>> throughout the weekend american history tv is featuring , waco, texas. our staff recently traveled there to learn about its rich history. learn more about waco and other stops on c-span.org/localcontent. you are watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. >> you are watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend on c-span 3. to join a conversation, like us on facebook at c-span history. each week american history tv's american artifacts visits museums and historic places. up next, we take you inside the house wing of the u.s. capitol learn about the history of women in congress. in the second of a two-part program, we continued the story

beginning in the 1940's with republican congresswoman clare booth luce. >> i'm farar elliott. i take care of a lot of the artifacts, the artwork, the objects that document the house's rich heritage. >> i'm matthew wasniewski, the historian at the house. my job is to collect biographical information on members, to gather data and lists and conduct oral history's. we answer reference questions 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 connect with it at a human level. we do that through telling biographical stories or clips from oral histories that give people a human a sense of a very large institution. today, thought we would try and do that 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 ephemera. it is for clare booth luce, her reelection campaign. it is quite handy. it tells you what to do. use this column when voting for clare booth luce. make sure that you are pulling the levers. >> and clare boothe luce would've been the republican counterpart of helena douglas. her career had started as a writer and editor. she was a managing editor for "vanity fair." she later in the 1980's, married henry luce, the founder of "time" and "life" and "fortune." she had a prominent background and is elected to two terms in the 1940's. she turned against fdr's's domestic policies. by the time she comes to congress, she is one of the more eloquent spokespersons in terms

of criticism of fdr's wartime management. she is not in isolation list. she is an internationalist. she also is a woman who supports the equal rights amendment and an enhanced role for women in the military services and outside the home. so she is something of a feminist as well. >> from america, this can international delegation comes to the western front on a democratic mission. mrs. luce, the congresswoman and playwright and costello and

thomas serve on the military affairs committee. the group travels toward the battle line, observing american weapons and supplies powering the big push to the rhine. [gunfire] off to local over newly liberated areas, on the return home, they will make their report to the american nation. >> she serves two terms. this would have been for 41944 reelection. but -- been for her reelection. about that time, 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 she retires from the house at the end of the 79th congress in 1947. she and helena douglas would've

overlapped for a term. they would've been known by the public as two prominent women both in a political sense but also in a cultural sense. >> this is one of my favorite buttons. it says continue with coya knutson. she is a wonderful person. matt talks about the transition of generations of women. and how that relates to what is going on in the nation at large. coya in some ways pays the price of the changing view of women in the 1940's after world war ii ends. this is a photograph of her with her husband andy in front of andy's hotel. he plays a prominent role in how her career ends. >> up to this point, there are 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 connection. she came up -- first of all, she is from -- she represented a district in minnesota for two terms. but she came up through the democratic farmer labor party in minnesota. and that is 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 our u.s. house seat. she goes against the wishes of democratic farmer-labor leaders who are not happy with the fact she does not want to stay in the state house of representatives. she has to fund her own political campaign -- her husband, andy, and that was

a strained marriage to begin with. he grew jealous of her political success. and so, coya knutson in the house, has a successful career. she gets on the agricultural committee. one of the things she does is, 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 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 farmer-labor operators sabotage her campaign. they write a letter that they get her husband to sign. and the letter says that their

marriage is suffering because she is far from home and it intimates that there might be some kind of untoward relationship with a staffer that she has. and the tagline is "coya, come home." and she essentially loses the reelection because of the negative publicity that's generated by that letter. and a lot of it is because of the social expectation that was still prevalent, that women's place was in this domestic sphere inside the home, and that really comes back to hurt the campaign. in the 1958 midterms, she is the only incumbent democrat to lose her seat. and her career comes to a close. she later tries to run for congress but is unsuccessful.

