Im the historian at the house. And my job is to collect biographical information on members, gather lists and to conduct oral histories. We answer reference questions in 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. 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. And today we thought we would try and do that with you by telling you about the history of women in congress which is a history that dates back to the early 20th century. This is a nifty piece of campaign femora. Its Clare Boothe Luce memorabilia. And Clare Boothe Luce would have been the republican counterpart of helen douglas. She was well known to the general public. Her career really had started as a writer and editor. She later married henry luce, the founder of time, life and fortune magazines. She was elected to two terms in the 1940s. She originally had been a supporter of the new deal and she turned against fdrs domestic policies. By the time she comes to congress, shes one of the more eloquent spokespeople in terms of criticisms of fdrs wartime management. And shes not an isolationist, though. Shes an internationalist. Shes 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 delegation comes to the western front on a democratic mission, mrs. Luce serves on the house of representatives military committee. The group travels toward the battle line, observing american weapons and supplies powering the big push to the rhine. Off to look over newly liberated areas, on their return home, they will make their report to the american nation. She serves two terms. This would have been from 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. With that, she kind of lost a lot of her zeal for Public Office and she retires from the house at the end of the 79th congress in 1947. She and helen would have overlapped for a term. They would have been known by the general public as two predominant women with both in a political sense but also in a cultural sense as well. This is one of my favorite buttons in the collection. It says continue with coya knutson. Matt talks about the transition of generations 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 with her with her husband andy and he plays a predominant 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. And coya knutson loses her congressional career because of that familial connection. She served in the minnesota house of representatives and had a very promising political career. 1954, she decided to run for a u. S. House seat and she goes against the wishes of democraticfarmerlabor leaders who are not happy with the fact she doesnt want to stay in the state house 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 successful career. She gets on the Agriculture Committee. Its a promising career. One of the things she does is ex, 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 democraticfarmerlabor 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 inter intimates there might be an 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 that is generated because of that letter. People still believed that womens place was inside the home and that comes back to hurt the campaign. In the 1958 mid terms, shes the only incumbent democrat to lose her seat and her career comes to a close. She tries to run for congress again, but shes unsuccessful. Julie butler hanson 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 that theyre serving as a group. She becomes a very influential member of the house and her background was actually as a member, a longtime member of the Washington State house of representatives so shes got a lot of legislative experience before she comes to capitol hill. She was the chair of a couple different committees in the state legislature, she served quite often as speaker prote te. She helped publish the ferry system in the state. Shes not your typical freshman and she very quickly moves into a position of influence. She gets a seat on the Operations Committee in the house and by the mid1960s, she vies for a subcommittee chairmanship. One of the 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, chairman of the full committee, decides, he tested her in getting the chairmanship and hes going to test her ooas new chairman. 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 you got to cut 2 million out of it. She looked at him and said, yes, mr. Chairman, and she left. She went back to the subcommittee and she comes back a couple days later to the full committee and she says, 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 a again. Martha griffiths who was a power in her own right said of julia hanson that she knew how to exercise power better than any woman she had seen in the legislature. And coming from martha, that is high praise. We have a campaign postcard of Martha Griffiths who was one of the influential women members from the 1950s into the 1970s. She represented a michigan district. Like some of the earlier women here, like julia butler hanson, shes got a lot of experience before she ever comes to congress. Shes a lawyer. She serves as a judge in michigan and elected to the house in 1954. She too, very quickly, moves into positions 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 it never came out. She was a lawyer by training. She was very critical of the Supreme Court. She didnt think the Supreme Court was ever going to decide a case that would make women truly equal with men. And so she got behind the equal rights amendment. She gets it out of the Judiciary Committee 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 e. R. A. Passes in 1972 and it goes out to the states. It is never approved as a constitutional amendment, but Martha Griffiths was among a core group of women, the prime mover behind that. The other thing she does is 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. And but she was cagey about how she did it. She knew that the chairman of the House Rules Committee, howard smith, that he wanted to sink the 64 civil rights act. She caught wind that he was going to introduce an amendment that would introduce sex, the word sex into an amendment that would provide for equal opportunity, equal opportunity. So she held back because she knew that 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, she gets onto the floor and talks about how he wants to insert the word sex into this amendment and theres laugher and giggles around the chamber. And Martha Griffiths says if there was any need to prove that we need this amendment, the laughing prior to me getting up here, they proved it. And the chamber fell silent. And that amendment was included in the civil rights act. Again, another key legislative action by Martha Griffiths. This is a Campaign Poster for Shirley Chisholm. The first africanamerican woman in congress. I love this because it says unbought and unbossed. Its not for her congressional campaign. Its for Something Else entirely. Its 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 shoe string budget and had a very admiral showing. But she 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 predominant in that campaign. Her opponent in the general election, in the 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, she fires back. Her Campaign Theme is like the one expressed on this poster, unbought and unbossed. Im fighting Shirley Chisholm. Im here to be your congresswoman. Shes elected. She becomes the first africanamerican woman in congress in 1969 and she serves a career that in a lot of ways is symbolic. Shes a first. She helps publish the Congressional Black Caucus in 1971 and then she also gains a very predominant committee assignment. Shes the first africanamerican woman to serve on the House Rules Committee which is the committee that pulses legislation 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 was bella abrug. These were two women who spoke their mind, whether it was about Committee Assignments that they didnt agree with. Shirley chisholm was assigned originally to the Agriculture Committee and she went to the leadership and she was told by the speaker of the house, be a good soldier. She went out and started saying things like i got a lot more veterans in my district than i do trees. Shes assigned to the Veterans Affairs committee. 