12 January 1824): 988; Annals of Congress, House, 18th Cong., 1st sess. (20 January 1824): 1101–1104; Register of Debates, Appendix, 18th Cong., 1st sess. (4 February 1824): 3279; Register of Debates, House, 18th Cong., 2nd sess. (6 December 1824): 1–4; Register of Debates, House, 18th Cong., 2nd sess. (10 December 1824): 3–5; Register of Debates, House, 18th Cong., 2nd sess. (21 December 1824): 34–35, 45–56; Register of Debates, Senate, 18th Cong., 2nd sess. (3 January 1825): 111; House Journal, 18th Cong., 2nd sess. (23 December 1824): 75–76; An Act concerning General Lafayette, 6 Stat. 320 (1824); Auguste Levasseur, Lafayette in America in 1824 and 1825: Journal of a Voyage to the United States, trans. Alan R. Hoffman (Manchester, NH: Lafayette Press, Inc., 2006); American Watchman (Wilmington, DE), 13 August 1824; Washington Intelligencer, 11 December 1824; “Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Labor and Industrial Statistics,” Michigan bureau of labor and industrial statistics (1 February 1885): 248; Ida A. Brunick, “Salaries of Members of Congress: Recent Actions and Historical Tables,” Report 97-1011, 26 September 2024, Congressional Research Service; Lafayette: A Guide to the Letters, Documents, and Manuscripts in the United States, ed. Louis Reichenthal Gottschalk, Phyllis S. Pestieau, and Linda J. Pike (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1975); David T. Canon et al., Committees in the U.S. Congress, 1789–1946, vol. 4 (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press, 2002); Lina Mann, “The Nation’s Guest: General Lafayette’s 1824-1825 Tour of the United States,” 30 March 2018, The White House Historical Association, https://www.whitehousehistory.org/the-nations-guest.
Giving Thanks for the Institution | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
Behind the scenes and away from the spotlight, the staff of the U.S. House of Representatives ensure that America’s large and complex legislative institution runs smoothly. On any given day over the years, House employees have performed a myriad of tasks: delivering messages for Members of Congress, keeping track of votes on the House Floor, and assisting with committee hearings.When the Office of the House Historian began conducting oral histories twenty years ago, a major goal of the program was to describe and explain the work of staff. Documenting the responsibilities of staff and how they have changed over time offered a unique look at how the House of Representatives evolved and adapted to new technology and the growing demands on lawmakers. Interviews conducted with longtime employees proved especially useful in learning about the culture, interpersonal dynamics, and day-to-day proceedings of the House.In this final post commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the House’s oral history program, four former staff members, whose collective service covered more than 150 years, described their impressions of the institution and offered advice to a new generation of employees. Themes of gratitude, inspiration, and service emerge in this collection of interviews.Joe Bartlett (1941–1979)Dorsey Joseph Bartlett, better known as Joe to his colleagues on the Hill, was born on August 7, 1926, in Clarksburg, West Virginia. Bartlett first came to the House as a Page in 1941 where he enrolled in the Capitol Page School and ran errands for lawmakers. After serving in the Marines during World War II, Bartlett returned to the Capitol, where he served as chief Page, reading clerk, and later as Clerk to the Minority. Bartlett’s career as a House staffer spanned 38 years.Bartlett’s affable personality and skillful storytelling added colorful detail and vitality to his oral history. In one instance, he offered a description of the audition for the coveted job of reading clerk in 1953. More than twenty people traipsed to the House Floor to test their memory and auditory skill, while hoping to display the ability to think and react quickly. “One of the tricks they had—we were not allowed to audition in the presence of the other candidates—but one of the tricks they had was to turn off the microphone,” Bartlett remembered. “And these professionals had no idea what to do when the microphone went off. And so some, in a sense, sort of lost it. I didn’t have enough sense not to continue, and so I just raised my voice a little bit more, which was what they were looking for.” Bartlett’s strategy paid off. The West Virginia native served as House reading clerk for nearly two decades.With ample time in the chamber, Bartlett, who became an astute student of House proceedings, delighted in his interactions with Speakers, rank-and-file Members, and staff. Throughout his oral histories, Bartlett expressed a sense of gratitude for the opportunity to work for the House and to witness historic events including President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Day of Infamy” speech on December 8, 1941. “I would say to young people that democracy is worth serving,” Bartlett observed during his oral history. “Representative government is an ideal that has more than justified itself in the last 200 years and to be a participant in it is very enriching. To have an opportunity to work with the elect of that process, there’s just nothing like it.”Pat Kelly (1957–2011)Born on June 5, 1934, in Brooklyn, New York, Maura Patricia (Pat) Kelly grew up in a political family. The daughter of Representative Edna Kelly of New York, Pat Kelly came to Washington, DC, in 1957, to work as a researcher for the House Committee on Un-American Activities. After a decade of committee work, she switched gears finding employment as a legislative assistant for three Representatives, including her mother during her final term in Congress from 1967 to 1969. Kelly also worked for the House Committee on Rules before joining the Clerk’s Office where she spent the next 37 years editing the House Daily Digest and the Congressional Record.Kelly’s personal connection to the institution as the daughter of a Representative, in addition to her diverse employment portfolio on the Hill that stretched more than 50 years, offered a unique perspective of the House of Representatives. In her oral history, Kelly outlined her approach to working at the Capitol. She described the value of having a “deep desire” to help people and a commitment to supporting the objectives of the institution. A longtime member of the Congressional Staff Club, Kelly worked to help House employees make lasting connections with colleagues. She flourished in the staff club, organizing events, attending parties, and making an annual trip to New York City. After serving in several leadership positions for the club, Kelly became president in 1976.When asked to advise others who may consider working for Congress, Kelly drew upon her own experiences and deep respect for the House. “You have to be knowledgeable about issues of the world, and about state and local concerns,” she observed. “And think of service to your fellow countrymen in one area or one legislative body, whether it be in the state, in the Congress, or local government, whatever it might be. Think, ‘I wonder if I could really do something to help them do a better job?’ And not just to be picking up a paycheck, but to really say, ‘Well, what can I really do?’ If they have to have the desire to do it, number one, it’s just not a job to go up and apply for. I mean, you have to have a feeling, like I do, about the institution itself.”Donn Anderson (1960–1995)Donnald K. Anderson was born on October 17, 1942, in Sacramento, California. As a teenager, Anderson wrote a letter to his Congressman, John Moss of California, requesting a Page appointment to “see firsthand how our government at the national level conducts the affairs of the people.” Moss, impressed by Anderson’s conviction, extended him an invitation to serve as a House Page in 1960. Anderson thrived during his time as a Page and went on to hold several other positions (elevator operator, for example) before managing the Democratic Cloakroom for 15 years, which kept him in close proximity to lawmakers and the House Floor.An institutionalist at heart, Anderson expressed a genuine respect for the rules and procedures of the House. But he was also open to change if it helped Members improve efficiency without undermining House traditions. He recalled how he led a pilot program for Members to use “beepers” to stay informed of House proceedings while away from their congressional office.From the time he arrived at the Capitol, Anderson knew he wanted to serve as Clerk of the House. Over the years, he developed a deep admiration for the institution. “I’ve often said that being manager of the cloakroom, as far as I was concerned, was the best job there was, as least for me, except being Clerk of the House. When, after a total of 18 years in the cloakroom, I left to become the Clerk of the House, which was the fulfillment of my dreams and my fantasies, I never stopped missing the intimacy and the excitement of working in the cloakroom. It was like being at Mecca. It was the focal point of everything that went on on the House Floor. You knew absolutely everything that was happening.” Anderson served as Clerk for eight years and left his own mark on the institution when he oversaw the establishment of two House offices: Employee Assistance and Fair Employment Practices.Tina Tate (1972–2007)Ruth (Tina) Tate was born on September 5, 1944, in Atlanta, Georgia. The first woman employed by the House Radio-TV Gallery, Tate’s oral history offered a rare look at the office during the 1970s. She described a close-knit staff of four who worked in a small office with space for only three desks. Tate marveled at how, for much of her tenure, she took notes and processed records by hand before the widespread adoption of personal computers in the 1990s.Tate was the first woman and only the third person to hold the position of director of the Radio-TV Gallery, and her oral history offered a comprehensive look at her responsibilities and the mission of the office during her 34-year career on the Hill. From supervising the daily log of House proceedings to coordinating press coverage of Joint Sessions and lying-in-state ceremonies, Tate managed logistics and provided information to radio and TV broadcasters. She spoke about the challenge of balancing the requests of reporters with adhering to House Rules. Tate also routinely expressed a sense of pride in the work of the gallery and of the House, including times where they managed the press coverage of difficult events. After the shooting deaths of two Capitol Police officers in 1998, Tate solemnly recalled the importance and privilege of coordinating coverage of their lying-in-honor ceremony, describing her efforts to honor their memory as the “best work I ever did.”Service to the institution and an awareness of the distinctive nature of her work guided Tate’s career. “Just remember every day that you are privileged to be where you are,” Tate recommended when contemplating advice she would give to prospective employees. “That building and both the press corps that you serve there are the best in the business. And the Members of Congress and their staffs are the best at what they do. It’s a privilege to be there every day that you go there. You are watching history be made.”
The History of Member Pins | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
“The first day I was here, I was just walking around,” newly minted Representative Roger Marshall reported. “Nobody even noticed me. Then I put this on and all of a sudden, the eyes started trailing me.” Marshall came to Congress in 2017 and quickly learned what gets you noticed on the Hill: the official, Members-only lapel pin.Like a hall pass, the little metal disc has identified Representatives to police, Members, and others in the know for 50 years. But for the previous 180 years, the House saw no need for them. What happened to make Member pins a must-have in Congress?Pinning Up WatergateIn a word, Watergate—and the massive turnover in Congress that resulted. The fallout from the Watergate scandal resounded across the country and set in motion changes that led to Member pins. After a break-in at the Democratic Party’s offices, congressional investigations implicated President Richard Nixon in widespread misconduct, ultimately driving the President from office in August 1974. Nixon’s resignation and President Gerald Ford’s pardon of the former president changed the political landscape. Democrats saw massive gains in their House majority following the 1974 elections, bringing a new generation into the Capitol.The 86 new Members in 1975 became known as the “Watergate babies,” the largest incoming class since the 1940s. As their nickname implied, the new Members were a young bunch. Many were decades younger than the average age of House Democrats. The freshman class was so youthful that it increased the under-40 representation in the House by more than 50 percent over the previous Congress.Tousle-haired Tom Downey of New York was an example of the new breed of Representative and the press’ poster child for the freshman class. Downey was only 25 on Election Day and looked even younger. In the first weeks of the new Congress, Representative William Barrett, 78 years old, beckoned Downey over to his desk. “Here, take these papers to my office,” Barrett directed. Downey replied with an expletive that he would do no such thing. When Barrett summoned Donn Anderson, the cloakroom supervisor to complain, Anderson had to inform the Congressman that Downey was not, in fact, a Page but was instead one of his new colleagues from New York. Downey later noted that it was far from the only time he was mistaken for a teenager.In addition to salty showdowns on the floor, some Members reported being stopped by the Capitol Police, including, according to one newspaper, “demands to check them for concealed weapons.” The Committee on House Administration fielded complaints and decided to act. At the May 1, 1975, meeting of the committee’s Subcommittee on Personnel and Police, Chairman Frank Annunzio proposed “Members Security Identification Pins,” assuring his colleagues that they would be “neat and in good taste.”The full committee took up the proposal, and although it was clearly destined for approval, a few Members tossed in half-hearted objections. One Member said that pins would be a crutch for Capitol guards, who should have memorized all the Members. Another thought it was ridiculous to have the House pay for the pins, which would cost too much. Lindy Boggs asked that the design be changed so that there was a pin and catch on the back instead of a thick tie tack post. Another comment was that Members would forget their pins, and then where would that leave them?The first Member pin featured a starry blue background with a silver image of the House Mace’s top. Since then, the Committee on House Administration has determined Member pin designs, generally with a different set of colors each Congress. More recently, the pin design has included the eagle and shield of the Great Seal of the United States, along with the Congress number.Pinning Down Member FlairBased on a close look at photographs in the House Collection, it appears that early on, very few Members wore their pins. One image from the 1980 State of the Union shows only four of 59 Members visible in the frame wearing their pins.Similarly, in a photograph of 24 members of the Budget Committee from the 97th Congress (1981–1983), only Norman Mineta of California wears his. Mineta was an early adopter of the Member pin, and he presaged its greater use by women and minorities. Photographs in the House Collection demonstrate the disparity. In 373 headshots from between 1975 and 1985 in the House Collection, women Members and Members of color are two and a half times more likely than White men to wear their pins.There is no written documentation of a relationship between Member pins and racial or gender profiling in those early days, but in the 21st century, some Representatives spoke with frankness about the challenges they faced. Yvette Clarke of New York, after five terms in the House, expressed why it might be, even in the 2010s, that “I can get on an elevator with some of my colleagues and they still ask me who I work for. Sometimes, just coming into the House complex, I have to show my ID and make sure my pin is shown, because people say I have a more youthful look than my age would indicate. The average man on the Hill is a graying white dude, so I’m not given the benefit of the doubt. I have to make it clear why I’m here.” As recently as 2019, one female Member told a reporter that “I still get mistaken—I even went over to the Senate Gallery and [a guard] said, ‘No spouses allowed.’”Member Pin(terest)Specific security changes from the 1990s and 2000s, such as magnetometers, likely speeded up adoption, as Members were able to bypass lines for the increasingly complex security apparatus at entrances to the House with a flash of the pin. Another reason is likely generational. By 2005, when nearly all Members wore them at least some of the time, only nine began their service in a time before pins. That year, Bob Ney, chair of the committee that started the Member pin policy, said “We might have our differences, but the one similarity that we share is that we’ve all got the same pin.”As pins became more common, they also shifted from being solely an ID badge to being also a symbol of office, used in portraits as part of a Member’s self-presentation. Tallying up the pins in committee chair portraits can show how this ceremonial use grew. There is not a single portrait from the 1970s or 1980s that includes a Member pin. Slowly the numbers inched up: three in the 1990s, four in the 2000s, and a whopping 15 in the 2010s. This growth was likely due both to security-driven ubiquity and to the bright-eyed freshmen of 1975 and later who had risen through the ranks to chair committees. Of the 30 pin-sporting chairs with portraits painted between 1980 and 2024, 27 are of legislative leaders who arrived after 1975, knowing only a pinned world on Capitol Hill.In the 2020s, Member pins have become not only a visual reminder of status and ceremony, but part of Hill parlance, too. They have become a substitute for saying that someone has gotten elected to Congress. Newspapers report whether a potential candidate is “pursuing a Member pin.” For those who have won congressional elections, the shiny symbol of legislative service awaits at the start of each Congress.Sources: Committee on House Administration, Subcommittee on Personnel and Police, 1 May 1975; Committee on House Administration, 14 May 1975; John Lawrence, The Class of ’74: Congress after Watergate and the Roots of Partisanship (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018); Roll Call, 20 September 2019; Roll Call, 19 July 2017; Roll Call, 27 January 2016; Roll Call, 20 September 2019; Washington Post, 3 August 2016; Wall Street Journal, 16 May 1975; Los Angeles Times, 18 May 1975.
