affairs committee. prior to the reorganization of the armed forces in the late 1940, the house had a naval affairs committee, military affairs committee. naval affairs, if you're from maine, with the big ship yards in bathe was one of the assignments you would look out for. it would allow her to speak on women in military service. she is the prime mover behind a bill that gives women a permanent role in the uniformed forces. she leaves the house the following year to serve in the u.s. senate. runs for the senate. wins election. she's probably best known in the public mind as one of the few brave senators who opposed joe mccarthy and his tactics very early on. she gave a speech called the

declaration of conscience in june 1950 where she opposed his tactics very eloquently. she goes on to serve a very long career into the early 1970s. she is one of the woman who is approaching the women of story in congress into a new era. if you're interesting, learn more by going to history.house.gov. objects and artifacts we don't have available today is available on the site. >> this was the first of a two-part program. you can view this and all other american artifacts programs on c-span.org/history. each week american artifacts visits museums in historic places. up next we take you inside the house wing of the u.s. capitol to learn about women in congress.

in the second of a two-part program, we begin in the 1940s with claire booth loose. >> i'm farrah elliott, cure airport for the husband of representatives. that means i take care of a lot of the artifacts, artwork, that documents the house's reach heritage. >> i'm matt whiz knew sky, historian of the fact. i collect biographical information, to gather data and historic lists and to conduct oral histories. we reference questions in our office that come from on the hill and off the hill. we try to tell the story of the house, this very big, very old institution in a way in which people can connect at a human level. we do that through telling biographical stories or clips through oral histories that give people kind of a human sense of

a large institution. today we thought we would do that by telling you about women in the history of congress. >> this is a nifty piece of campaign fin or a. use this for vote for claire booth loose. make sure you are pulling the levers. >> and claire bootheluce would have been the counter part of helen gahagan douglas. her career really started as a writer and editor. she was managing editor for "vanity fair" magazine in the 1930s.

she later married henry luce, time and life and fortune magazines. she is a prominent background. she was elected to two terms in the 1940s. she originally had been a supporter of the new deal and then turned against fdr's domestic policies. by the time she comes to congress, she is one of the more eloquent spokespeople of the fdr's wartime management. she is not an isolationist. she is an internationalist. she is a woman who supports the equal rights amendment and enhanced role for women in the military services and outside the home. so she is something of a feminist as well.

>> this comes to the western front on a democratic mission. mrs. luce serve on the house of representatives military a affairs committee. the group travels towards the battle line, observing american 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 in her 1944 reelection. 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 gahagan would have overlapped by a term. they would have been known as two prominent women in a political sense but a cultural sense as well. >> this is one of my favorite buttons in the collection. newt son is the generations of women and how that relates to what's going on in the nation at large. and coya in some ways pays the price of the changing view of

women after world war ii. this is a picture of her in front of her husband andy's hotel. >> up to this point in the story there are so many women who come to congress through that connection to their husband, a familial connection. coya knutson loses it because of that familial connection. she came -- first of all, she's from -- she represented a district in minnesota for two terms. but she came up through the democratic farmer labor party in minnesota. that's 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. and she goes against the wishes

of farmer leaders who are not happy with the fact that she doesn't 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, and this was a strained marriage to begin with. he grows jealous of her political success. so coya in the house has a successful career. it is a promising career. because of her background for 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 really pushes her agenda. she runs for election later that year. and operatives sabotage her campaign. they write a letter to get her husband andy to sign. and the letter says their marriage is suffering because she's far from home. it were intimates an untoward communication with a staffer. and the tag line is coya, come home. she essentially lose the election because of the negative publicity. women's place was in this domestic sphere inside the home. that really comes back to hurt the campaign. in the 1958 midterms, she's 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 is unsuccessful. julia 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 she is serving as a group. her background was a long-time member of the washington state house of representatives. she has a lot of 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 protem. she was a prime mover behind establishing the ferry system in the state. she's not your typical freshman when she is elected in 1960 in a

special election. she moves into a position of influence. she gets a seat on the appropriations committee in the house. and by the mid 1960s, she vies for a subcommittee chairmanship. one of the so-called cardinals of the appropriations committee. she competes for a seat. it's a tough competition. but she wins out. but the chairman of the committee, a man by the name of george mahan, chairman of the full compete, decides he tested her in getting her the chairmanship and will test her as a new chairman. the first time she comes to the full committee with her bill for interior and related agencies, which is hundreds of millions of dollars, it's a big appropriations bill. he says to her, julie, this is great. but you've got to cut $2 million out of it.