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 the 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. This portrait of her is in a few ways a traditional congressional portrait. It highlights the figure, the subject who is there, but the capitol is present too. You know where she is. But it very much makes the capitol smaller than her statue temperatu stature naturally. Shes looking at the viewer and gesturing to the viewer. And in order to do that, we sought out artists who we felt could really sort of tell a story very quickly and that included Childrens Book illustrators. And this book was done by someone who is a internationally awardwinning Childrens Book illustrator and its become one of the portraits that is the most beloved by children who visit the capital. They look at it and they can see what is going on. Its a piece of history thats a great things for kids to hear and for tour guides to be telling when they bring kids around to see this. One of the things that is happening with chisholm. Shes a great example, in this era forward, you would call the modern era, a lot of the women who are elected to congress increasingly have prior legislative experience. She served in the new york legislative, the new York State Legislature and she had that background. And a lot of the women have that experience already and that makes a tremendous difference when you get into the latter decades of the 20th century, the 80s, 90s. You have 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. We go from what had never been more than really 20 women in any one time to 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 women serving in any given congress. These are just a few of the hundreds of Campaign Buttons that we have in the house collection, but i love seeing them all together. Matt and i say we try to put a human face on the house and to give people individual stories, to latch onto and understand and each of these women, jeanette rankin, lindy boggs 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. I am deeply impressed by all the women who run for congress and all the women who have served there. One of my favorite is probably lindy boggs. Lindy boggs comes into congress in 1973 in a special election and its interesting, this is the time period when we see 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 route. Her husband hal bogs had represented a district for three decades. He became majority leader in the house and many expected him to become speaker of the house. And october of 1972 during a Campaign Trip to alaska, his aircraft disappeared and he was presumed dead. The seat was later vacanted. And lindy boggs was prevailed 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 Chisholms. She had a quiet determination to push womens rights along. Theres a great story she has of getting an assignment to the banking and Currency Committee and there was a bill before the banking and Currency Committee that would provide equal access to credit. And 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 window and had to have the finances transferred over to her. This was fresh in her mind. 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 that this was just an oversight and i would assume that my addition here will be a wholeheartedly greeted. And with that, the Committee Voted Unanimously for the change in the amendment. Thats how lindy boggs worked. She was an institutionalist and someone who cared about the history of the house. And she loved to tell visitors about it and wanted folks to know about the richness of the history of this place. We are indeed a nation that is a majority of women. We also are a nation where the majority of women who are heads of households with children under 6 years of age are in poverty. We also 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 supersisters. And it happened in 1978 when a little girl in new york who collected baseball cards and was pretty young, i think she was 8 or 10 years old, came to her mom and says i have no baseball cards with girls on them. And her mom said, i dont know. Thats crazy. She developed a series of 70some cards of important women, mostly present, but some past, and got a grant from new york state to produce them. And they became Trading Cards and they were very popular. 15,000 sets of the cards were sold and of those, quite a few are women in congress. These are a few. We have we dont have a full set of the supersisters. We have a full set of all the women represented in congress. The fronts have an image of them and the backs, this is Shirley Chisholms, have stats. Birth, home, and little bits about each person. Theyre wonderful because some of them have quotations from these women and what their accomplishments are and how they got there. They became wonderful pieces of 1970s Civic Engagement and i love looking at them. Not just for that, but also because some of them have fantastic hair. 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 the 1990s. In the 1980s you see the development of Political Action committees that fund women candidates. That had held women candidates back quite a bit was money for expensive campaigns. And then in the 1990s we begin to see greater numbers of women elected. The 1992 campaign, the socalled year of the woman, sends almost two dozen new women into the house. This is only a 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 that we support them through that race to victory because this is what you can get if you work at it. Thanks. [ applause ] and every election after that, every cycle, the number begins to tick up slowly. And as theres more women elected to the house, they get better Committee Assignments, they get 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 rodgers, the chair of the republican conference and nancy pelosi who was the former speaker and is still the democratic leader. The transition that women have made in that last time period has been one of great expansion. When you look at it, you go back to 1917 with jeanette rankin, its been this span of 298 women, almost 300 women up to this point. Its a long story but its a good one. You can see this and all other american artifacts programs at our website, cspan. Org history. Weeknights this month, were featuring American History tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan3. Next, Charles Stuart coauthor of fighting for the speakership the house and the rise of party government. He discusses the history of electing a speaker of the house. U. S. House of representatives historian and house curator use a selection of artifacts to tell the history of africanamericans in congress. Later, legal and tax historian discusses his book making the modern american fiscal state law politics and the rise of progressive taxation. Charles stewart coauthor of fighting for the speakership discusses the history of electing a speaker of the u. S. House in a new congress. He examines how the process has changed since 1789 and the influence of partisanship on those changes. It seems that the rain did not dampen any determination for you to attend Todays Research or talk. Thank you for braving the elements. Im richard mccully, the historian at the center for legislative archives, the sponsor of this series. Todays program is the third researcher talk this year. Next month, we pick up the pace a bit on may 19th, professor of law and taxation at the university of Virginia Law School and a former chief of staff of the joint committee