Edition for Educators – The House by the Numbers in 2024 | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
Eight years ago, the Office of the Historian published a blog which reviewed several historical statistics regarding the U.S. House of Representatives. Many lawmakers with many different careers have come and gone during that period. How, then, has the House changed since 2016? This Edition to Educators revisits that data, highlights new information on the History, Art & Archives website, and provides an update to important changes in the House’s membership. All numbers are current as of November 4, 2024.House Service & SenioritySince the U.S. Congress convened in 1789, 12,516 individuals have served as Representatives, Senators, or in both capacities—84 percent have served only in the House (10,513). A total of 1,321 Members have served only in the Senate and 682 have served in both chambers. In addition, there have been 146 people who have served exclusively as Territorial Delegates and another 33 as Resident Commissioners from the Philippines or Puerto Rico.Longest Service The Office of the Historian tracks several records of service in the House of Representatives in the following charts and pages:Members with 40 Years or More House Service provides a straightforward chart of Representatives with the longest tenures in the House. The late John Dingell Jr. of Michigan, who retired in 2019, holds the record for longest continuous House service, having served in the House for 59 years, 22 days.Women with 25 Years or More House Service highlights the longest-serving women in the House of Representatives. Although other lawmakers recently surpassed her, Edith Nourse Rogers of Massachusetts held the record of the longest tenure in the House by a woman for many years. She served for 35 years, 2 months, 12 days.Deans/Fathers of the House offers a list of Members who have held this honorary position and discusses how the post itself has evolved over time.First-term Members of the House Outside the First Congress (1789–1791), the largest class of first-term lawmakers to date took their seats in the 54th Congress (1895–1897), when 178 new Members of Congress—nearly half the House’s total—were sworn in between Opening Day and sine die adjournment. A full chart detailing the number of First-Term Members of the House of Representatives in each Congress also breaks down the difference between “pre-convening” and “post-convening” freshmen.Firsts & MilestonesThe youngest person to serve in the House was William Charles Cole Claiborne of Tennessee, who was elected to the 5th Congress (1797–1799) at no more than 22 years old, despite the Constitution requiring Representatives to be 25 years old. Our blog explains how Members younger than 25 were occasionally elected in the nineteenth century.Philip F. Thomas of Maryland holds the record for longest period of nonconsecutive service in the House, with a gap of 34 years between his first term in the 26th Congress (1839–1841) and his second term in the 44th Congress (1875–1877).Three Representatives (William Holman of Indiana, Harold Knutson of Minnesota, and Mary T. Norton of New Jersey) share a record for chairing four different standing committees over the course of their career.The Firsts & Milestones section of the website lists many more notable achievements and interesting outliers in congressional history. The most recent addition to this trivia goldmine is a section on Technological Milestones, a sister page to the exhibit on Electronic Technology in the U.S. House of Representatives.Vacancies & SuccessorsVacancies and Successors tracks mid-Congress vacancies and special elections. These charts now feature data back through the 99th Congress (1985–1987). Since 1985, 178 Representatives have been elected in special elections, and three Representatives have been sworn in under the provisions of state statutes.Congressional ApportionmentThe Constitution provides for proportional representation in the U.S. House of Representatives, meaning that seats in the House are allocated based on state population according to the Census the government conducts every 10 years.A PDF file displays Apportionment by State throughout history, current through the 24th census in 2020.The reapportionment following the 1840 Census is the only time the House has decreased its total membership through the apportionment process.The average population of a congressional district in 1790 was 30,000 people; today, Representatives serve an average of a little more than 761,000 constituents according to the U.S. Census Bureau.The Congressional Apportionment page also features additional sources of data and information.LeadershipSince 1789, 56 individuals have served as Speaker of the House. There have been 16 instances of Speaker elections requiring multiple ballots. The longest vacancy in the office of the Speaker during a session of Congress is 22 days. Sam Rayburn of Texas remains the Speaker of the House with the longest tenure; he held the gavel for 17 years, two months, and two days of nonconsecutive service.Women & Minorities in CongressSince Representative Jeannette Rankin of Montana was first elected in 1916, 427 women have served in Congress. Thirty-six percent of women in Congress are current Members and 90 percent have served exclusively in the House.Since Hiram Revels of Mississippi was first appointed to the U.S. Senate in February 1870 (followed closely by Representative Joseph Rainey’s election to the House from South Carolina in December 1870), 190 African Americans have served in Congress; thirty-four percent of African-American Members are currently serving. All but 12 (94 percent) have served exclusively in the House. One Black Senator has served in both chambers (Tim Scott of South Carolina).Since Delegate Joseph Marion Hernández of Florida was elected to the House in 1822, 160 Hispanic Americans have served in Congress; more than one-third of Hispanic Members are currently serving. All but 12 (93 percent) have served exclusively in the House. A total of 37 Hispanic Members have been statutory representatives, serving U.S. territories in Congress—20 Resident Commissioners from Puerto Rico and 17 Delegates from other territories.Since 1900, when Delegate Robert M. Wilcox of Hawaii became the first Asian Pacific American (APA) to serve in Congress, a total of 71 APAs have served as U.S. Representatives, Delegates, Resident Commissioners, or Senators; thirty-one percent of APA Members are currently serving. All but 8 (89 percent) have served exclusively in the House. A total of 26 APA Members have been statutory representatives, serving U.S. territories in Congress—13 Resident Commissioners from the Philippines and 14 Delegates from other territories.For further data on women and minorities in Congress—including committee assignments, leadership positions, caucus information, and more—please see the Historical Data section for each exhibit: Women in Congress, Black Americans in Congress, Hispanic Americans in Congress, and Asians and Pacific Islanders in Congress.Additional Institutional InformationSessions of Congress As of November 4, 2024, the U.S. House of Representatives has spent more than 31,000 days in session. There have been 465 Joint Meetings and Sessions in the history of the United States Congress. Of those, 100 have been in-person annual addresses on the State of the Union. The 101st Congress (1989–1991) holds the record for the most Joint Meetings and Sessions with 14.Political Parties Since the start of the modern party system in 1856, the House has changed majorities a total of 19 times. According to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, Members of the U.S. House of Representatives have represented 47 different political parties or coalitions since 1789; this number does not include the political affiliations of Delegates and Resident Commissioners who have served in the House.Remembrance and Memorialization Since the death of Henry Clay of Kentucky in 1852, 34 individuals have lain in state and eight have lain in honor in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda. Additionally, three individuals have lain in state in Statuary Hall. Between 1820 and 1940, 32 funerals of Members of Congress were held in the House Chamber.One-hundred and ninety measures have been passed by the U.S. Congress or the Continental Congress issuing Congressional Gold Medals. These medals honor individuals across all walks of life who have made notable sacrifices or contributed to national progress.Presidential Vetoes Since 1789, U.S. Presidents have issued 2,591 vetoes of congressional legislation. Congress has overridden 112 of these vetoes, only four percent of the total.Additional data on the proceedings of Congress can be found in charts, fact sheets, and essays throughout the Institution section of the website. Looking for statistics for a single Congress? Congressional profiles include party divisions, session dates, leadership, committee information, and anecdotes about that Congress, all linked from one page.This is part of a series of blog posts for educators highlighting the resources available on History, Art & Archives of the U.S. House of Representatives. For lesson plans, fact sheets, glossaries, and other materials for the classroom, see the website's Education section.
