She went after the leadership very publicly. Well, very shortly, they came around and put her on to the Committee Assignments that she wanted. One of the artifacts that we have that im particularly fond of is this one. Its a letter from j. Ed guard hoover to congresswoman khan and the important part of this isnt actually what hes writing. Whats important is dear mother khan. And its an odd phrasing for j. Ed card hoover. But she was known very much as the mother of the fbi. So that was often how he referred to her. So this is a fascinating piece of lobbying and playing up that affiliation and that close tie that they had. By the time we get to the late 1930s, early 1940s, were beginning to see a Different Group from that Pioneer Group of women coming to congress. World war ii reshapes the rolled of women in society generally, women hold a lot of jobs that men previously held as men go off to fight in the service. And women who come into congress during that era begin to advocate more o
Each week, American History tvs american artifacts visits museums and historic places. Up next, we take you inside the house wing of the u. S. Capitol to learn about the history of women in congress in the second of a twopart program, we continue the story beginning in the 1940s with republican congresswoman clare boothe luce. Im farrah elliott, a curator for the house of representatives and that means that i take care of a lot of the artifacts, the artwork, the objects that document the houses rich heritage. My nobody job is to collect bigraphical information on members, gather data and historic list and 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 some we do that through telling biographical stories or clips from oral hist there is give people kind of a human sen