When the dust settled after construction of the first House and Senate Office Buildings, only the Senate had a subway line. Representatives had to wait—and walk—until the Rayburn House Office Building opened in 1965.
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For more than a century, a tunnel ran between the Capitol and the Library of Congress to what is now known as the Thomas Jefferson Building. Using iron rails, electricity, and an endless cable, the underground shaft automatically shuttled books to Members of Congress. “There is nothing like it in this country or, so far as known, in any other,” the
Washington Post told readers in 1895.
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Ordinarily, the U.S. Capitol in springtime bustles with visiting school groups and vacationing families from around the world. For visitors who cannot travel to Washington this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the History, Art, and Archives website has a number of resources that visitors can use to learn about some of the Capitol’s statues, landmarks, and art, as well as stories about the people, places, artifacts, and events that make Congress unique.
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Photographs from the House Collection capture the fun of snowball fights outside the Capitol, a tradition for House and Senate Pages.
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by
Art on November 18, 2019
Photographers hauled their equipment to the top of the Capitol's giant new cast-iron dome and captured the city as it transformed from Civil War chaos to Gilded Age glamour. This 1875 image showed a city that still looked something less than glamorous.
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“Sometimes you sit here and think you hear the funniest things a’ going on,” the infamous House Doorkeeper William “Fishbait” Miller once told an interviewer, Miller’s broad smile casting doubt on whether he actually believed what he said. “Wonder, if those sounds I keep a‘hearin’ are chicken ghosts?”
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by
Art on August 20, 2019
This 1868 image shows the view looking west from the Capitol. The vista takes in both the exhausted postwar city and the growing evidence of a proud, international capital.
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How the Hotel Congressional went from a sleek, modern hotel to a dowdy House workspace to a parking lot, and later, the O'Neill House Office Building, is a tale of the changing nature of congressional work.
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The House Cloakrooms are simple, comfortable waystations where Members can wait between votes, escape for a snack, or conduct business with other Members.
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Today, the federal legislative branch spreads over five House office buildings, three Senate office buildings, three Library of Congress buildings, and the Capitol itself. This Edition for Educators highlights the Capitol campus and the District of Columbia.
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A major renovation of the Cannon House Office Building began in late 2014, uncovering some surprises. Artifacts pulled from the trenches and walls of the building during the restoration tell the story of the structure and its workers.
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by
Art on January 10, 2019
New Members-elect crowd into a committee room in the Rayburn House Office Building, plunging into the centuries-old struggle over real estate known as the office lottery.
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