Will the Real Thomas Forrest Please Stand Up | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
Since 1859, the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress has compiled life and career information for every lawmaker who has ever served on Capitol Hill. Included among the more than 11,000 congressional biographies in the Directory is a brief entry for Representative Thomas Forrest of Pennsylvania who served in the House in the 16th and 17th Congresses (1819–1823).On the surface, Forrest’s biography is rather conventional. It lists where he was born, where he studied as a young man, his military experience, his career before entering the House, and his service dates in Congress.But left unsaid in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress are details of Forrest’s life that were anything but conventional.Although we do not know the exact day Thomas Forrest was born, we know that he was born in Philadelphia in 1747, meaning that by the time of his first term in Congress, he was 72 years old—making him tied for oldest lawmaker in the House that session. Forrest had lived an entire life before entering politics—but given what he did with his time on Earth, it is perhaps more accurate to say he had lived entire lives.Act One: The DisappointmentLittle is known about Thomas Forrest’s early years. His parents were William and Sarah Forrest, and as a young man he attended local community-funded schools. In 1770, he married a woman named Ann Whitpaine and had at least two children.But around that time, Thomas Forrest wasn’t just Thomas Forrest. He was also, apparently, known by the pseudonym Andrew Barton. Writing as Barton, Forrest authored The Disappointment, or the Force of Credulity, what is believed to be the first comedic operetta created by an American. It was also the first work to include the patriotic tune Yankee Doodle. In the author’s note, Barton stated that he wrote the “local piece . . . originally wrote for my own, and the amusement of a few particular friends.” The operetta gained enough attention that it was set to be performed in Philadelphia in 1767 but was canceled at the last minute due to its biting satire. The jokes reportedly made fun of identifiable, prominent Philadelphians.More than two centuries later, The Disappointment experienced a revival of sorts when it was resurrected for the bicentennial celebration of American independence in 1976. While some scholars have questioned if the Thomas Forrest who served in the House was the same Thomas Forrest who wrote The Disappointment, as of today, there is no other candidate who can claim authorship.In the late 1760s, Forrest’s hijinks extended beyond the page. According to the Annals of Philadelphia—a compendium of “authentic, curious, and highly interesting” stories published by John F. Watson in 1830—around 1768, Forrest played an involved practical joke on a local tailor. While being fitted for a suit, 21-year-old Thomas—described by the Annals as “a youth of much frolic and fun, always well disposed to give time and application to forward a joke”—listened as the tailor mused about one day finding treasure left behind by pirates. After returning home, Forrest concocted a deathbed letter from a fictitious pirate who before being executed had buried loot at Cooper’s Point in New Jersey. Forrest pretended to find this phony letter within his father’s papers and presented it to the superstitious tailor. When the tailor brought in an acquaintance to conjure the spirit of Forrest’s pirate, Forrest went to elaborate lengths to stage a seance where a person dressed as a ghost was lowered from the ceiling. As the ruse continued, Forrest arranged for a treasure hunt to retrieve the pirate’s stash in New Jersey where Forrest had prepared more theatrics. Not only did Forrest bury a fake pot of treasure he hired two men to act as specters to scare the group and arranged for a stunt that involved cats and fireworks. After the group dug up Forrest’s decoy treasure chest, Forrest dropped it into the ocean and staged it as an accident. Thus, the “treasure” was found and then lost again. The tailor went as far as accusing Forrest of keeping the treasure for himself and sued the future Congressman for part of the profit, but the case was eventually dropped.Act Two: RevolutionaryThomas Forrest’s reputation as a jokester seems to have followed him into the 1770s and onto the frontlines of America’s war for independence.Forrest joined the Continental Army in 1775 and was assigned to a Pennsylvania artillery division. He achieved the rank of captain by 1776 and was with General George Washington when the Army struck Trenton, New Jersey, leading two cannon units that became key to the Hessians’ defeat. Because of his leadership, the Army promoted Forrest to major in 1777 and to lieutenant colonel in 1778. In 1779, Brigadier General Henry Knox, wrote to Washington recommending that Forrest’s service be recognized. “Major Forrest is next in rank—Your Excellency knows his zeal and activity—I think he is a proper subject for promotion,” Knox observed. Although Washington seemed supportive of Knox’s endorsement, Army rules meant the promotion went to an older colleague. Forrest left the Army in 1781 and was afterwards known to his family and friends as Colonel Forrest.Even as Forrest worked to secure America’s freedom, he seems to have set aside time for pranks. The winter of 1777 proved to be a harrowing time for Forrest and the rest of Washington’s Army stationed at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Continental forces were short on food and clothing, and in need of troops and personnel. One night, as new recruits arrived from New Jersey, someone posted signs about smallpox infections outside the tents of the recently arrived soldiers. When the men awoke the next day, they promptly left camp. Blame for the prank seems to have been directed at Forrest, who was reportedly later reprimanded by Washington.Act Three: Capitol HillAfter leaving the military in 1781, Forrest held a steady job as a stockbroker in Philadelphia with an office on Market Street. Although details about his life over the next few decades is fleeting, newspapers and print accounts provide some information on the period between the war and his election to Congress.By at least the early 1800s, Forrest had become involved in politics. In 1806, newspapers stated that Forrest served as chairman of the Germantown, Pennsylvania, Democratic Republicans. A year later, Forrest was appointed to a delegation from Philadelphia to correspond with other citizens in the United States. And in 1812, Forrest won election as a constable in Philadelphia.In 1816, Forrest stood for election to the 15th Congress (1817–1819) but lost. Two years later, he ran again and won a seat in the 16th Congress (1819–1821). In his first term, Forrest, who served as a Federalist, was appointed chairman of the House Agriculture Committee—perhaps a curious assignment for a lawmaker who once worked in the financial sector from Philadelphia. But as chairman, Forrest used his economic experience to consider proposed increases to America’s import duties, producing an 11-page report in early February 1821 in which he called the new tariff schedule “one of the most important that has ever been offered to consideration to Congress.” Forrest ultimately concluded that higher duties were “incompatible with the interests of agriculture and of the community in general, and ought not to be adopted.”Forrest lost re-election in 1820, but later won a special election in October 1822 to the 17th Congress (1821–1823) following the resignation of Representative William Milnor. Forrest was defeated for re-election to the 18th Congress (1823–1825).Despite his history of mirth making, there are no recorded complaints about any pranks at the hands of Representative Forrest on Capitol Hill. In the House, Forrest presented himself in the role of elder statesman. Part of what we know about Forrest as a lawmaker comes from then-Secretary of State John Quincy Adams. In Adams’s diary from November 1820, he described a visit from Forrest:Col. Thomas Forrest, a member of the House of Representatives from Pennsylvania was here this morning; he retains by courtesy his title of colonel which he held during our Revolutionary War, though he is now a Quaker in full communion, wearing the drab-colored suit of broadcloth raiment, and the broad-brimmed hat, never taken off for salutation or civility, and thou and theeing all with whom he converses[.] The humorous contrast in his character is the luxuriant delight with which he glories in his military services, and the indications constantly oozing out from his discourse that he considers personal courage the first of human virtues, united with all the ostensible formalities of Quakerism. He entertained me this day with a long account of the share he had in the passage of the Delaware and capture of the Hessians at Trenton 25th–26th December, 1776. . . . The incidents of those two days have been so rivetted in his memory by its continual recurrence to them through a period of forty-four years, that they are fresh in his mind as if they had happened yesterday. He remembers every person who was there; every word that was said; every look that was cast by General Washington; and every recollection comes with a perfume of fragrance to his soul. This is the most exquisite of human enjoyments—the memory by which one’s own conduct is linked with scenes of deep danger and distress issuing in resplendent glory. The colonel is seventy years of age or more, but has yet much activity and apparent vigor of constitution.In the House, Representative Forrest was adamantly opposed to the expansion of slavery. On February 29, 1820, during debate over the bill to admit Missouri to the Union, Forrest held the floor as he delivered an impassioned plea not to permit slavery in the vast territory west of the Mississippi River; his speech covered five and half columns of text when it was printed in the Annals of Congress.Forrest evoked his service in the Revolution, the Framers’ intent in the Constitution, and his faith as a Quaker. When a Virginia lawmaker expressed his opinion that if Congress restricted slavery it would constitute “the darkest day” in American history, Forrest disagreed. “No; the morning of the 26th day of December 1776 . . . was the darkest time our country ever saw.” Forrest was with Washington at the Battle of Trenton, and he said he would forever remember what Washington said, “That the darkest time of night was just before day.” Forrest eulogized the soldiers he fought with who died at Trenton whose deaths he “regretted as premature and unfortunate, snatched, as I then thought, from a participation in the blessings of an happy independence, in the full enjoyment of every civil and religious liberty.” But 44 years later, now that he was a Member of Congress debating the spread of slavery, Forrest said, “I have occasion to rejoice; yes, rejoice overmuch, that they were not, like me, permitted to live to see posterity outgrow the remembrance of the patriotic virtues of their fathers, by an act for the extension of slavery.” Despite Forrest’s opposition, the Missouri Compromise became law a week later in early March 1820.Forrest died in 1825—exactly 50 years after he had enlisted in the Continental Army—at his home near Germantown, Pennsylvania. He was survived by at least one daughter, her husband Dr. Thomas Benton, and their son, Thomas Forrest Benton. In his obituary, the Norristown Herald wrote simply that Forrest had been “a distinguished Revolutionary officer, and not long since a member of Congress.” Left unsaid, however, was any mention of Forrest’s life of invention and reinvention. He had satirized power and wealth in Philadelphia at a time when America was challenging the power and wealth of England. He had been a soldier at a time when America was at war for its freedom; a lawmaker at a time when America was fully in charge of its own fate; and an anti-slavery proponent at a perilous time in the nation’s history.Sources: Annals of Congress, House, 16th Cong., 1st sess. (29 February 1820): 1559–1564; House Committee on Agriculture, Objections to an Increase of Duties on Imports, 16th Cong., 2nd sess., H. Rept. 613 (1821); Thomas Forrest to George Washington, 10 May 1779, in Founders Online, National Archives and Records Administration, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-20-02-0363; Henry Knox to George Washington, 13 May 1779, in Founders Online, National Archives and Records Administration, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-20-02-0408; George Washington to Major Thomas Forrest, 16 May 1779, in Founders Online, National Archives and Records Administration, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-20-02-0446; George Washington to the Board of War, 18 May 1779, in Founders Online, National Archives and Records Administration, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-20-02-0461; Thomas Forrest to George Washington, 2 April 1781, in Founders Online, National Archives and Records Administration, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/99-01-02-05274; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., Church Records, 1709–1760, ancestry.com; Andrew Barton (pseudonym of Thomas Forrest), The Disappointment or, the Force of Credulity, ed. David Mays (Gainesville, FL: University Presses of Florida, 1976): 1–37; Benjamin M. Nead, G. Washington, and Thomas Procter, “A Sketch of General Thomas Procter, with Some Account of the First Pennsylvania Artillery in the Revolution,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 4, no. 4 (1880): 454–470; Rev. S. F. Hotchkin, Ancient and Modern Germantown, Mount Airy and Chestnut Hill (Philadelphia, PA: P.W. Ziegler & Co., 1889): 181–184; Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Comprising Portions of his Diary from 1795 to 1848, vol. 5, ed. Charles Francis Adams (Philadelphia, PA: J.B. Lippincott & Co.): 204–205.
Founding the Congressional Hispanic Conference | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
“A person’s political agenda is not predisposed based on their skin color. I’m here to prove it,” declared Henry Bonilla, a Mexican-American Republican who represented San Antonio, Texas, in the House, in 2003. Bonilla was speaking for himself. But he was also defending Miguel Estrada, a Honduras-born attorney who had been nominated by Republican President George W. Bush to a seat on the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, an assignment that many viewed as a steppingstone to the U.S. Supreme Court. For the better part of two years, Estrada’s nomination had languished amid fierce opposition from Senate Democrats. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which provided legislative support to lawmakers and was composed primarily of congressional Democrats in the House, had come out against Estrada as well, infuriating Hispanic Republicans in Congress. Bonilla had had enough. Given the stakes of Estrada’s nomination, it was “time for the Hispanics of America to have a unbiased voice," Bonilla announced.Strengthened by their growing numbers and frustrated by the opposition to Estrada—a man whom they admired and whose politics and background they shared—Hispanic Republicans in Congress formed the Congressional Hispanic Conference in 2003. In so doing, they created an organization that would serve as a center of Hispanic power within the GOP Conference and would compete with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and a variety of liberal organizations to best express the hopes and dreams of America’s largest minority population.Leaving the Hispanic CaucusSince its founding in 1976, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus had been the organized voice of Latino Members of Congress. An overwhelming majority of those members belonged to the Democratic Party, and the posture of the caucus therefore tended to reflect Democratic priorities. While Republicans, including Henry Bonilla who had first been elected in 1992, had in the past joined the group, the calculus for their participation changed after the GOP regained control of the House for the first time in 40 years heading into the 104th Congress (1995–1997). With the majority change in 1995, Republicans suddenly had control over the legislative agenda. Moreover, the new rules package adopted by the House restricted the role of the Hispanic Caucus in the legislative process and cut funding for staff. While the caucus reconstituted itself without public financial support, its path forward had become more complicated.In 1997, two Cuban-American lawmakers from Florida, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Diaz-Balart, resigned from the caucus after caucus chair Xavier Becerra of California visited Cuba and had an audience with Fidel Castro. The legislators criticized Becerra for not imploring Castro to hold free elections or meeting with political dissidents. At the time, Diaz-Balart had called it “mind-boggling” that his colleagues would fail “to support even the most elemental freedoms for these oppressed people” in Cuba. Within a year, Henry Bonilla also left the caucus, and not a single Republican remained in the group.A Critical Mass of LawmakersIn 2003, almost three decades after the Hispanic Caucus’s founding and six years after the Cuba incident, the fight over Estrada’s nomination to the bench began a new chapter for Hispanic representation on Capitol Hill. In March that year, Bonilla announced the advent of the new Congressional Hispanic Conference and criticized the Hispanic Caucus as an “arm of the extreme left of the Democratic Party” and “the attack dogs of the left.” Ros-Lehtinen was less confrontational, describing the Estrada nomination as having revealed the need to establish another Hispanic group “that represented another more moderate position.”Faced with the creation of a rival organization, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus downplayed the rift. Representative Ciro D. Rodriguez, a Texas Democrat, noted that the two groups were “actually on the same page on a lot of issues.” But in the eyes the Hispanic Conference’s first executive director, the Hispanic Caucus had become “the establishment” and it was up to the conference to offer a new approach.While the Estrada nomination fight was critical to the formation of the conference in 2003, other factors also contributed to the decision. Crucial was the redistricting process that followed the 2000 Census. Population growth in Florida led to the creation of a new seat adjacent to Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart’s Miami district. In 2002, Mario Diaz-Balart, Lincoln’s brother, won election in the new Florida district, and Devin Nunes, a Portuguese-American