Congresswoman claire booth luce. Im a curator for the house of representatives and that means i take care of a lot of the artifacts, the artwork, the objects that document the houses rich heritage. Im the historian at the house and my job is to collect biographical information on members, gather data and historic lists, we answer reference questions from our office that come from on the hill and off the hill. And we try to tell the story of the house, which is this very big, very Old Institution in a way in which people can kind of connect with it at a human level. So we do that through telling biographical stories or clips from oral histories that give people kind of a human sense of a very large institution. Use this column when voting for claire booth luce and make sure youre pulling the levers to reelect claire booth luce. She would have been the republican counterpart. She was someone who was wellknown to the general public. Her career really had started as a writer and editor. So she had a very prominent background before she came to congress. And she was elected to two terms in the 1940s. She originally had been a supporter of the new deal, and then she turned against fdrs domestic pall esasch by the time she comes to congress shes really one of the more eloquent spokespeople in terms of criticisms of fdrs wartime management. Shes an internationalists and also a woman who supports the equal rights amendment and enhanced role for women in the military services and outside the home. So shes something of a feminist as well. From america this congressional delegation comes to the western front on a democratic mission. Mrs. Luce, the congresswoman clear. Wright serve on the house of representatives military affairs committee. The group travels toward the battle line observing the weapons and supplies powering the big push to the rhine. Off to look over newly liberated areas behind the lines on their return home they will make their report to the american nation. She serves two terms. This would have been for her 1944 reelection, but about that time she suffers a personal tragedy. Her only daughter is killed in a car wreck near stanford where she was going to college. And with that she kind of lost a lot of her zeal for public office. And retires from the house at the end of the 79th congress in 1947. She and Helena Douglas would have overlap frd a term, but they certainly would have been known by the general public as two both prominent women both in a political sense and a cultural sense as well. This is one of my favorite buttons. Coya knutson, matt talks about the generation of women and how that relates to whats going on in the nation at large. And coya in some ways pays the price of the changing view of women in the 1940s and 50s after world war ii ends. This is a photograph of her with her husband andy in front of andys hotel, and he plays a prominent role in how her career ends. Yeah, up to this point in the story theres so many women who come to congress through that connection to their husband, through some kind of familial connection. She loses her position because of that familial connection. She represented the district of minnesota through two terms, but she came up through the Democratic Farmer Labor Party in minnesota. And thats how she got her political start. She served in the minnesota house of representatives and had a very promising political career. In 1954 she decides to run for a u. S. House seat, she goes against the wishes of democratic farmer labor leaders who are not happy with the fact she doesnt want to stay in the statehouse of representatives, so she has to fund her own political campaign. And she does so. She wins election. Her husband andy at this point, this was a strained marriage to begin with, he grows jealous of her political success. And so coya knutson in the house has a very successful career. She gets on the agriculture committee. Its a very promising career. One of the things she does because of her background as a teacher she wants to push for a federal student loan program. And she manages after the sputnik crisis to slip in a provision, an amendment to the National Defense education act in 1958 that establishes federal student loans. So she knows the legislative ropes and really pushes her agenda. Unfortunately she runs for election that year and democratic former labor operatives sabotage her campaign. They write a letter that they get her husband andy to sign. And the letter says that their marriage is suffering because shes far from home, and it intimates there might be some kind of untoward relationship with a staffer that she has, and the tag line on the letter is coya, come home. And she essentially loses the reelection because of the negative publicity thats generated by that letter. And a lot of it is because of the social expectation still prevalent, that womens place was in this domestic sphere inside the home. And that really comes back to hurt the campaign. In the 1958 midterms shes the only incumbent democrat to lose her seat, and her career comes to a close. She later tries to run for congress again but she unsuccessful. Julia Butler Hansen of Washington State is definitely one of the women in this era who is pushing the ball along for women in terms of this apprenticeship theyre serving as a group. She becomes a very influential member of the house, and her background was actually as