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

30,000 Letters or Bust: Ansel Wold’s 1928 mission

by History on March 25, 2013

Over the course of three years in the mid-1920s, the clerk of the Joint Committee on Printing, Ansel Wold, had a mission: find Representative Victor Berger's middle name and the name of the town in which Mr. Berger settled upon his arrival to the U.S. in the 1870s. And Wold needed to find this information fast, in time to publish the 1928 edition of the Biographical Directory of the American Congress.

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Categories: People, Records & Research

Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend

by Archives on March 19, 2013

When Jessie Wilson, daughter of President Woodrow Wilson, became engaged to Francis Bowes Sayre in 1913, Washington was aflutter with excitement. Washington society had not had such an occasion to anticipate since the marriage of Alice Roosevelt to Nicholas Longworth set extravagant expectations for what a Washington wedding could be. In the early 20th century, it was common practice for the president’s cabinet, world leaders, diplomats, and Members of Congress to present often lavish gifts to the daughter of the president on the occasion of her marriage.

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Categories: Art & Artifacts, Presidents

From Averting Death to Common House Practice: The Committee of the Whole

by History on March 11, 2013

Parliamentary procedure itself rarely generates heated discussion, but that's mainly because the drama that created the precedent has long passed. What today is dry and routine often was, at one point, highly contentious.

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Categories: House Practice & Traditions, Speakers of the House, Institution

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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