Representative from California, won a seat from the Central Valley, increasing the number of Hispanic Republicans in Congress to six. By comparison, 20 Hispanic Democrats served in the 108th Congress (2003–2005).Defining Hispanic RepublicanismFor members of the new conference, the Estrada nomination fight not only furnished the legislators with a rationale for organizing, it helped them to explain what it meant to be a Hispanic Republican. Estrada’s resume included an undergraduate degree from Columbia University and a law degree from Harvard. He later clerked for a Supreme Court Justice and then, as an attorney with the Office of the Solicitor General, had argued before the highest court in the land. “So many of us who are the sons and daughters of immigrants,” explained the founders in a Wall Street Journal op-ed marking their group’s debut, saw in Estrada’s hard work building a career all that was right about the country, the realization of the “American promise” to its newcomers.The Hispanic Conference also did not shy away from promoting Estrada as a candidate who would diversify the federal bench, in both his cultural and ideological background. Opposition to his nomination, the founders wrote, reflected “a pervasive and troubling trend whereby the advancement of minorities is only applauded when it reinforces liberal politics.”The rise of the Hispanic Conference and its work on behalf of Estrada’s nomination gave the House rare influence over judicial nominations, an issue ordinarily understood as the domain of the Senate which has the constitutional power to advise and consent on presidential appointments. Per a request from Senate GOP leadership, Mario Diaz-Balart, the chief organizer and “engine” of the conference, championed Estrada’s confirmation cause in the House and managed debate on the House Floor during which GOP Representatives publicly backed Estrada. Diaz-Balart also publicized letters in which he criticized Democratic Senators, calling their effort to stymie a confirmation vote “‘not only an injustice to the courts, but also to the advancement of well-qualified Hispanics.’” Ros-Lehtinen, too, pressured Florida’s U.S. Senators, both Democrats, to end the filibuster against Estrada.On March 4, 2003, Diaz-Balart led a “rally” on the Senate side of the Capitol, delivering remarks and serving as interlocutor for Republican Senators who spoke on behalf of Estrada. The Senators echoed his charge that congressional Democrats were “us[ing] race to try to disqualify Mr. Estrada.” The conference members kept up the campaign for months, but it ultimately proved unsuccessful. When the Bush administration withdrew Estrada’s nomination, Diaz-Balart and Ros-Lehtinen were the only Members of the House to join Senate leaders in a press conference to protest the defeat. First in English and then in Spanish, the Miami lawmakers excoriated the opposition for its “partisan” derailment of Estrada’s confirmation. Ros-Lehtinen called it “discriminación total,” all because of Estrada’s conservative beliefs. Diaz-Balart described it in terms apropos of a death in one’s family, saying that when the Senate refused to confirm Estrada, “We lost a brilliant young Hispanic.” “Nosotros, los Hispanos, nunca lo podremos olvidar,” (“We, the Hispanics, will never forget it”) he added. The Estrada nomination had cemented a sense of collective purpose, and given Hispanic Republicans in Congress a chance to develop ways of thinking and communicating what made them unique and important to their party and the nation.Building a New OrganizationAt the organizational level, Ros-Lehtinen, the most senior member of the new conference, was elected chairperson, and Henry Bonilla was named vice chair. Lawmakers tasked Mario Diaz-Balart’s chief of staff, Omar Franco, with hiring the conference’s first executive director. The members wanted to reach beyond the conference’s Cuban-American nucleus to enlist someone of Mexican-American descent for the position. Because the successful applicant still had to demonstrate an ability to represent the diverse constituency, candidates interviewed with each Member office in the conference. In the summer of 2003, the conference hired Octavio Hinojosa Mier, the son of Mexican immigrants who had been raised in the established Mexican-American community of Hutchinson, Kansas, and who later worked for U.S. Representative Jerry Moran. Hinojosa had come of age during the Ronald Reagan presidency, his worldview shaped by the Cold War. But it was Republicans’ embrace of the North American Free Trade Agreement in the 1990s, and the promise of prosperity for Mexico, that led him to political activism. Hinojosa worked out of a cubicle in Mario Diaz-Balart’s office, a staff of one who learned to rely on the Member’s staff for support, particularly in the legislative process.Early on, the conference worked to build a set of procedures for operating. It held monthly policy meetings, typically in Ros-Lehtinen’s office, that lasted about 30 minutes. Hinojosa would present on a topic and encourage Members and their staffs to adopt a common position on the issue. The conference at times struggled to find a “specific wording” that Members could agree upon. Hinojosa’s successor as executive director, Mario H. Lopez, a former aide in the House Republican Conference office of Representative J.C. Watts Jr. of Oklahoma, learned that one of the best ways to create a common “statement” on any given matter was to aggregate quotes from individual lawmakers on the issue, and release them under the same umbrella. This allowed the conference to act collectively, while still preserving the prerogatives of individual Members and their staffs to communicate with their constituents directly.Leading House Republicans at the time largely welcomed the Hispanic Conference. In the mid-1990s, Republican leadership under Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia had taken an adversarial stance toward legislative service organizations such as the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. By the early 2000s, recalled Hinojosa, Speaker J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois and other GOP leaders remained open to the group’s activities, which he attributed to a growing appreciation that Republicans could succeed among Hispanic voters. Not unrelated, the Congressional Hispanic Conference formed at a time when the Republican Party under President Bush was engaged heavily in Hispanic outreach, the Estrada nomination being only one highly visible aspect.The conference also enlisted “associate” members from the House’s rank-and-file who were not themselves Hispanic. The conference’s first two executive directors would comb census records and invite Republicans whose represented districts that had substantial Hispanic populations, and who thus had what Lopez called the “very logical incentive” to join the group.Often, Mario Diaz-Balart would follow up on these invitations, whether in the Republican Cloakroom off the House Floor or elsewhere. Such appeals had additional credibility with some Members because Diaz-Balart belonged to the Republican Study Committee, then the organization of the most conservative House Republicans. By 2006, associate members of the Congressional Hispanic Conference included Bob Beauprez of Colorado, Christopher B. Cannon of Utah, Randy Neugebauer of Texas, and Gerald C. “Jerry” Weller of Illinois.With the formation of the conference in the early 2000s, Hispanic institutional organization in Congress was becoming more complex and more dynamic. But many questions remained. How the Hispanic Conference might relate to a Republican Party itself undergoing changes as the Bush presidency came to a close was unclear. And how the new group might yet work with the Hispanic Caucus remained to be seen. It had been “a troubled divorce,” in the words of Ros-Lehtinen, but there was potential for productive relations between the two, hope in at last arriving, she said, at “a very amiable spot where we agree to disagree.”Sources: Hearing before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Confirmation Hearing on the Nomination of John G. Roberts, Jr. to be Chief Justice of the United States, 109th Cong., 1st sess. (2005); Congressional Staff Directory, Fall 2006 (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2006); “Octavio Hinojosa Mier Oral History Interview,” Office of the Historian, U.S. House of Representatives (29 August 2023); Mario H. Lopez, email message to the Office of the Historian, September 23, 2024; Austin American Statesman, 21 March 2003; Gannet News Service, 19 March 2003; New York Times, 15 March 2003; St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 9 February 1997; San Antonio Express-News, 19 March 2003; South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 27 April 2003; St. Petersburg Times, 25 February 2003; Wall Street Journal, 17 March 2003; Hispanic Business 26 (2004); Kathryn Jean Lopez, “Power Struggle,” Hispanic 16, no. 7/8 (July/August 2003); “America and the Courts,” press conference, 4 March 2003, C-SPAN, https://www.c-span.org/video/?175408-1/america-courts; “Estrada Withdrawal Reaction,” press conference, 4 September 2003, C-SPAN, https://www.c-span.org/video/?178038-1/estrada-withdrawal-reaction; Sarah J. Eckman, “Congressional Member Organizations (CMOs) and Informal Member Groups: Their Purpose and Activities, History, and Formation,” Report R40683, 21 March, 2023, Congressional Research Service: 14–15.
Development of the Industrial United States and the Emergence of Modern America (1870–1931), Part I: The Records of Power | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
Nearly 100 years after its founding, the United States exerted its new power over the nation’s economy, land, people, and increasingly, overseas as it sought strategic global footholds and favorable trade. Learn more about this period of new industries and imperialism with these records from the House of Representatives.Transcriptions and downloadable PDFs of these records are available at the links below.Discussion Questions:Compare and contrast an agricultural economy and an industrial economy.How did railroads impact the development of an industrial economy?Are there parallels between America’s expansion within its borders and its acquisition of territories around the globe? Explain.What connections can you make between this period and today?How can individuals and groups experience power? Do you consider yourself powerful?1870, Transcontinental Railroad Junction PointThis bill, introduced by Representative John Bingham, aimed to designate the “common terminus and point of junction of the Union Pacific Railroad Company and Central Pacific Railroad Company” on the recently completed transcontinental railroad. The land was located northwest of Ogden, Utah Territory, near where the two rail lines joined in Promontory Summit in 1869 to complete the transcontinental railroad. Although this bill did not become law, the point of junction was fixed on May 6, 1870.1884, Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins PetitionIn the 19th century, Native American author and activist Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins served as an intermediary between her Paiute community in Nevada and the United States government. She presented a petition to Congress, asking for the Paiute to be restored to Malheur Reservation, “which is well watered and timbered, and large enough to afford homes and support for them all,” in eastern Oregon. In wrenching language, she asked for the return of removed tribal members, writing that “families were ruthlessly separated, and have never ceased to pine for husbands, wives, and children.” Her petition was referred to the House Committee on Indian Affairs.1894, Central Hotel in Round Pond, Oklahoma TerritoryThis photograph from 1894 shows a group of settlers standing in front of the Central Hotel in Round Pond, Oklahoma Territory, a town situated along a rail line. At the time, some railroads used a right of way granted by the government to build railroads through the territory. However, the companies often did not build depots or stations along the lines to board or discharge passengers and freight, to the detriment and frustration of those communities. Legislation enacted in 1894 required “companies operating railroads in the Territories . . . to establish stations and depots at all town sites” along the rail lines.1905, Souvenir of Tulsa, I.T.This House record forms part of the bill file for H.R. 12707, “An Act to enable to the people of Oklahoma and the Indian Territory to form a constitution and State government and be admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original States.” Depicting Tulsa, the pamphlet features photographic reproductions that capture images of an area seemingly ready for business, leisure, and statehood. The Oklahoma and Indian Territories formally became the single state of Oklahoma in 1907.1906, Panama Canal Presidential MessageIn February 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt sent this message to Congress detailing his support of a lock-based canal in Panama. For centuries, the isthmus at Panama was recognized as a key location for the construction of a canal to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Congress passed the Panama Canal Act of 1902, which allowed the United States to obtain from France the rights to build the canal, as well as to procure surveys and equipment. In 1904, after payment of $40 million to France and $10 million to Panama, the United States assumed control over roughly 120,000 acres of what became known as the Panama Canal Zone. The early part of the project was devoted to infrastructure projects to house workers and improve sanitary conditions. Excavation and construction of the canal began in earnest in 1907. Work on the locks was completed in 1913 and the following year, on August 15, 1914, the canal officially opened to traffic.1913, Postcard on Discovery of North PoleThis pointed postcard petition was sent to Representative Samuel Beakes by a resident of Jackson, Michigan. In 1909, two men claimed to be the first to reach the North Pole. In 1911, the competing claims prompted the Committee on Naval Affairs to investigate. The postcard expresses concern for the “blot on our Flag” and “slur at our National Honor” resulting from the controversy. The petitioner asks for an investigation that would conclude in “proper recognition” for one or both men as the discoverers of the North Pole. A joint resolution to that effect was introduced in 1914 by Charles Smith and referred to the Committee on Naval Affairs; however, the resolution did not pass and no investigation resulted.Interested in more records from this era?1870, Petition of Settlers on Land Boundaries1874, Map of Oregon1879, Election Credentials of Romualdo Pachecoca. 1881–1883, Remarks on the Hawaii Treaty1888, German Aggression in Samoan Islands1890, Levees on the Mississippi River1894, Hawaiian Self-Government Resolution1906, Alaska Territory Delegates Credentials1917, Organic Act for Puerto Rico1931, Report of Virgin Islands Governor1931, Resolution of Philippine Legislature on Independence1931, Secretary of War Report on Philippine IndependenceLook for the second part of this blog, Development of the Industrial United States and the Emergence of Modern America (1870–1931), Part II: The Records of Progress, in the coming months.This is part of a blog series about records from different eras of U.S. history.
Recent Artifacts Online, Fall 2024 | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
This fall, newly digitized objects in the House Collection are talking the talk. Four recordings, from 1920 to 1964, step up to the microphone. Take a look and take a listen to congressional women and men from the past.First Ladies of Congress Record AlbumThe Democratic National Committee released First Ladies of Congress, a whirlwind of interviews with eight women Members—Iris Blitch, Edith Green, Martha Griffiths, Maude Elizabeth Kee, Edna Kelly, Coya Knutson, Gracie Pfost, and Leonor K. Sullivan—in 1955. Interviewer Katie Louchheim asks about committee work, legislation, campaigns, and busy schedules. The album ends with Louchheim’s call to women listeners: “Now, I’m sure you understand why they say that a Congresswoman works a 48-hour day. If any of you ladies are contemplating a career in politics, don’t let this discourage you, because I assure you that not one of our Congresswomen would trade her job for any other in the world.”Listen to a clip from the album below, and find other clips here. The Story of “Mr. Sam” Rayburn, 1882-1961, Record Album“Who was this man from the fields and farm?” A 1960s phonographic record uses sound bites from Presidents and interviews with “this man” himself to eulogize the late Speaker Sam Rayburn. The stentorian voice of narrator Marvin Miller weaves the recordings into a triumphal tale. Rayburn journeyed from a farmstead with no running water to become the longest-serving Speaker of the House. When Rayburn died in 1961, this raspy recording was one of many tributes to him. A grateful government unveiled stamps, statuary, and an entire House Office Building in his honor.Listen to a clip from the album below, and find other clips here. Henry Helstoski Campaign Mailer and Audio MessageAmericans of the 1960s were sophisticated consumers. Henry Helstoski responded with equally sophisticated campaign material. The congressional candidate mailed a piece of paper engineering to constituents: the envelope unfolded to reveal both a campaign pitch and a record. Instructions told voters to “punch out hole, tuck in flaps, and play at 33-1/3 r.p.m.” The five-minute recording follows the format of a variety show—comedy routines, singing, and a charming announcer—but mixes in political speeches. Helstoski was successful in his 1964 run for the House and served six terms representing a New Jersey district.Listen to a clip from the album below, and find other clips here.Champ Clark, Ex-Speaker, House of Representatives Record AlbumThis 1920 phonographic record is one of the oldest recordings in the House Collection. One side preserves the voice of Speaker “Champ” Clark, who delivers a party stump speech extolling the achievements of the nation during his House leadership. The other side contains a rendition of the “Missouri Waltz,” a nod to Clark’s home state. The staticky sounding record was part of the Nation’s Forum series. In the pre-radio era of the 1910s, the series brought prominent leaders’ voices into Americans’ homes.Listen to a clip from the album below, and find other clips here.Interested in something a little quieter? Check out more new objects here:For additional new paintings, photographs, and objects on Collections Search, check out other Recent Artifacts Online blogs.