a member, a long time member of the Washington Statehouse of representatives. So shes got lot of legislative speerps before she ever comes to capitol hill. She was the chair of a couple different committees in the state legislator. She served quite often as speaker protam. One of the things in washington she was a prime mover behind establishing the ferry system in the state. So shes got a lot of legislative experience. And shes not your typical freshman when shes elected in 1960. And she very quickly moves into a position of influence. She gets a seat on the Appropriations Committee on the house. And by the mid1960s she vies for a subcommittee chairmanship, one of the socalled cardinals of the Appropriations Committee. And she competes for a seat on the interior and related agencies subcommittee. And its a tough competition, but she wins out. But the chairman of the committee, a man of the full committee decides well he tested her in getting the chairmanship and hes going to test her as a new chairman soch so the first time she comes to the full committee with her bill for interior and related agencies which is hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, its a big appropriations bill. He says to her, julia, this is great but youve got to cut 2 million out of it. And she kind of looked at him and said yes, mr. Chairman, she left. And she went back to her subcommittee and comes back a couple days later to the full committee and says, mr. Chairman, i want to report back to you i found 2. 5 million to cut out of the bill. Julia, thats just wonderful. Wherever did you find it, right out of your district, mr. Chairman. And he never bothered her again. Martha who was a power in her own right said of julia hansen that she knew how to exercise power better than any woman shed seen in any legislator. And coming from Martha Griffiths thats high praise. She represented a michigan district and like some of the earlier women here like julia Butler Hansen shes got a lot of experience before she ever comes to congress. Shes a lawyer. She serves as a judge in michigan, and shes elected to the house in 1954. She comes in 1955 and moves into a position of influence. Shes the first woman after a number of women in congress had campaigned with the speaker to get a seat on the very exclusive ways and means committee, the tax committee. And from that position she really weighs in on a lot of issues affecting women monetarily, but shes probably best known as the mother of the equal rights amendment. Every year she reintroduced the equal rights amendment, which has a history in the house in Congress Going back to 1923. And the bill was just stuck in the Judiciary Committee and never came out. She was a lawyer by training. She didnt think the Supreme Court was ever going to decide a case that would make women truly equal with men, so she got behind the equal rights amendment. She gets it out with a discharge petition in the early 1970s, passes the house, stalls in the senate. And then she comes back and does it again in the following congress. And finally era passes in 1972 and goes out to the states. Its never approved as a constitutional amendment but Martha Griffiths was really among a core group of women the prime mover behind that. Another thing she does during the 1964 civil rights act, she was very interested in pushing an amendment through that would give women equal rights in terms of employment. But she was very cagey about how she did it. She knew that the chairman of the house rules committee, howard smith who was a committed segregationist, that he wanted to sink the 64 civil rights act. And she caught wind he was going to introduce an amendment that would introduce sex the word sex into an amendment that would provide for equal opportunity, equal economic opportunity, title 7 of the civil rights act. So she held back because she knew smith could bring a lot of southern votes with him. And smith intended this simply as a gimmick to sink the civil rights act. Well, he gets onto the floor and talks about how he wants to insert the word sex into this amendment. And theres laugh and giggles around the chamber and people guffawing and Martha Griffiths follows smith up on behalf of the amendment and said if theres any need to prove that we need this amendment the laughing and the guffaws prior to me getting up here, they proved it. And the chamber fell silent. Eventually that amendment in title 7 was included in the civil rights act. So, again, another key legislative action by Martha Griffiths. This is a Campaign Poster for Shirley Chisholm, the first africanamerican woman in congress. Its not for her congressional campaign. Its actually for Something Else entirely. Its actually for a president ial campaign that she waged in 1972. And she went to the Democratic Convention and actually rounded up about 10 of the votes. Shes the first africanamerican woman to run for president , and she did it on a shoestring budget and had a very admirable showing. But she had a reputation, a National Reputation well before 1972. Shes elected to congress in 1968 from a district that encompasses much of brooklyn. And she becomes very prominent in that campaign. Her opponent in the general election on the republican liberal republican ticket was james farmer, one of the great civil rights leaders. And theres this back and forth between these two, and farmer really runs