julia butler hansen of washington is one of the women in this era who is pushing the ball along for women in terms of this apprenticeship they are 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 she has got a lot of legislative experience before she ever comes to capitol hill. she was the chair of a couple different committees in the state legislature. she served quite often as speaker pro tem. one of the things she did in washington was she was a prime

mover behind establishing the ferry system. so, she has got a lot of legislative experience. and she is not your typical freshman when she is elected in 1960 in a special election. and she very quickly moves into a position of influence. she gets a seat on the appropriations committee in the house. and by the mid-1960's, she vies for a subcommittee chairmanship, one of the so-called cardinals of the appropriations committee. and she competes for a seat on the interior and related agencies subcommittee. and it is a tough competition, but she wins. but the chairman of the committee, a man by the name of george mahan of texas, chairman of the committee decides -- he tested her in getting the chairmanship, and he is going to tester as the chairman. so the first time she comes to

the full committee with her bill for interior and related agencies which is hundreds of millions of dollars, he says were, julia, this is great but you have got to cut $2 million out of it. and she kind of look to him and said, yes, mr. chairman. she left. and she went back to her subcommittee. and she comes back a couple days later to the full committee, and she says, mr. chairman, i want to report back to you i found $2.5 million to cut out of the bill. julia, that is wonderful. where did you find it? right out of your disappeared he never bothered her again. martha griffiths said of julia hansen that she knew how to exercise power better than any woman she had seen in any legislature, and that is high praise. so, here we have a campaign postcard of martha griffiths who was one of the influential women members from the 1950's into the 1970's. she represented a michigan district for it and like some of

the earlier women, like julia butler hansen, she has got a lot of experience. she is a lawyer, she serves as a judge in michigan. and she is elected to the house in 1954 and she comes in in 1955. and she, too, very quickly moves into positions of influence purchase 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 the issues affecting women monetarily, but she is probably best known as the mother of the equal rights amendment. every year, she reentered used -- she reintroduce the equal rights amendment which has a history in congress going back to 1923. and the bill was just stuck in the judiciary committee and it never came out for she was a lawyer. she was very critical of the supreme court. she did not think the supreme court was ever going to decide a case that would make women truly equal with men. and so she got behind equal rights amendment.

she gets it out of the judiciary committee with the discharge petition in the 1970's. passes the house, stalled in the senate. and then she comes back and does it again in the following congress. finally, era passes in 1972 and it goes out to the states. it is never approved as a constitutional amendment, but martha griffiths is the prime mover behind that. the other 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 the chairman of the house rules committee, how are smith, a segregationist, that he wanted to sink the 1964 civil rights act or 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 economic opportunities, title vii. 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. he gets onto the floor and talks about how he wants to insert the word sex into this amendment. and there is laughter and giggles around the chamber. people guffawing. martha griffiths said, 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. eventually that amendment in title vii was included. again, another key legislative action by martha griffiths. >> this is a campaign poster for shirley chisolm, the first

african-american woman in congress. i love this because it says on bought and unbossed. it is for something else entirely. >> it is actually for a presidential campaign she waged in 1972. and she went to the democratic convention and rounded up about 10% of the votes can she is the first african-american 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 1970 two. she is 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 there is this back and forth between these two. farmer runs on and the idea that brooklyn needs a man in congress. and shirley chisolm, she fires back. her campaign theme is like the one expressed on this poster. unbought and unbossed. i'm fighting shirley chisolm. i'm to be your congresswoman. she embraces this role. she becomes the first african-american woman in congress in 1969. and she serves a career that in a lot of ways is symbolic. she is the first. she helped establish the congressional black caucus in 1971. and that she also gains a very prominent committee assignment. she is the first african-american 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. she also had a national reputation. and she was someone who was very outspoken, which represents really a lot of the women who were coming in to congress at this point. her colored from new york city was bill abzug, served in the 1970's and would later go on and try to be elected mayor of new york. but these were two women who spoke their mind, whether it was about committee assignments they did not agree with. shirley chisolm 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 onto the floor and

started saying things like, i got a lot more veterans in my district than i do trees. she is 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 freshmen generally or for women members. they really challenged the system. and this really reflects a lot of what is going on in wider society with the women's rights movement in the 1960's and 1970's. 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 chisolm certainly represents that. >> one of the things we did in the last 10 years was commissioned portraits of some

of the pioneers in the house. that certainly included shirley chisolm. and the portrait we did very much, deliberately depicts a lot of what matt was talking about, that she had a national agenda. she took on an advocacy role. so this portrait of her is a few ways, a traditional congressional portrait. it highlights the figure, the

subject, but the capital is present, too. so you know where she is. but it makes the capitol smaller than her stature nationally. she was taking on those roles. and also it is a very assertive portrait. she is looking at the viewer, and she is gesturing to the viewer. in order to do that, we saw out -- sought out artists we felt could tell a story very quickly. and that included children's book illustrators. this portrait was done by on nationally and internationally award-winning children's book illustrator. interestingly, it is become one of the portraits that is the most loved by children who visit the capitol. they immediately can see what is going on. and it is a piece of history that is a great thing for kids to hear and ft. worth guides to be telling when they bring -- for toward guys to be telling when they bring kids around. >> one of the things that is happening with shirley chisolm. she is a great example in this