National History Day 2025: “Rights and Responsibilities” | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
The History, Art & Archives team has gathered resources based on this year’s National History Day (NHD) theme, “Rights and Responsibilities,” to inspire and assist student researchers with choosing their project. This year’s page collects reference material from across the History, Art & Archives website with a focus on U.S. House of Representatives history. These thematic collections have been organized chronologically and incorporate multiple types of sources. Students are encouraged to pull from a variety of primary and secondary resources, including archival documents, art, photographs, written narratives and oral histories.Slavery and the Right to FreedomAntislavery advocates fought to contain and repeal the practice of slavery on the national stage through oration, legislation, and protest. Southern resistance to these efforts drove the United States into Civil War.Reconstruction and Rights DeniedThe end of the Civil War marked the beginning of another long struggle for civil rights. The first Black Americans elected to Congress strived to advance the cause of justice and fairness for a population long denied both.Civil Rights: The Civil Rights Act of 1964Spurred by a growing grassroots movement during the mid-twentieth century, Congress passed landmark legislation to protect Americans’ civil rights, end discrimination, and ensure access to the ballot.Economic Rights: Fair Labor and Fair HousingIn the twentieth century, Congress passed two transformative pieces of legislation to help secure economic rights: the Fair Labor Standards and Fair Housing Acts.Environmentalism: Clean Air and National ParksThe vast size and natural beauty of the United States has inspired artists and authors to capture the ideals of America and its stunning landscapes. Their works have in turn inspired legislators to create National Parks and to protect precious resources with the Clean Air Act.Japanese Internment and RedressDuring World War II, more than 120,000 Japanese Americans and people of Japanese descent were stripped of their freedom, possessions, and property and imprisoned in government camps. More than 40 years later, Congress passed redress legislation for survivors of these wartime camps.Equality in Education and Title IXAfter World War II, the struggle for integration across racial and gender lines and the right for equality in education rose to the fore in Congress during the 1950s.Human Rights Abroad: Ending ApartheidBetween the 1940s and early 1990s, the nation of South Africa operated under a system of institutionalized racial segregation called apartheid. The Congressional Black Caucus led American opposition to these human rights abuses abroad.Human Rights Abroad: The 1980 Olympic BoycottIn the spring of 1980, the United States government faced a foreign-policy decision with Olympic-sized consequences.Students and teachers are encouraged to use the additional resources listed on our NHD page as a launching point for further primary source research.We hope this year’s NHD inspires students to learn more about the history of the U.S. House of Representatives. Got questions? Email us at history@mail.house.gov.
Design Tells a Story: Oral History and Campaign Buttons | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
Campaign buttons have been part of America’s congressional elections since the late nineteenth century. Whether affixed to a coat or a backpack, they advertise a voter’s preferred candidate, policy, or position. Cleverly designed and notable buttons have, at times, even had a lasting influence on America’s political culture. The House Collection contains more than 1,500 lapel pins and tabs, most of which are campaign buttons from candidates who ran for Congress.In a series of interviews conducted by the Office of the Historian, former Congresswomen talked about buttons their campaigns produced at different times during their careers. They described how and why they chose certain layouts, themes, and slogans. As these oral histories show, design tells a story.MotifCandidates often combine color, shape, and typography on campaign buttons to convey messages about their platform. For Representatives Shelley Berkley and Nancy Johnson, the imagery they used both alluded to their home states and symbolized their candidacy.Shelley Berkley of Nevada Nevada Representative Shelley Berkley’s 2000 campaign button features a red, white, and blue color scheme and few words. In block, uppercase white letters against a rectangular blue background, her name takes up most of the space. Between the “K” and “L” of “Berkley,” the shape of Nevada snugly nestles into the typography. As she explained in her oral history, the blue rectangular border was purposeful: “I’m very definite,” she explained. “I’m not wishy-washy.”Nancy Lee Johnson of Connecticut Using blue, gold, and white, Connecticut Representative Nancy Johnson’s campaign button adopted the colors of her state flag. Three white stars underscore Johnson’s name, and a gold star extends past the right edge. The stars, Johnson remembered, were suggested by a political consultant because, she said, she “was seen as quite the star.”NameThe decision to include a candidate’s name is perhaps an obvious choice in campaign button design. But for some lawmakers—like Representatives Sue Myrick and Connie Morella—the name they chose and the way it appeared on the button held significance.Sue Myrick of North Carolina “For Congress SUE Myrick” appears emblazoned in red letters against a white background on this 1994 campaign button. The North Carolina Representative’s first name, “Sue,” is twice the size of the other words and draws the eye. For Myrick, that detail was important. “When we did our advertising, we just always did ‘Sue,’ ” she recalled. She said it was a way for her to remain grounded. “I was Sue before I got elected. If I’m elected, I’ll be Sue in office, and I’ll be Sue when I leave. And if I’m not, I don’t deserve to be here.”Constance A. Morella of Maryland One of Connie Morella’s congressional campaign buttons features just her signature in white lettering against a red background. Key to the design was its simplicity. The Maryland Representative wanted her button to seem friendly and approachable. “It’s a personal element,” she described.SloganIn just a few words, campaign slogans can convey something unique or memorable about candidates. A slogan can help them stand out in a packed special election or invoke a candidate’s personal history, as was the case for slogans selected by Representatives Eva Clayton and Susan Molinari. For Representative Claudine Schneider, however, a campaign slogan came not from the candidate, but from the community the aspiring lawmaker hoped to represent.Eva M. Clayton of North CarolinaEva Clayton’s campaign button includes the number of her North Carolina district, her name, and the slogan: “The Best for the First.” In her special election in 1992, she faced six other candidates. Instead of attacking her opponents, she used her slogan to promote and uplift herself. “We had no apologies for thinking we were the best,” she remembered.Susan Molinari of New York New York Representative Susan Molinari’s rectangular 1990 campaign button used bold text to emphasize her last name and featured the slogan “A New Generation of Leadership.” The slogan called attention to the fact that her father, Representative Guy Molinari, had served in Congress for a decade, while also helping her establish her own identity and perspective.Claudine Schneider of Rhode Island Representative Claudine Schneider’s 1980 campaign pin reads “This Time Claudine” printed in white text against a deep blue background. After losing her first election bid, Schneider spotted “Next Time Claudine” bumper stickers in her community. She adopted that message from her voters to develop this slogan when she ran again two years later.For more about how candidates have used visual elements to appeal to voters, explore our digital exhibition Campaign Collectibles: Running for Congress. And for more oral histories about running for Congress, visit our oral history section.
Collection Spotlight: The Portrait of Dalip Saund | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
A portrait can show you what someone looked like, but it can tell a complex story as well. Let’s walk through the details of one such story, as depicted in the portrait of California Representative Dalip Saund.Representative Dalip Saund became the first Asian-American Representative elected to Congress when he won his election in 1956. Saund served his district for three terms, until 1963. This portrait was one of the House Collection of Art and Artifacts’ 21st-century commissions commemorating Representatives who were important to the history of the House or the nation. With only Speakers of the House and committee chairs on the short list of Representatives who typically get portraits, people like Saund, who broke barriers in representation, are part of that group of special commissions. The House chose Jon R. Friedman as the artist, and the portrait became part of the Collection in 2007.Because of his pathbreaking status, Representative Saund had a relatively high public profile during his political career, but his story is not common knowledge today. The portrait takes up the challenge of introducing the viewer to Saund by providing a visual biography, as well as doing the usual work of expressing the subject’s character and appearance.SettingIn this painting, Saund stands in the Cannon House Office Building rotunda. A sharp-eyed news watcher might recognize this space as one of the locations where journalists appear when reporting from the House of Representatives or interviewing Members of Congress. During his service in Congress, Saund made headlines as the first Asian-American Representative elected to Congress and the subsequent role he took in international affairs. He was also a regular, hardworking, showing-up-for-the-district kind of Congressman. His accomplishments as a Member included helping veterans and their families access benefits, securing funding for military facilities in his district, and funding flood control projects and irrigation efforts on Native American land. He also accomplished the bread-and-butter work of a Representative, like opening new post offices and building roads. So, setting his portrait in this grand but highly public space in a House Office Building, rather than a committee room with a view or a Capitol space full of historic furniture and gilded details, clues the viewer in to the overall tenor of his congressional career and priorities.A Visual BiographyThe details of the portrait go further to build a visual story of Saund’s biography and well-developed personal philosophy, which he promoted and thoroughly explained in his own words, in multiple formats.Along the bottom of the painting, we see a trompe l’oeil marble slab—painted so as to appear real, or to “fool the eye”— inscribed with a quote from Saund’s autobiography Congressman from India: “There is no room in the United States of America for second-class citizenship,” in reference to the discriminatory immigration laws he fought against early in his public life.Another illusionistic slab of marble along the right side of the painting illustrates Saund’s biography and personal philosophy. Don’t ignore the faux marble: the distinctive green stone matches the floors of the Longworth House Office Building, where Saund worked when he served in Congress, anchoring this fictive space to his historical environment. The first few objects in this biographical frieze refer to Saund’s early life in India. The ox cart and the map of India—Saund’s home state of Punjab is highlighted—show the agricultural area where his hometown of Chhajjalwaddi is located, and where he attended school in the city of Amritsar. A Khanda, a stylized double-edged sword that is a symbol of Sikhism, the religion Saund adhered to, and India’s flag round out this section.The next group of images refers to Saund’s philosophical influences. Mahatma Gandhi, who emerged as a nationalist leader in India during Saund’s undergraduate years, is his earliest philosophical hero. Gandhi is followed by President Woodrow Wilson and President Abraham Lincoln, both of whom Saund discusses in his campaign booklet, “What America Means to Me.” Saund describes how he came to admire these two American Presidents, who are not typically yoked together in the popular imagination. While he was a student in India during World War I and Wilson’s administration, Saund says that “The great American war-time President was hailed as a Messiah in India. I was deeply touched by the beauty of his slogans— ‘To Make the World Safe for Democracy,’ ‘War to End War,’ ‘Self-Determination for All Peoples.’” This connects back to his admiration of Gandhi. As a young person who supported his country’s autonomy, ideas of self-determination and peace resonated with him and inspired him.The booklet describes how learning about Wilson led him “to the name of another great American War President—Abraham Lincoln. An overnight journey to the University seat of Punjab enabled me to borrow two books about Lincoln. In all my wanderings through the literature of the world, I have yet to come across oratory more eloquent, or an expression of human idealism more sublime, than that contained in the brief address delivered by a tall sad-looking American President at Gettysburg.” Lincoln, Saund declares, “changed the entire course of my life. I said to myself, ‘I must go to The United States of America—come what may!’”The rest of the green marble frieze evokes Saund’s experience in the United States, beginning with his emigration from India. The SS Philadelphia, the ship on which he traveled to the United States, passes behind the Statue of Liberty, illustrating his journey to New York.The California State flag and an image of Saund based on the portrait painted by artist and future brother-in-law Emil Kosa Jr. moves the story to the end of Saund’s immigration journey—California. A slip of paper with a Fourier series differential equation written on it hovers over the seal of University of California, Berkeley, alluding to Saund’s first West Coast milestone, a Ph.D. in mathematics.Saund’s post-education pursuits make up the final section of the biographical frieze. The map of California highlighting Saund’s congressional district anchors the section on his life in the Imperial Valley. A field of crops overlaid with modern farm equipment shows his first profession. Saund pursued farming for about 20 years, before opening a fertilizer business. His journey into public office rounds out the story, with an image of a campaign ribbon for his 1956 congressional campaign that refers to his previous elected position. Saund earned the nickname “Judge” when he won the 1952 election for the position in his community. The U.S. Capitol completes the visual journey through Saund’s past.What Does It Mean?The artist posed Saund looking toward, but beyond, the panel depicting his life story, implying that the sum of his experience served as a foundation for his work in the House, not an end point. This visual biography and portrait for this remarkable pioneer in Congress currently hangs in the busy East Grand Staircase on the House’s side of the U.S. Capitol. The stone that the image is built on serves as a clear reminder of the importance of the foundation of the United States—the idea that all are equal under the law, and there is indeed “no room in the United States of America for second-class citizenship.”Learn More:Explore our publication Asian and Pacific Islander Americans in CongressFor a close look at other artworks in the House Collection, check out our Collection Spotlight blogs