on the idea that, you know, brooklyn needs a man in congress, and Shirley Chisholm, boy, she fires back. And her Campaign Theme is like the one expressed on this poster is unbought and unbossed. Im fighting shirly chizm. She becomes the first africanamerican woman in congress in 1969, and she serves a career that in a lot of ways is symbolling. Shes a first. She helped establish the Congressional Black Caucus in 1971. And then she also gains a very prominent committee assignment. Shes the first africanamerican woman to serve on the house rules committee, which is the committee that pulses ledge slaegz onto the floor. So she had her hands on a lot of important developments in the house. But she also had a National Reputation, she was someone who was very outspoken, which is which represents really a lot of the women who were coming into congress at this point. Her colleague from new york city was bella abzug who served for a couple of terms in the 1970s and would later try to become mayor of new york unsuccessfully. But these were two women who spoke their mind whether it was about Committee Assignments they didnt agree with. Shirley chisholm was assigned originality to the agriculture committee, and she went to the leadership and was told by the speaker of the house be a good soldier. So she went onto the house floor and started saying things like ive got a lot more veterans in my district than i do trees. She was assigned to the Veterans Affairs committee. So these were not people who were going to sit and be quiet either in terms of the expectation for freshman generally or for women members. So they really kind of challenged the system, and this really reflects a lot of whats going on in Wider Society with the womens Rights Movement in 1960s and 1970s, that women are challenging these roles that had been carved out for them and really trying to participate in a much more important and fuller way in u. S. Society. And Shirley Chisholm certainly represents that. One of the things that we did in the last ten years was commission portraits of some of the pioneers in the house, and that certainly included Shirley Chisholm. And the portrait we did of Shirley Chisholm very much deliberately depicts a lot of what matt was talking about about her, that she had a national agenda, she took on an advocacy role. So this portrait of her is in a few ways a traditional congressional portrait. It highlights the figure, the subject who was there. But the capitol is present, too, so you know where she is. But it very much makes the capitol smaller than her stature nationally. She very immediately was taking on those roles, and also its a very assertive portrait. Shes really looking at the viewer and in fact gesturing practically to the viewer. And in order to do that we sought out artists when we felt could really sort of tell a story very quickly, and that included Childrens Book illustrators. And this particular portrait was someone whos an internationally Award WinningChildrens Book illustrator. And interestingly its become one of the portraits most beloved by children who visit the capitol because they look at it and can immediately see whats going on, and its a piece of history thats a great thing for kids to hear and for tour guides to be telling when they bring kids around to see this. One of the things thats happening with chisholm, too, a lot of the women who were elected to congress increasingly have prior legislative experience. She served in the new york state legislator, and she had that background. And a lot of the women coming in with her have got that kind of legislative experience already, and that makes a tremendous difference when you get into the latter decades of the 20th century, the 80s, the 90s because youve got women who are experienced running campaigns, and theyre stronger candidates. And thats part of the reason why we see the growth of women in congress particularly in the 1990s when we go from what had really never been 20 women at any one testimony to 40, 60, 80 women serving in any given congress. These are just a few of the hundreds of Campaign Buttons we have in the collection, but i love seeing them all together. We try to put a human face on the house and to give people individual stories and latch onto and understand. Each of these women have fascinating stories, but i have to admit one of the things that i love is seeing them all together and seeing this great richness and variety of women putting themselves forward to serve their country in congress. And im deeply impressed by all the women who ran for congress and all the women who served there. One of my favorite is probably lindsey boggs. Its interesting because this is the time period where cici more and more women who have political careers in their own right who are elected to the house, but she follows that old widows mandate. Her husband, hale bogs had represented a new orleans district for almost three decades. Hed risen to become a majority leader in the house and many people expected him to become speaker of the house. And in october of 1972 during a Campaign Trip to alaska his aircraft disappeared and he was presumed dead. The seat was later vacated. And linda baugz was prevailed to onto run for the seat. Well, she had for years been her husbands eyes and ears in the district. She ran his campaigns back home particularly as he moved up the leadership ladder in