Clocks all over the House of Representatives—the plain ones, the fancy ones, even the ones that look like they belong in a high school classroom—have a little set of lights connected to them. Sometimes one is lit, sometimes all seven flash, and sometimes they are accompanied by loud buzzes (or rings, as they are officially termed) blasting a seemingly incomprehensible sequence. How did such a sound-and-light show end up in Congress?
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The cover of an 1894
Frank
Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly shows the dramatic end to Jacob Coxey’s journey
to Washington—his arrest amidst a crowd of supporters at the Capitol. So how
did this wealthy eccentric and his entourage become national news?
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Peace (The White Squadron in Boston Harbor), or more simply
Peace, has
been around the block—the Capitol block.
It started out in Chicago, came to the Capitol, and then arrived at the Cannon House Office Building.
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Sifted
peas, Vanderbilt dressing, kraut juice, steak Stanley, and kaffee hag – now that
sounds like a hearty meal. Historic menus from the House Restaurant, dating
back more than 80 years, include some incomprehensible dishes.
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“Gastro psychologist, doctor of roasts” was the honorary
title bestowed on House Restaurant proprietor Tom Murrey by the
Washington Post in an 1894 article. The
reason for this accolade was Murrey’s theory on the relationship between what a
Member would eat at lunch and what legislative work he accomplished—or rather,
didn’t accomplish—afterward.
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“No good legislation comes out of Washington after June.” Speaker of the House John Nance Garner spent 30 years in Congress, and he knew to get out of town ahead of the wilting summer weather. Washington in July and August is a desperately swampy place. Then one day in 1928, “manufactured weather” arrived in the House of Representatives’ Chamber.
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by
Art on August 28, 2014
Once
upon a time, a young man came to Washington. He wasn’t sophisticated, but he
had loads of ambition. He was destined to leave his mark on Congress. No, it
wasn’t Jimmy Stewart's fictional character arriving in 1939 to clean up the corrupt Senate in
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
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by
Art on September 12, 2014
As long as people have traveled, they have wanted to share experiences with the folks at home, and nearly 200 years of tourism show that visitors to the Capitol are no exception. The invention of picture postcards in the late 19th century added a level of efficiency to the impulse to share, and quickly escalated into a mailing frenzy. And as a prime destination, the Capitol was a mainstay of the genre with every photogenic part finding its way through the mail.
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by
Art on October 6, 2014
For more than a century, a desk in the House Chamber was a Member’s office. He stowed his hat beneath his chair, wrote and stored papers in the writing desk, and occasionally propped his feet up to listen to debate. Why did picking one's desk matter?
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by
Art on October 23, 2014
Stylish! Modern! Sturdy! And cheap! In the 1930s, Bakelite, an early plastic, was touted as “The Material of a Thousand Uses.” What uses, exactly? In one instance, desks for Congress.
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by
Art on November 3, 2014
Large and small, the questions came, and @USHouseHistory answered them during #AskACurator day on September 17. In what has now become an annual Twitter event, 47,546 tweets used the hashtag #AskACurator to pose questions to and elicit answers from curators at 721 museums in 43 countries. They weren’t all directed to or coming from the House, but many were, and the House Curator Farar Elliott spent an hour answering them. Here are some of the most intriguing responses.
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by
Art on December 22, 2014
Once upon a time, in 1918, the U.S. House of Representatives
received a gift of two porcelain vases. They were exquisite. Commanding
attention, standing nearly six feet tall, the attractive vessels were a gesture
from France expressing gratitude for America’s role in World War I.
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