Two Decades of Oral Histories in the House of Representatives | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
On July 27, 2004, the Office of the Historian traveled to Rockville, Maryland, to interview 92-year-old Irving Swanson, who had served as reading clerk for the U.S. House of Representatives during the 1940s and early 1950s. In the first interview recorded by the Office’s fledgling oral history program, Swanson described his path from his home state of Wisconsin to the nation’s capital, his work on Capitol Hill, and his service in the U.S. Navy during World War II. He also provided a firsthand account of the events in the House Chamber on December 8, 1941—the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor—when he conducted the roll call vote on the resolution to declare war on Japan. A video interview was recorded in 2005 to supplement the original 2004 audio interview; a clip from the video is embedded below.Although it was the Office’s first foray into oral history, the discussions with Irving Swanson yielded an array of stories that hinted at the potential of future interviews. Swanson detailed his work on the House Floor, his experience during historic moments, and his efforts to develop strong working relationships with Members of Congress. “You got to have their confidence all the way through,” he recalled. “You had to be on your toes.” Swanson provided a window into Capitol Hill in the 1940s, revealing stories that were never included in the House’s official record. Soon after his interview Mr. Swanson donated the gavel Speaker Sam Rayburn gifted to him for reading the President's war messages against Germany and Italy and taking the roll call votes on the December 11, 1941 war resolutions.Two decades later, the Office of the Historian celebrates the twentieth anniversary of the oral history program. Since 2004, the Office has conducted 500 interviews with Members and staff to preserve the history of the institution and better understand the inner workings of the House of Representatives. Casting a wide net, the Office of the Historian has interviewed former Members and staff whose careers spanned nearly a century of House history, from the 1930s to the current decade, using a range of recording formats, including in-person audio and video, telephone calls, and Microsoft Teams meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic.In these interviews, Members of Congress have recalled their professional careers, electoral campaigns, policy priorities, and legislative achievements. Former staff have discussed what drew them to Capitol Hill and have described their work in Member offices, committees, and on the House Floor. Their stories emphasize the many ways Capitol Hill has changed and been changed by policy debates, technological innovations, and shifting political norms. At the same time, common themes emerge in many interviews that transcend the decades, demonstrating the persistence of institutional traditions, the enduring structure of House Rules and precedents, and the importance of personal and professional relationships on Capitol Hill.To make these interviews readily accessible to congressional staff, researchers, students, and the general public, the Office of the Historian has used its website, along with teacher workshops, academic conferences, and staff training, to promote access and interaction with the wealth of material generated by the oral history program. The Office’s website exhibits 10 online oral history projects, featuring 97 published interview transcripts, four video documentaries, and more than 1,000 media clips of audio and video recordings.Visitors to the Oral History page can explore:An extensive catalog of institutional interviews that provide behind-the-scenes descriptions of the way the House operates, including interviews with floor staff, House Parliamentarians, committee staff, and former Clerk of the House Donnald K. Anderson.The ongoing oral history project, A Century of Women in Congress, which compiles transcripts, media clips, and photos from interviews with former Representatives, staff, and family members to highlight the work of women in the House since the election of the first woman in Congress, Representative Jeannette Rankin of Montana, in 1916.The Long Struggle for Representation: Oral Histories of African Americans in Congress, an ongoing oral history project featuring interviews with former Members and staff to mark the 150th anniversary of the election of the first Black Representative, Joseph H. Rainey of South Carolina, in 1870.Interview clips focusing on different aspects of the Capitol Hill experience, such as the Congressional Baseball Game; the history of the House Page program; and historical artifacts such as campaign pins, Member portraits, and the stenotype machines used by official reporters in committee hearings and on the House Floor.Online exhibits and documentaries that provide insight into significant events in House history, such as the 1954 shooting in the House Chamber, the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the United States, and the history of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.More than 1,000 media clips from audio and video interviews, compiled in a searchable database.These stories, as told by former Members and staff in their own words, document the valuable contributions of individuals who have dedicated their careers to making the People’s House work. We invite you to discover this powerful reservoir of institutional knowledge to learn more about the history and traditions of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Going for the Gold: Uncovering the Lost History of the 1980 Olympics | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
More than four decades ago, Congress made the unprecedented decision to support a national boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. Athletes who had trained their whole lives to enter the games soon found themselves unable to compete. To recognize the sacrifice these Olympians made, the 96th Congress (1979–1981) honored them with a Congressional Gold Medal.Congress ordered medals to be minted and distributed to the 650 Team USA athletes and coaches. But for many years, official congressional records did not include this medal alongside the more than 200 other instances in which lawmakers conferred such an honor, dating to the medal George Washington received in 1776. The reason? For 27 years, an administrative quirk had separated gold medals from gold-plated medals. Today, however, thanks to dogged research and the support from a now former U.S. Representative, the gold-plated medal awarded to Team USA in 1980 is recorded alongside every other medal Congress has commissioned.This blog provides a behind-the-scenes look at the method and sources used to restore the 1980 gold-plated medal to its rightful place alongside the hundreds of other Congressional Gold Medals and to help readers learn more about that period in U.S. history. Those sources include congressional hearings, remarks made on the floor, and newspaper and archival research. This blog is intended to inspire and assist aspiring congressional researchers.Congress InvestigatesCommittee hearings help Congress gather information on policy issues, legislation, and oversight needs. These meetings usually focus on current events and feature expert witness testimony before a full committee or subcommittee. Committee hearing transcripts can be located through the Federal Depository Libraries.On January 23, 1980, and February 4, 1980, Clement Zablocki of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, held hearings to “consider the issue of U.S. participation in the 1980 summer Olympic games in Moscow.” The hearings also reviewed additional legislation connected to the boycott: House Concurrent Resolution 249 and House Resolution 547.H. Con. Res. 249 requested that various Olympic governing bodies work with the U.S. President to move the 1980 summer games out of the Soviet Union. The resolution went to committee and returned to the House Floor where lawmakers approved it. H. Con. Res. 249 then passed the Senate after it added its own provisions.H. Res. 547 supported an alternative Olympic games held in the United States if the U.S. athletes did not participate in the Moscow games. The bill was referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, but no further action was taken.Congress DebatesSince 1873, the Congressional Record has documented debate in the House nearly word-for-word. Unlike the House Journal, which details procedural activity but not debate, the Congressional Record provides a full transcript of legislative activity. The Congressional Record can be located through Congress.gov as well as Government Publishing Office’s GovInfo digital resource database.Leading up to the 1980 games, Congress regularly discussed America’s participation and whether to boycott the summer Olympics. In this example from January 24, 1980, the House of Representatives met to debate H. Res. 534 urging USA Olympics and the International Olympic Committee to consider House Concurrent Resolution 249 to postpone, transfer, or cancel the summer games. During the proceedings, Representative John James Duncan of Tennessee announced his intention to introduce a resolution to give Team USA athletes who would be prevented from participating the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Duncan’s legislation, House Concurrent Resolution 258, gained little traction.Congressional Record Extension of RemarksIn the House, if lawmakers want to revise or make additional comments on a particular topic, House Rules allows them to submit material to the Extension of Remarks section in the Congressional Record. On December 13, 2007, Representative Todd Tiahrt of Kansas entered into the Extension of Remarks the names of 480 summer Olympians who had been slated to compete in 1980. Representative Tiahrt had earlier been contacted by a constituent named Ron Neugent from Wichita, Kansas, who had been a swimmer on the 1980 team, and who had helped compile the list of athletes. Neugent had also directed Representative Tiahrt’s attention to the fact that Team USA’s 1980 Congressional Gold Medal was not included in the official list of gold medals. Wanting more information, Representative Tiahrt’s office contacted the Office of the Historian within the Office of the Clerk seeking more information on the 1980 Congressional Gold Medal.Public LawsAfter being contacted by Representative Tiahrt’s office, the House Historian’s Office looked through the legislation authorizing Team USA’s gold medal. First introduced by Representative Frank Annunzio of Illinois on June 4, 1980, the gold medal legislation, House Resolution 7482, quickly made its way through the House Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs before going up for a vote in the full House on July 1, 1980, where it passed. The Senate approved the measure on July 2, 1980. The title of the bill made clear that it would be unlike a typical Congressional Gold Medal, in that Team USA’s were to be gold-plated rather than solid gold: “To authorize the President of the United States to present on behalf of Congress a specially struck gold-plated medal to the United States Summer Olympic Team of 1980.”The bill became Public Law 96-306 when President Jimmy Carter signed it on July 8, 1980. The Library of Congress’s website, congress.gov, has a large amount of legislation accessible to research, but a Federal Depository Library may also be of assistance.Photographic EvidenceThe House Photography Office (now House Creative Services) photographed the July 30, 1980, ceremony at the Capitol to award Team USA’s gold medals. By the time of the event, Levi Strauss & Company had already prepared the team uniform, and the athletes were encouraged to wear the western-inspired outfit to Capitol Hill.Historical NewspapersHistorical newspapers are a vital research tool. Many libraries, including the Library of Congress, have a periodical room or database subscriptions to assist in research.In the case of the 1980 medal, newspapers covered the initial boycott and a year later, on July 26, 1981, the Washington Post ran a retrospective piece about the boycotted games from the perspectives of the athletes, reminding readers of their sacrifice.Additional ResearchThe Presidential Libraries system of the National Archives and Records Administration, as well as the individual research collections for Members of Congress, can be useful sources of information. The Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, for instance, has the full speech of President Carter’s address to the Olympic athletes on March 21, 1980.Recently, the Historian’s Office also reached out to the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library for additional information on the gold medal ceremony on July 30, 1980. The Carter Library provided a detailed itinerary for President Carter’s attendance at the ceremony, which included information on the President’s escort to the event as well as plans for where the President would stand as he was introduced by Speaker of the House Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill Jr. of Massachusetts.The Carter Library also supplied information about the reception at the White House for the athletes on the same day. Interestingly, the Team USA athletes received a separate medal to honor their achievements from Tiffany & Co.Additional House Research ResourcesThese resources also offer users a chance to explore the history of the House: House Records: Records SearchResearching the House: BibliographiesHistory, Art & Archives Offices PublicationsBlog Posts: Edition for EducatorsDigital Copies of Congressional Publications: GovInfo, Government Publishing OfficeHouse Committee Records: Center for Legislative Archives, National Archives and Records AdministrationResearching Legislation: Congress.gov, Library of CongressCongressional history can encompass a broad range of topics, from foreign relations to sports. Uncovering a story may require detective skills and perseverance. Casting a wide net for resources is crucial since materials related to a topic can be located across a variety of sources.
