United States House of Representatives: History, Art, & Archives
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“The House of Representatives, in some respects, I think, is the most peculiar assemblage in the world,” Speaker Joe Cannon of Illinois once observed. Behind the legislation and procedure, House Members and staff have produced their own institutional history and heritage. Our blog, Whereas: Stories from the People’s House, tells their stories.

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Displaying 1–12 of 90 results

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A Marvel among Swindles: The Louisiana State Lottery Company and the Post Office Department

by Archives on June 29, 2021
Advertisement for the Louisiana State Lottery
Records of the House Committee on Post Office and Post Roads and congressional sources help tell the dramatic story of congressional intervention into the 19th-century Louisiana State Lottery Company.
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Categories: Committees, Records & Research

Absorbing Constituent Needs

by Archives on July 12, 2017
Representative Herbert Drane with a Sponge
A Member of Congress represents and assists constituents. So when a Representative served a district known for one of the largest natural sponge markets in the world . . . well, that Member advocated for the absorbent product.
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Categories: Members of Congress, Photographs

Adjournment Fever

by Archives on July 18, 2016
House Pages Throw Paper in the Air
Finishing the legislative session in the summer used to be a yearly occurrence, with its own traditions. Members tried to guess the correct date of adjournment, sweltered through the final bills of summer, then sang into the night. Before Congress headed home for the season, these congressional traditions were recorded in photographs and oral histories.
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Categories: House Chamber, Practice & Customs, Photographs

Advice to New Members

by Archives on January 9, 2017
Luther Patrick Makes a Face
On March 6, 1941, Alabama Representative Luther Patrick gave advice to new Members from the House Floor. His 32-point list detailed the dos and don’ts of congressional behavior. If only he took his own advice.
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Categories: Members of Congress, Practice & Customs, Opening Day, Photographs

Americans Can’t Can

by Archives on September 10, 2019
Can All You Can Poster
Housewives and gardeners hurried from store to store during the summer of 1975 only to find the shelves devoid of one item on their shopping lists: canning lids. Desperate to preserve their fruits and vegetables before they rotted on the vine, the people turned to Congress for help.
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Categories: Members of Congress, Committees, Records & Research

“An Attractive and Luscious Plum”: Capitol Guides in the 1920s

by Archives on June 8, 2015
Capitol Guides Elizabeth and Anna Eliza Smith
No, you’re not seeing double: these happy Capitol guides are twins.
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Categories: Capitol Campus, Photographs

An Ode to Poetry at the Capitol

by Archives on July 2, 2018
Consultant in Poetry Elizabeth Bishop Writing with a View of the Capitol
During a Joint Meeting honoring the bicentennial of Congress in 1989, Minority Leader Robert Michel suggested that what Congress needed during the celebration was “not more congressional prose, but the fiery, living truth of great poetry.”
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Categories: Capitol Campus, House Chamber, Photographs

“As the Game Goes So Goes the Election” . . . or Not

by Archives on June 11, 2018
James Mead at Bat
“As the game goes so goes the election,” predicted the cover of the 1932 Congressional Baseball Game program.
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Categories: Practice & Customs, Photographs, Artifacts

#AskAnArchivist about #HouseRecords

by Archives on December 2, 2014
#AskAnArchivist
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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Categories: Records & Research, Announcements

#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: Records & Research, Announcements

Behind the Photos

by Archives on April 6, 2015
Dapper Representative John Sosnowski
This portrait of Representative John Sosnowski seems pretty standard—until you turn it over and read the back.
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Categories: Members of Congress, Photographs

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