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History, Art & Archives of the U.S. House of Representatives

#AskAnArchivist about Records Search

by Archives on October 14, 2016

On October 5, House Archivist Robin Reeder unveiled a major new website feature and answered dozens of questions during #AskAnArchivist Day on Twitter.

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Categories: Announcements, Records & Research

Did House Records Solve a Mystery? #AskAnArchivist and Find Out

by Archives on November 2, 2015

First House Journal
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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Categories: Announcements, Records & Research

Breaking the Code: Duncan Lee, HUAC, and the Venona Files

by Archives on February 2, 2015

Duncan Lee
Here’s the thing about being a spy: You can’t tell anybody. Especially if you’re a descendant of the Lee family of Virginia, educated at an elite prep school and university, a Rhodes Scholar, a lawyer at a prominent Manhattan law firm, and working in counterintelligence for the United States. Duncan Chaplin Lee was and did all of those things. He was a spy, and he got away with it.

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Categories: Art & Artifacts, Records & Research

The Most Important Congressional Source You’ve Never Heard Of

by History on September 2, 2014

Chairman Don Fuqua of Florida
Open to the Foreword of the most recent Congressional Directory, and you’ll learn that it’s “one of the oldest working handbooks within the United States Government,” compiled unofficially from 1789 to 1847, and officially by Congress ever since. What it won’t tell you is that the Directory is a rich and multi-layered resource about the House, the Senate, and life on Capitol Hill. They’re yeoman-like and unassuming, but for historians and political scientists they provide a valuable means of studying the first branch of government.

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Categories: Institution, Records & Research, House Practice & Traditions

Picture This: Lewis Hine’s Photographs of Child Labor

by Archives on October 1, 2013

Today, the phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words” is the kind of trite shortcut your English teacher deducts points from your essay for using. But at the turn of the century the visceral power of a photograph was a new concept.

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Categories: Records & Research

Out of the Blue: UFOs and the Freedom of Information Act

by Archives on June 13, 2013

The existence of UFOs may seem like the exclusive domain of science fiction, but as Representative John Moss of California laid the groundwork for legislation that eventually became the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in 1966, he didn’t discriminate in his pursuit to open as much government information as possible to the public.

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Categories: Records & Research, Legislation
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Office of the Historian: history@mail.house.gov
Office of Art & Archives, Office of the Clerk: art@mail.house.gov, archives@mail.house.gov