era forward, the modern era from the 1970's up. a lot of women elected to congress increasingly have prior legislative experience. she served in the new york legislature, the new york state legislature. and she had that background. and a lot of the women who are 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 1980's, the 1990's, because you have got women who are experienced running campaigns, and they are stronger candidates. and that is part of the reason why we see the growth of women in congress, particularly in the 1990's when 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. [laughter] >> these are just a few of the hundreds of campaign buttons

that we have in the house collection. but i love seeing them altogether. 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. each of these women -- jeannette rankin, lindy boggs, julia hansen ahve fascinating stories -- have fascinating stories. one of the things i love is seeing them altogether in 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 have run for congress and all the women who served there. one of my favorite is lindy boggs. >> lindy boggs comes into congress in 1973 and a special election. and it is interesting because this is the time 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 hale boggs had represented a new orleans center district for almost three decades. he had risen to become the

majority leader in the house. and many people expected him to become speaker of the house. and in october, 1972, during a campaign trip to alaska, his aircraft disappeared and he was presumed dead. the seat was later vacated. and lindy boggs was prevailed on to run for the seat. she had for years been her husband's eyes and ears in the district. she ran his campaign's back home, particularly as he moved up the leadership ladder in the house. and she knew his office and his agenda. he came into congress, and it was unlike the shirley chisolms or bella absent-- abzugs, she was quiet. there is a great story about getting an assignment to the banking and currency committee. there was a bill 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 of the finances transferred over to her. so this was fresh in her mind. and so she quietly took a pencil and insert the phrase sex or marital status. got up, walked to the copier, made a photocopy 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 would assume that my addition here will be wholeheartedly greeted. with that, the committee voted unanimously for the change in the amendment. that is how lindy boggs worked. she was some of you cared much about the history of the house

and loved to tell visitors about it. and wanted folks to know about the history of this place. [video clip] >> 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 six years of age are in poverty. >> as women started gaining power in the second wave of feminism got going in the 1970's, something happened that was really wonderful, and it is called super sisters. it happened in 1978 when a little girl in new york who collected baseball cards -- i think she was eight or 10 years old -- and her mom was a schoolteacher and said that how come i have no baseball cards with girls on them? her mom said, i don't know.

that's crazy. she developed a series of cards of important women, mostly present from 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 77 cards were sold. these are just a few. we do not have a full set of the super sisters. we have a full set of all of the women in congress are presented. the fronts have an image of them. and the backs have -- this is shirley chisolm -- have stats. no r.b.i.'s but birth, home, and bits about each person. some of them have quotations from these women. and what their competence are in how they got there. they became a wonderful piece of the 1970's civic engagement. and i love looking at them, not

just for that but also because some of them have some really fantastic hair. >> and those cards coincide with a trend that begins in the late 1970's, and that is 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 women's caucus, which is a very successful legislative agenda pushing women's specific issues in the 1980's and the 1990's. in the 1980's, you begin to see the development of a political action committee that fund

women. that had been one of the things that held women candidates back a bit was money. and then in the 1990's, we begin to see greater numbers of women elected. the 1992 campaign, the so-called year of the woman, sends almost two dozen new women into the house. [video clip] >> this is only a beginning. these women know, new challenges, experience, abled 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 would 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.

as there's more women elected to the house, they get better committee assignments, they get a more diverse range. and they move up into leadership positions. and right down to the modern era, where we have cathy mcmorris rodgers who is the chair of the republican conference. and nancy pelosi who was the former speaker and is still the democratic leader. so, the transition that 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 with jeannette rankin, it has been this span of 298 women, almost 300 women, up to this point. so it is a long story but it is a good one. [video clip] >> ready? [camera shutters clicking] >> [cheering] >> you can see this and all other american artifacts

programs on our website cspan.org/history. >> up next on american history tv -- >> sam roberts, urban affairs correspondent and author of "a history of new york in 101 objects" uses a selection of artifacts from his book to tell the story of new york city. the objects range from a 1624 dutch document which she calls the city's birth certificate to a jar of dust gathered from the