it will be here through january 19 of next year. please come back and see it often. thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> you are watching american history tv every weekend on c-span3. sunday at its p.m. and 10 p.m. eastern time, matthew wasniewski use artifactsott to trace the history of women in the house, beginning with the election of jeannette rankin and ending with the story of margaret chase smith. that is sunday at 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. eastern time on cpa -- c-span3. week, american artifacts visits museums and historic places. we take you inside the u.s.

capitals house wing, where matthew wasniewski and farar elliott use artifacts and photographs to trace the history of women in congress. this is the first of a two-part program. >> the story of women in congress begins with jeanette rankin who is elected to the house in 1916 from montana. she is elected to the house four years before women have the right to vote nationally, and in a way, she is really a bridge from the suffrage movement to women attaining full rights. if you look at the first two decades of women who were elected, and there are roughly ,bout 20 women who were elected a good number of these people don't have a political background. they have not held elective office. they are, a large number of them, are widows who succeed there late husbands in congress. later, political scientists will

describe this as the widows mandate, which was the route for a lot of the early women into congress. this really persisted through the 1960's and into the 1970's. a large number of women followed maybe they hador a prominent political father who they followed into congress. there was a real familial connection. that was not rankin's experience. it was, for this woman here that we are looking at in this picture, this wonderful picture of edith morris rogers. she was a widow from massachusetts. she succeeded her husband, john rogers, who was a high-ranking member of the foreign affairs committee. the ranking republican. she actually had a lot of

experience helping him with administering the committee and administering his personal office. so, she knew what his legislative agenda was. she kind of knew the rhythms and the contours of life on capitol hill. one of the things that happened when a senior member passes away, the house has to have a special election. no one can be appointed to the house. depending on state laws, that has to happen in a fairly short amount of time. what would happen is local party leaders would often turn to the widow and say, will you run for the partial term? you have name recognition. rogers will be on the ballot. the expectation is the wife would serve out this term and then she would retire and the party leaders would find a suitable male candidate to succeed her. rogers had different ideas. she actually unzips laying in the house for 35 years.

she is still the longest-serving woman in the house. she was for a very long time the longest-serving woman in congress. she was recently surpassed by barbara mikulski of maryland. she not only had longevity. she was very influential in terms of veterans affairs. prior to her experience in the house, she also had volunteered for the red cross. she had become an advocate for servicemen returning from world war i. 1940'spublicans in the briefly regained the majority in the 80th congress, she becomes one of the very first women to chair a major congressional committee. she chairs the veteran affairs committee and the 80th congress and again in the 83rd congress when the control flip-flopped back and forth. she was a republican. >>