The Cold War, the Olympics, & the Forgotten Congressional Gold Medal | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
In the spring of 1980, the United States government faced a foreign-policy decision with Olympic-sized consequences. The previous fall, the Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan to expand its sphere of influence. It was a shocking decision, made even more so given that Moscow was slated to host the international community at the 1980 summer Olympic games in July.Following the invasion, lawmakers in Congress questioned whether America should allow its delegation of athletes to compete in Moscow. To allow U.S. athletes to attend the games risked sending a message to the world that the federal government condoned the Soviets’ war. Blocking their participation, however, meant dashing the dreams of hundreds of young Americans who had trained for years to compete in the storied sporting event.For four decades, the Cold War standoff between the American and Soviet superpowers had left the world on edge. Proxy wars and the threat of nuclear conflict had stalked the years after World War II. But it was the pre-World War II Olympics in Nazi Germany’s Berlin in 1936 that legislators suddenly invoked during debate over whether the United States should send a delegation to Moscow.In January 1980, the House Foreign Affairs Committee, led by chairman Clement Zablocki of Wisconsin, held a hearing with members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) where they discussed the ramifications of the Soviet invasion and whether to send an American delegation to the games. “These are the questions that were asked in 1936, when the Olympics were held in Germany,” Zablocki said. Republican John Buchanan of Alabama extended the questioning: “Would you agree or disagree that when Nazi Germany passed a law stripping Jews of their citizenship just before the games in 1936 and then went on to the Holocaust and all the rest, that that was something more than politics, that that was crime, or is it just politics to be disregarded?”History Repeating Itself?The 1936 Olympics would be remembered in America for stunning athletic achievements in the face of hate and Adolf Hitler’s campaign of White supremacy. Jesse Owens, a 23-year-old Black man from Alabama, won four track and field gold medals that year. And during the men’s 400-meter relay, Owens and his teammates, which included future U.S. Representative Ralph Harold Metcalfe of Illinois, who was also Black, set the world record. “There was talk of boycotting Hitler and his doctrine of Nordic supremacy,” Metcalfe later recalled. “But we thought we would make a contribution. There were more negroes on that team than any previous United States Olympic team. We won and it stuck a pin in the balloon of Hitler’s doctrine.”Congress did consider boycotting the Olympics in 1936. In the leadup to the games, Representative Emanuel Celler of New York introduced two bills he called “weapons to use against Germany” and which he hoped would alert the nation to what he called “the goings-on in Germany we may regard as a definite threat to the security of our own freedom, not merely where religion is concerned, but personal liberty of every kind.” Celler reminded the House that “it is an established fact that hate or prejudice or intolerance never remains limited to a small portion of existence—either it is overthrown completely and liberalism takes its place, or it grows and strengthens its hold until it has choked liberty everywhere and from every possible angle.” Celler’s bills—H. J. Res. 381, which would have boycotted America’s participation in the games by prohibiting the use of funds to send U.S. athletes to Europe, and H. Res. 368, to ensure Americans who held German debt be paid fair value—both expired in committee.Celler wasn’t alone in his opposition. Representative William Citron of Connecticut had noted earlier in August 1935 that he “object[ed] to participating in these games if they are to be held in Germany. I object to sending our youth to Germany. . . . The youth of the world meet to promote good sportsmanship, brotherly feeling between the peoples of various nationalities and races, the fundamental ideals of democracy—equality and justice.”But despite Members like Celler, who later served as Judiciary Chairman, and Citron, who lost re-election in 1938 and enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1942, no formal protest or boycott emerged from the 74th Congress (1935–1937). Just a few months prior to the 1936 games, Germany violated the Treaty of Versailles when it occupied the Rhineland and persecuted Jewish citizens. The United States attended the games in Berlin anyway. Three years later, Adolph Hitler’s Germany invaded Poland setting off World War II.A BoycottIt was that history that informed debate in Congress as the 1980 games in Moscow approached. On January 24, 1980, the House, by a vote of 386 to 12, passed H. Con. Res. 249 urging the U.S. Olympic Committee to implore the IOC to either move the games from the Soviet Union or cancel them altogether. If the games remained in Moscow, Congress called on the United States and its allies to boycott them and instead “conduct alternative games of their own.” The Senate quickly concurred in a vote of 88 to 4.Two months later, on March 21, 1980, President Jimmy Carter announced that the United States would boycott the Moscow games. In April, the United States Olympic Committee voted in support of the boycott. Ultimately, more than 60 countries joined the United States in its protest. At home, many of the athletes set to compete in the games expressed frustration with the decision. “My gripes are not against the Soviet athletes, it’s against their government,” said Craig Masback, a favorite in the one-mile track event. John Nonna, a fencing champion, noted, “I’d like to think there are other ways to show our displeasure and put pressure on the Soviets.” A few frustrated Olympians looked for ways to boycott the boycott and sought to compete under the Olympic flag rather than the American flag, but the Carter administration rebuffed that idea.In early June 1980, Representative Frank Annunzio of Illinois, chairman of the House Budget Committee’s Subcommittee on Consumer Affairs, introduced legislation to honor Team USA’s 650 athletes and coaches with a Congressional Gold Medal, one of Congress’s highest civilian honors. “I urge Members of the House, regardless of their personal feelings about the Olympic boycott, to co-sponsor the legislation. This legislation is the least that the Congress can do to recognize our Olympic team, which according to all indications, would have been one of the strongest in our country’s history,” Annunzio said.Annunzio’s bill, H.R. 7482, set aside $50,000 for the medals. To keep costs down, the proposal allowed for the medals to be gold-plated, rather than solid gold. The bill enjoyed widespread bipartisan support and gained 228 co-sponsors in a matter of weeks.The House took up Annunzio’s bill on June 30. “We are here today for one purpose—to honor dedication, sacrifice and, most of all, athletic achievement,” Annunzio said during debate that day. Republican Norman Shumway of California, who served with Annunzio on the Banking Committee, spoke next. “The congressional medals that we will be voting on today can never take the place of a genuine, gold Olympic medal,” he said. “However, it is one small way for our Nation to express gratitude to our Olympic athletes. The 1980 summer Olympics will best be remembered, not by who competed, but rather by who did not. The Congressional Gold Medal will serve to remind us and future generations as well, that we as a nation will never forsake our principles of freedom—not even for the cherished, Olympic gold, silver, and bronze medals.”Annunzio’s measure quickly passed the House and the Senate; President Carter signed the bill into law on July 8. Officials invited the Olympians to a ceremony at the Capitol on July 30, 1980. More than 450 athletes and coaches attended the event. In response, the Soviet Union boycotted the 1984 summer Olympic games held in Los Angeles, California.The Medal that Time ForgotDespite Representative Shumway’s hope that the 1980 Congressional Gold Medal would stand as a reminder of America’s commitment to freedom and democracy, the medal and the story behind it largely disappeared from popular memory.In 2007, the office of Representative Todd Tiahrt of Kansas contacted the Office of the Historian on behalf of a former Olympian asking about the status of the 1980 medal and its authorizing legislation. After discovering that the medal had, for decades, been omitted from the list of Congressional Gold Medals, historians added the 1980 medal alongside the nearly 200 other gold medals America’s lawmakers have awarded since 1776. Why the medal had been overlooked remains a mystery, but it is likely that earlier generations of recordkeepers saw that the 1980 medal was gold-plated and did not include it with the other solid gold medals.In December 2007, Representative Tiahrt inserted into the Congressional Record the names of 480 Olympic athletes awarded the gold medal in 1980. “This group has waited a long time for this recognition, and I believe that the individual athletes that made up this team deserve to be recognized,” he said.“As we all know, these games occur only once every 4 years,” Representative Tiahrt observed. “The investment of time and effort required of an Olympic caliber athlete is extraordinary. Because of this investment, many of these athletes sacrificed a once in a lifetime dream of competing on this world stage.” But, he pointed out, the sacrifice was not made in vain. “The 1980 Summer U.S. Olympic Team is now officially recognized as a recipient of the Congressional Gold Medal.”Sources: Congressional Record, House, 74th Cong., 1st sess. (19 August 1935): 13747–13749; Congressional Record, House, 74th Cong., 2nd sess. (3 June 1936): 8991–8992; Congressional Record, House, 96th Cong., 2nd sess. (13 June 1980): 14656; Congressional Record, House, 96th Cong., 2nd sess. (30 June 1980): 17734–17736; Congressional Record, House, Extension of Remarks, 110th Cong., 1st sess. (13 December 2007): HE2579; A Concurrent Resolution Urging the United States Olympic Committee, the International Olympic Committee, and the Olympic Committees of Other Countries to Take Certain Actions with Respect to the 1980 Summer Olympic Games, in Accordance with the Requests of the President, H. Con. Res. 249, 96th Cong. (1980); An Act to Authorize the President of the United States to Present on Behalf of Congress A Specially Struck Gold-Plated Medal to the United States Summer Olympic Team of 1980, Public Law 96-306, 94 Stat. 937; Hearings before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. Participation in the 1980 Summer Olympic Games, 96th Cong., 2nd sess. (1980); New York Times, March 9, 1980; U.S. Department of State, Office of the Historian, “The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and the U.S. Response, 1978–1980,” accessed 18 July 2024, https://history.state.gov/milestones/1977-1980/soviet-invasion-afghanistan; U.S. Department of State, archive, “The Olympic Boycott, 1980,” accessed 18 July 2024, https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/qfp/104481.htm.
Looking Back—The First Lying in Honor Ceremony | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
On July 24, 1998, on a crowded, muggy Friday afternoon two weeks before the planned August recess, a gunman ignored orders from the Capitol Police, bypassed the metal detector near the gift shop in the U.S. Capitol, and stormed the offices of congressional leadership nearby. Following an exchange of gunfire, one tourist was injured and two Capitol Police officers—Officer Jacob J. Chestnut Jr. and Detective John M. Gibson—were killed. Through the heroic efforts of the Capitol Police, the gunman was subdued and arrested, saving lives in the process.In the wake of the shooting, Congress honored the fallen officers and sought ways to prevent future incidents. “In all the history of the United States, no one had ever been killed defending the Capitol,” Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia said on July 27. “In all the history of the Capitol Police, never before had officers been killed in the line of duty. I believe that it drove home to all of us, certainly to me and those Members I have talked to, to the staffs I have talked to, how real and how serious the process of security is, and how much we are a Capitol Hill family; that the larger family of freedom has within it a smaller family of individuals who work together every day.”The House and Senate unanimously passed resolutions creating a memorial fund for the officers’ families and authorized the Capitol Rotunda to be used for a memorial service. On July 28, Officer Chestnut and Detective Gibson became the first individuals to “lie in honor” in that chamber. Officer Chestnut was also the first Black man to receive such an honor. Congress later placed a plaque in their honor in the U.S. Capitol Building.Three months after the shooting, Congress passed an omnibus spending bill which included $100 million in funding for the construction of a new Capitol Visitor Center (CVC) and an additional $106.7 million in funding for the Capitol Police Board to provide security enhancements across the Capitol complex. House Sergeant at Arms Wilson “Bill” Livingood testified that these improvements “would resolve many of the sensitive security issues that exist in the current security plan.” Plans for the new CVC had been in the works for years, but the attack in 1998 heightened the urgency of improving Capitol safety. The CVC’s new funding passed as an emergency provision under an antiterrorism portion of an omnibus spending bill that year.This is part of a blog series looking back at major events and legislation in House history as told through oral histories, data, written narratives, and multimedia—all available digitally on the History, Art and Archives website.Featured HighlightThe 1998 Shooting of Two Capitol Police Officers On July 24, 1998, two Capitol Police officers, Officer Jacob J. Chestnut Jr., and Detective John M. Gibson, died in the line of duty. An armed assailant stormed past a U.S. Capitol security checkpoint, mortally wounding Officer Chestnut. In the initial crossfire between the gunman and Capitol Police, a gunshot injured a tourist. As congressional aides and Capitol visitors sought cover, the assailant ran toward a door that led to the suites of then–Majority Whip Tom DeLay of Texas. Detective Gibson, a member of DeLay’s security detail, told aides to seek cover. Gibson and the assailant exchanged gunfire. Although fatally wounded, Gibson’s action enabled other officers to subdue the gunman.Featured Collection ObjectFeatured DataIndividuals Who Have Lain in State or in Honor Beginning with Henry Clay in 1852, the U.S. Capitol has been used as a place to pay tribute to the Nation’s most distinguished citizens. Made available for public viewing in the Capitol, persons who have “lain in state” traditionally have been American officials, judges, and military leaders, including 12 U.S. Presidents. In 1998, to recognize two Capitol Police officers who died in the line of duty, Congress granted use of the Rotunda for their caskets to “lie in honor.”This chart lists all those individuals who have been granted this high honor within the U.S. Capitol.Featured Oral HistoriesLearn more about the lives and careers of U.S. Capitol policewoman Arva Marie Johnson and longtime Office of the Clerk employee Roger Addison in their oral histories.Sources: Congressional Record, House, 105th Cong., 2nd sess. (27 July 1998): 17441; Congressional Record, House, 105th Cong., 2nd sess. (24 September 1998): 21844; Jacob Joseph Chestnut-John Michael Gibson United States Capitol Visitor Center Act of 1998, H.R. 4347, 105th Cong. (1998); Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act, 1999, Public Law 105-277, 112 Stat. 2681(1998); Washington Post, 25 July 1998.