the house, and she knew his office and his agenda intimately. And she came into congress, and it was unlike the shirley ch chisholm, theres a great story she has of getting an assignment, there was a bill before the banking and Currency Committee that would provide equal access to credit. When the bill was being marked up in committee the draft came around and she looked at it and it said equal access to credit without racial, age, veteran status discrimination, but it said nothing about sex or marital status, and she had just become a widow and had to have all the finances transferred over to her, so this was fresh in her mind. And so she quietly took a pencil and inserted the phrase, sex or marital status, got up, walked to the copier, made a photo copy for everyone on the dais, handed it out and said knowing everyone on the committee as i do i know this was just an oversight, and i will assume my addition here will be wholeheartedly greeted. And with that the Committee Voted Unanimously for the change in the amendment. But thats how linda bogs worked and she was a real institutionalist and someone who cared very much about the history about it. We are indeed a nation that is of a majority of women. We also are a nation where the majority of women who are heads of household with children under 6 years of age are in poverty. As women started gaining power and the second wave of feminism got going in the 1970s something happened that was really kind of wonderful and its called super sisters. And it happened in 1978 when a little girl in new york who collected baseball cards and was pretty young and i think shes here 10 years old went to her schoolteacher and said how come i dont have baseball cards with women on them. She developed a series of cards with important women and got a grant from new york state to produce them zwrsh they became Trading Cards and they were actually very popular. 50,000 sets of the cards were sold and of those quite a few are women of color. These are just a few. We dont have a full set of the super sisters. We have a full set of all the women in congress represented in the super sisters. And the backs have stats, no rbis or anything like that but birth home and little bits about each person. And theyre wonderful because some of them have quotations from these women and what their accomplishments are and how they got there. And they became wonderful parts of the 1970 civil engagement. Also some of them have some really fantastic hair. And those cards really coincide with a trend really that begins in the late 1970s, and thats women are organizing and empowering themselves to move further up the congressional leadership ladder. More women are being elected to congress. In 1977 both republican and Democratic Women come together and found the congressional womens caucus, which has a very successful legislative agenda pushing womens specific issues in the 1980s and 1990s. In the 1980s you begin to see the development of a Political Action committees that fund women candidates. That had been one of the things that held women candidates quite a bit was money for expensive campaigns. And then in the 1990s you begin to see greater numbers of women elected. The 1992 campaign, the socalled year of the woman sends almost two dozen new women in the house. This is only the beginning. These women know how many talented, experienced, able and prepared women there are in their states and in other states. It is our job together to make sure that they think about running, that we get them to accept the challenge of running and then that we support them through that race to victory because this is what you can get if you work at it. Thanks. And every election after that, every cycle the number begins to tick up slowly. And they get better Committee Assignments, a more diverse range of Committee Assignments and they move up into leadership positions. And right down to the modern era where we have Cathy Mcmorris rogers whos the chair of the republican conference and nancy pelosi who was the former speaker and is still the democratic leader. So the transition women have made in that last time period has been one of great expansion. And when you look at it you go back to 1917 and its been a span of 298 women, almost 300 women up to this point. So its a long story but its a good one. You can see this and all other american artifacts programs on our website, cspan. Org history. Youre watching American History tv. Every weekend on cspan 3 explore our nations past. Cspan 3 created by americas Cable Television companies as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. Weeknights this month were featuring American History tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan 3. Tonight a look at civil war objects. Historians held a series of online talks this summer about artifacts featured in their joint publication. The civil war in 50 objects. In the first of four of these programs we show tonight they discuss objects related to soldiers uniforms. Watch tonight beginning at 8 00 eastern enjoy American History tv this week and every weekend on cspan 3. Up next a discussion on the role of women in politics since the 1920s both behind the scenes and as elected representatives. Historians talk about suffragists, new deal era political appointees and politicians barbara jordan, patsy mink and nancy pelosi. Good morning, everyone. Welcome tis