British traveler Henry B. Fearon cast a critical gaze from the House Gallery across the frothy sea of nearly 200 Representatives of the 15th Congress (1817-1819). "Spitting boxes are placed at the feet of each member, and, contrary to the practices of the [Senate], members and visitors wear their hats."
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Jeannette Rankin of Montana, the first woman elected to Congress, gained notoriety through the accidents of history. A confirmed pacifist, her two widely separated terms in the House put her in the position of voting against U.S. participation in both World War I (April 6, 1917) and World War II (December 8, 1941). But there was another vote...
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On October 1st, House Archivist Robin Reeder put down her acid-free folders and picked up her keyboard to answer questions on Twitter. During #AskAnArchivist day, readers asked questions big and small. Robin discussed challenges, historic events, rare documents, and a mystery involving Watergate records.
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Congressional photographic portraits serve an important function—recording an image of a Member for history. They can also surprise the viewer with their beauty. Harris & Ewing, a Washington, D.C., photography studio, produced luminous congressional photographs that are worth a closer look.
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In politics as in life, everyone discovers that they have to choose their battles, deciding when to fight and when to walk away. The lucky ones get to learn this lesson early and in private. Then there are others, like Ohio Representative William Sawyer.
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Landmark birthdays are a big deal, and for George Washington’s 200th, a master party planner was necessary. The House’s own Rep. Sol Bloom applied his talents to the task, coordinating a cross-country series of events—and some interesting souvenirs—throughout 1932.
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On June 14, 1977, the Man in Black strode into the House Chamber as if it were the stage of a country music hall. But music legend Johnny Cash wasn't about to belt out tunes for any ordinary concert. Rather, Cash delivered a moving poem to celebrate the bicentennial of the U.S. flag.
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In the summer of 1783, a rowdy, slightly tipsy band of unpaid soldiers chased the Confederation Congress from Philadelphia, its home for much of the Revolutionary War.
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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.
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by
Art on February 14, 2014
The oldest object in the House
Collection is also one of the smallest. It’s less than an inch across, but the
man who owned it was a giant figure in American history.
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In an institution where legislative victories are often stitched together with shifting blocs, coalitions, and alliances, it isn’t surprising that most Members of Congress are joiners. For new Representatives particularly, membership in caucuses and other informal clubs and groups fills a yearning to belong, to swap legislative strategies freely, to learn the chamber’s folkways and norms, and, sometimes, simply to socialize.
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When the first cannon shots of the Civil War landed on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor on April 12, 1861, the Abraham Lincoln administration confronted a rebellion against the United States and an urgent security problem in the nation’s capital. When Virginia seceded from the Union on April 17, only the Potomac River separated Washington from the hostile ambitions of the Confederacy. In those anxious April days the city was—in President Lincoln’s own words—“put into a condition of siege.”
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