The Records of a Divided Country: Civil War and Reconstruction (1850–1877) | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
By the mid-19th century, the struggle over slavery reached a boiling point in the United States. The American people, as well as their Representatives and Senators, clashed over slavery for years before the Civil War erupted in 1861. Following the war, during the period known as Reconstruction, Congress attempted to rebuild and reunite the country. Americans tried to recover from the emotional and physical toll of the war and come to terms with a country that had fundamentally changed. Learn more about this contentious period with these records from the House of Representatives.Transcriptions and downloadable PDFs of these records are available at the links below.Discussion Questions:Do you think citizens who sent petitions to Congress in the years before the Civil War influenced their Representatives and Senators? Why or why not?How was Congress a microcosm—or reflection in miniature—of the wider struggles of the United States in the years before and after the Civil War?How did the Civil War and Reconstruction change U.S. citizenship?How do the events of this era impact us today?1854, Petition against the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854In this signed petition, 34 citizens of St. Joseph County, Michigan, voiced their concern that the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 would open the American West to slavery. Since 1820, the Missouri Compromise outlawed slavery in the territories west of the Mississippi River and north of the 36°30' latitude line. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, however, proposed allowing citizens of the Kansas and Nebraska Territories, both of which existed north of the line, to determine through direct vote whether to legalize slavery.Ultimately, the Kansas-Nebraska Act became law on May 30, 1854. The situation in Kansas grew increasingly volatile and violence often erupted between groups of antislavery and proslavery forces. The series of deadly skirmishes eventually became known as “Bleeding Kansas.”1856, Assault of Senator Charles SumnerThe 1850s saw the House bitterly divided over the issue of slavery, which led to one of the more incendiary and violent events in congressional history. On May 22, 1856, Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina entered the Senate Chamber and repeatedly struck Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts over the head with a cane. The assault was in reaction to a speech in which Sumner criticized slavery and the Senators who supported it, including Andrew Butler, a relative of Brooks.The day after the attack, the House passed a resolution to establish a select committee to investigate the incident, and Speaker Nathaniel Banks of Massachusetts appointed five Members to look into the matter.1862, Repeal Fugitive Slave LawThis petition created by the citizens of Farmington, Maine, asked Congress to repeal the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, as well as confiscate the property of rebels against the government and declare their slaves forever free. The petition was presented by Maine Congressman John Hovey Rice on June 19, 1862.1864, Wade-Davis BillAs the Civil War drew to a close, Congress and the President turned their attention to plans for rebuilding and readmitting Southern states into the Union. President Abraham Lincoln’s plan for Reconstruction offered repatriation for Confederate states if 10 percent of eligible voters agreed to an oath of allegiance to the Constitution and the Union and to abide by the emancipation of enslaved people.Many in Congress, particularly the faction known as Radical Republicans, found Lincoln’s plan too lenient. This group advocated a much harsher approach, treating Confederate states as conquered provinces that had forfeited their civil and political rights. Their response was the Wade-Davis Reconstruction Bill. It required that 50 percent of eligible voters swear an oath to support the Constitution before state governments were recognized as members of the Union. Passed at the close of the congressional session in July 1864, Lincoln defeated it through use of the pocket veto.1866, A.M.E. Church MemorialMembers of Payne African Chapel, the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church in Atlanta, Georgia, sent this petition to Congress in 1866. In 1864, their church was destroyed during the campaign led by General William Tecumseh Sherman during the Civil War. The petitioners expressed their appreciation for their freedom but made the argument that it was not their fault that the church was destroyed. They requested $7,000 from the U.S. Congress to rebuild the church.1866, Memorial of Clara BartonClara Barton, best known as the founder of the American Red Cross, devoted her time following the war to helping locate missing soldiers. In the spring of 1865, Barton began receiving correspondence from the families of the missing, asking for her assistance in finding information on the whereabouts of their loved ones. In response, she established the Office of Correspondence with the Friends of the Missing Men of the United States Army. The office researched, compiled, and distributed lists of the missing in the hope that war survivors with knowledge of the fate of fellow soldiers would report it to Barton and her staff.Barton submitted this petition to Congress in February 1866, asking for an appropriation to continue her work.1868, Reconstruction Acts PetitionApplications such as this were completed by residents of Confederate States after the Civil War. The purpose of the applications was to remove political disabilities imposed by Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which prohibited individuals who had been active in the rebellion from eligibility for government employment. The applications were later collected by the Select Committee on Reconstruction, which was established in 1867.1874, Joseph Rainey Election CertificateJoseph Rainey, the first African American to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives, was sworn in on December 12, 1870. This election certificate confirmed his 1874 election to the 44th Congress (1875–1877) for a third full term and is signed by members of the board of state canvassers for South Carolina.During more than eight years in Congress, Rainey advocated for civil rights legislation, public education, and an active federal government to guarantee the rights of freed people in the South.Interested in more records from this era?1860, Kansas Statehood Bill1862, Government for Arizona Territory1862, West Virginia Statehood1868, Impeachment of Andrew Johnson1874, Memorial for the Civil Rights Act of 1875This is part of a blog series about records from different eras of U.S. history.
Edition for Educators—Setting Precedents | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
The legislative process in the U.S. House of Representatives is governed by an ever-evolving set of rules and guidelines known as parliamentary procedure. These legislative standards and instructions for debate originally derived from Britain’s Parliament and were later adopted and modified by England’s colonial governments in North America. In 1787, the Framers of the U.S. Constitution codified some of these procedures in Article I of America’s founding document.But importantly, the Founders also empowered the House to control its own affairs and set its own rules. The Speaker of the House, more than any other individual on Capitol Hill, has been key to that process. In the House, the Speaker—and to a lesser extent, the presiding officers appointed by the Speaker—decides questions of order, germaneness, and parliamentary procedure. The full House can vote to overturn the Speaker’s decision, but that happens only in rare instances. In the 1830s, the House also adopted the recommendations outlined in Jefferson’s Manual, a compendium of legislative practices compiled by Thomas Jefferson in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.Over time, the decisions from the Speaker’s chair have formed the basis of the House’s customs, tradition, and, eventually, its rules. Since 1907, these many components of the House’s legislative practice have been compiled by House Parliamentarians in the House Precedents.This Edition for Educators highlights a few of the precedents that have been set since 1789, as well as the people who assemble those precedents into an ongoing body of work that guides the day-to-day work of the U.S. House of Representatives.Featured PeopleParliamentarians of the House The Parliamentarian is a nonpartisan official appointed by the Speaker of the House to render objective assistance on legislative and parliamentary procedure to the House of Representatives. The responsibilities and history of the Parliamentarian’s Office is briefly discussed on this page, presented alongside a list of Parliamentarians and their predecessors in the House of Representatives.Featured Blogs“The Speaker Bluffed You” — Joe Cannon and the 1910 Motion to Vacate the Chair Longtime House leader Joseph G. Cannon of Illinois once said he lost and won the Speakership on March 19, 1910. His reversal of fortune had hinged on a daring gamble. A successful vote to remove Cannon as chairman of the Rules Committee earlier in the day dealt a major blow to the Speaker’s aura of invincibility, but he had no intention of folding. Rather than resign, Cannon invoked the House’s procedure to declare the Speaker’s chair vacant and challenged lawmakers to vote him out. Politics was not poker. But that day, facing the highest possible stakes, Cannon called the biggest bluff of his career.The Parliamentarian’s Scrapbook As debate and voting take place on the House Floor, transcripts are recorded for the Congressional Record. The Parliamentarian reviews and makes notes about this written record, recording decisions and their legal basis. The notes are gathered into scrapbooks. After much analysis and review, the Parliamentarian assembles information from the scrapbooks into volumes of precedents, which are published periodically.Fighting the Filibuster Wednesday, January 3, 1810, seemed like a day that would never end in the House of Representatives, as Barent Gardenier of New York hijacked proceedings to delay action on a resolution he opposed. Gardenier spoke from roughly 10 o’clock at night until nearly four in the morning, thereby imparting a sobering lesson to early Congressmen: if a Member started speaking, there was no way to stop him. Soon enough, clever lawmakers discovered that the framework of the legislative mechanism they needed to stop such curious filibusters was already in the House Rules: the previous question.Who Kicked the Dogs Out? Eccentric and quick-tempered, Virginia Representative John Randolph spent his early House service in a chamber that had quite literally gone to the dogs—his dogs, in fact. Randolph often brought his hunting dogs into the House Chamber, leaving them to lope and lounge about the floor during the session’s proceedings, much to the ire of some of his colleagues . . . especially a new Speaker of the House named Henry Clay of Kentucky.Featured Oral HistoriesFeatured HighlightsThe First House-Contested Election On April 29, 1789, the House Committee on Elections, a panel created on April 13, 1789, to render judgment on disputed elections in the House based on evidence and witness testimony, reported its first contested election case, Ramsay v. Smith from South Carolina. David Ramsay contested the election of William Loughton Smith of South Carolina to the 1st Congress (1789–1791), arguing that Smith had not been not a citizen of the United States for seven years, a requirement set under the Constitution for election to the House.A Breach of Privileges On January 1, 1796, the House met in a rare New Year’s Day session to deliberate the trial of two private citizens for allegedly attempting to bribe Members of Congress. Four days earlier, James Madison of Virginia and several other Representatives had submitted evidence to the House that Robert Randall of Philadelphia and Charles Whitney of Vermont had approached them with promises of future funds or land grants should the Members back a scheme to acquire pre-emption rights in the Northwest Territory. On the order of Speaker Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey, Sergeant-at-Arms Joseph Wheaton apprehended the gentlemen at their Philadelphia lodging and held them in his custody as the House debated how to proceed.The First Parliamentary Procedure to Limit House Floor Debate On July 7, 1841, the House adopted the first rule intended to limit the time a Representative could speak in debate on the House Floor. Concerns about long speeches impeding House business had dated to at least 1820, when the irascible John Randolph of Virginia held the House Floor for a four-hour speech on the Missouri Compromise bill. Afterward, lawmakers submitted proposals to limit the time a Member could speak to one hour; but the House did not act on them. In March 1833, Frank E. Plummer of Mississippi “so wearied the House in the last hours of the Congress,” noted Hinds’ Precedents, “that repeated attempts were made to induce him to resume his seat, and the House was frequently in extreme confusion and disorder.”A Motion to Censure Representative John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts On February 7, 1842, the House voted 106 to 93 to table a motion censuring Representative John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts for antislavery agitation. Weeks earlier Adams had masterfully manipulated the public debate over slavery by baiting proslavery Representatives into a prolonged dialogue. Because the House had instituted the “Gag Rule” in 1836—preventing floor discussion of abolition petitions—Adams manufactured a debate by submitting a petition, allegedly drafted by a group of Georgians, to have Adams removed as Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman. (Historians doubt the authenticity of the petition—some implying that Adams or one of his allies authored it). Through this sleight of hand, Adams used the defense of his chairmanship to hold the floor for days delivering a far-ranging harangue against “slave mongers,” as one observer recalled, “till slaveholding [and] slave trading…absolutely quailed and howled under his dissecting knife.”The Resignation of Parliamentarian Asher Hinds On March 3, 1911, Parliamentarian Asher Hinds resigned his position to become a Representative from the state of Maine. The long-time clerk at the Speaker’s table, as the Parliamentarian was then known, served nearly 20 years as an expert advisor on House procedure. The author of the House Rules series known as Hinds’ Precedents, Asher Hinds had begun his service under Speaker Thomas Brackett Reed of Maine.Featured Objects from the House CollectionFeatured ExhibitionImpeachment: President Andrew Johnson On February 21, 1868, when the United States House of Representatives met as it usually did at noon, there was no sense that the long-simmering struggle between Congress and President Andrew Johnson was about to tip into a full-blown constitutional crisis.This full-length essay details the precedent-setting events in the first impeachment of an American president.Featured RecordsLetter from Benjamin Brown French After a combined 15 years of service to the U.S. House of Representatives, first as assistant clerk, then as acting Clerk of the House, and eventually as Clerk of the House, Benjamin Brown French asked Congress for another job. In this letter, French requested employment to compile a parliamentary practice manual to help Members, particularly newly elected Representatives, navigate their House service. French believed his House experience made him the ideal candidate. His letter was accompanied by two resolutions describing the scope of the work and French’s recommendations for his compensation. Despite French’s repeated prodding, no committee action was ever taken on his proposal. The House would not begin to compile and publish its precedents until Asher Hinds’ precedents were published in the early twentieth century.Reagan’s First State of the Union President Ronald Reagan delivered his first State of the Union address in a televised prime-time speech on January 26, 1982. One year earlier, Reagan addressed Congress shortly after his inauguration, giving a speech focused on his plans for reviving the economy rather than a report to Congress on the nation. Following the precedent set by Reagan in 1981, speeches delivered in the first year of a presidential administration are, by custom, not considered State of the Union addresses.This is part of a series of blog posts for educators highlighting the resources available on History, Art & Archives of the U.S. House of Representatives. For lesson plans, fact sheets, glossaries, and other materials for the classroom, see the website's Education section.
Recent Artifacts Online, Summer 2024 | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
Just in time for summer, the Office of Art and Archives has added new objects to the digitized House Collection.Committee on the Budget1970s menswear, from white belts to wide ties, was on display at the beginning of Robert Giaimo’s service as chair of the House Budget Committee. The chairman’s early leadership was, according to the Washington Post, “lackluster and sometimes awkward.” But within a few years, Giaimo had “acquired widespread respect as one of the toughest and most effective committee chairmen in Congress.” This photograph shows Giaimo seated on the committee dais behind his nameplate.Managing the Campaign for the House of Representatives PamphletThis nonpartisan booklet describes the significance of volunteers to congressional campaigns. The publication reveals assumptions about gender in the 1960s. The section on women volunteers posits that the candidate’s wife can “work wonders by setting an example of industry and enthusiasm,” but “she will be resented if she doesn’t pitch in and do her share.”The Illustrated American Magazine, Vol. XXII, No. 394In 1897, The Illustrated American published a series of articles by and about Members of Congress. An account of Speaker Thomas Brackett Reed’s tactical feats of strength included an illustration of one famous moment. To prevent Members from leaving, Reed in 1890 directed the House Doorkeeper to bar all exits. Illustrator George Gibbs depicts the moment when Representative Charles O’Ferrall of Virginia shook the locked doors in impotent fury.Congressional Sales Tax DelegationIn 1921, newspaper publisher and former Congressman William Randolph Hearst sponsored a “Congressional Sales Tax Delegation” to Canada. At the time, the United States was considering a federal sales tax instead of, or in addition to, the recently adopted income tax. The wealthy publisher—who stood to benefit from changes to the tax system—arranged for Members to learn about the Canadian sales tax system.Sketches in the Capitol, WashingtonSometimes newspaper artists caught Members of Congress unawares, preserving informal moments in the Capitol. In this Harper’s Weekly roundup of sketches, Representatives gesticulate, whisper, read the papers, and snooze. In one image, the artist looked over the Press Gallery railing and immortalized someone from directly above his head.Looking for more about campaigns, committees, and cartoons? Check these out:For additional new paintings, photographs, and objects on Collections Search, check out other Recent Artifacts Online blogs.