Abstract

In the summer of 1941, just before his 15th birthday, Joe Bartlett left the family farm in rural West Virginia to work as a Page on Capitol Hill. But what he expected would be a one-month position became a House career that spanned 38 years. Bartlett eventually served as the chief of Pages, then as a reading clerk and, in the 1970s, as Clerk to the Minority—the senior Republican staff officer in the House. In this first set of interviews, Bartlett recalled listening from the House Floor to President Franklin Roosevelt’s “Day of Infamy” speech on December 8, 1941. Bartlett also described the Capitol in wartime; the daily routines and education of the House Pages; traditions such as the Congressional Baseball Game; the renovation of the House Chamber from 1949 to 1951; and many of the era’s leading Representatives and House Officers, including Sam Rayburn, Joe Martin, William Tyler Page, Joe Sinnott, and South Trimble.