Opening day of a new Congress is usually a day full of excitement and activity. A new session begins, the Members are sworn in, and the House of Representatives organizes itself for the first time in a new term. Adding to the excitement of the opening day of March 9, 1933, a special visitor was in attendance, the new First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. The flurry of activity in the House Chamber can sometimes be chaotic, but the rules of the House maintain the decorum and help the “People’s House” function smoothly. But, as the First Lady’s visit soon proved, those same rules are sometimes subject to change for special visitors.
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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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In our age of voluminous email traffic and cluttered inboxes, it’s easy to overlook certain correspondence and even misplace particular documents. Things get lost in the shuffle, we say. It happens. But as the White House demonstrated in 1920, it’s been happening for longer than we might imagine, and well before the advent of email.
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On this day in 1941, the House of Representatives passed the Declaration of War against Japan following the attack on the Pearl Harbor naval base in Hawaii. This month’s Edition for Educators focuses on the House of Representatives votes on declarations of war.
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Robin Reeder, the House Archivist, took a break from the records of the House to participate in the very first #AskAnArchivist day, October 30th, on Twitter. Organized by the Society of American Archivists, #AskAnArchivist day gave students and researchers the opportunity to ask questions about collections and archiving.
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