and she kind of looked and said, yes, mr. chairman. she left. she went back to her subcommittee. she comes back a couple of days later. she said mr. chairman, i found $2.5 million to cut out of the bill. julia, that's just wonderful. wherever did you find it? right out of your district, mr. chairman. and he never bothered her again. martha griffiths, a power in her own right, said of julia hansen that she knew how to exercise power better than any woman she had ever seen in legislature. coming from martha that's high praise. here we have a campaign postcard of martha griffiths, one of the influential members from the 1950s into the 1970s. she represented a michigan district. like some of the earlier women here like julia butler hansen,

she has a lot of experience before she ever comes to congress. she's a lawyer. she serves as a judge in michigan. she elected to the house in 1954. she comes in in 1955. she, too, she quickly moves into positions of influence. after a number of women in congress had campaigned with the speaker, to get a seat on the exclusive ways and means committee, the tax committee. from that position she weighs in on a lot of issues affecting women monetarily. but she is 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 congress and congress to 1923. the bill was stuck in the

judiciary committee. she was critical of the supreme court. she didn't 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. then she comes pack and does it again in the following congress. finally it passes in 1972. and it goes out to the states. it is never approved as a constitutional amendment. but martha griffiths was really among a core group of women and prime mover behind that. the other thing she does is is during the 1964 civil rights act she was very interesting in pushing an amendment through that would give 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, howard smith, who was a committed segregationist, that he wanted to cinque the '64 civil rights act. 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, title 7 of the civil rights act. and so she held back because she knew smith could bring a lot of southern votes with him. and smith intended this as a gimmick to cinque 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 there's laughter and giggles around the chamber. people guffawing and following up on behalf of the amendment, she said, if there was a need to prove we need to amendment, the

laughing before we getting up here, they proved it. and the chamber fell silent. eventually title 7 was included in the civil rights act. so, again, another key legislative action by martha griffiths. >> this is a campaign post for shirley chisholm, the first african-american in congress. it says unbought and unbossed. it is not for her congressional campaign. it is for something else entirely. >> it is for a presidential campaign she waged in 1972. she went to the democratic convention and rounded up about 10% of the votes. she's the first african-american woman to run for president. she did it on a shoestring budget and had a very admirable showing. but she had a national reputation before 1972. she is elected to congress in

1968 from a district that encompasses much of look brynn. she becomes very prominent in that campaign. her opponent in the general election on the liberal republican ticket was james farmer, one of the great civil rights leaders. and there's this back and forth between these two. and farmer runs on the idea that brooklyn needs a man in congress. shirley chisholm, boy, she fires back. her campaign theme is like the one on this is unbought and unbossed. i'm here to be your congresswoman. so she's -- she embrace this is role. the first african-american woman in congress in 1969. and she serves a career that in a lot of ways is symbolic. she's a firstment she helps

establish the congressional black caucus in 1971. and she gains a prominent committee assignment. the first african-american woman to serve on the house rules committee, the committee that pulses legislation onto the floor. she had her hands on a lot of important developments in the house. but she also had a national reputation. she was someone very outspoken, which is -- which represents a lot of women coming into congress at this point. her colleagues was bella abzug in the 1970s. would later go on and try to be elected mayor of new york unsuccessfully. but these were two women who spoke their mind. whether it was about committee assignments they didn't agree with.

shirley chisholm was assigned to the agriculture committee. she went to leadership and was told by the speaker of the house, be a good soldier. so she went out to the house floor and started saying things like i have a lot more veterans in my district than i do trees. she's assigned to the veterans affairs committee. so these are 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 what's going on and why our society with the women's 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 definitely represents that. >> one of the things we did in

the last 10 years was commission portraits of some of the pioneers in the house. that certainly included shirley chisholm. it 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 is there. but the capitol is present too. so you know where she is. but it very much makes the capitol smaller than her stature. she very immediately was taking on those roles. it's a very assertive portrait. she's really looking at the viewer. she is in fact, gesturing to the viewer. in order to do that, we sought out artists who we felt could really sort of tell a story very quickly.

and that included children's book illustrators. and this particular portrait is a nationally and internationally children's book illustrator. interestingly, it's become one of the portraits most beloved by children. they look at it and can immediately see what is going on. it is a piece of history that's 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 happening with chisholm too, she's a great example in this era forward, the modern air from the 1970s, up, a lot of women elected to congress increasingly had prior legislative experience. she served in the new york state legislature. a lot of women have that kind of experience already.

and that makes a tremendous difference when you get into the latter decades of the 20th century, the '80s, the '90s. you have women experienced running campaigns and they are stronger candidates. it is part of the reason why we see the growth of women in congress, particularly in the 1990s. when we go from what had never been more than really 20 women at 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 altogether. we try to put a human face on the house. and to give people individual stories to latch on to and

understand. each of these win, lindy boggs, hansen, mink, rankin, knutson have fascinating stories. one of the things i love is seeing them together and themselves forward to serve their country in congress. i'm deeply impressed by all the women who have run for congress and served there. one of my favorite is probably lindy bogs. >> she comes into congress in 1973, in a special election. and it's interesting because this is the time period when we see more and more women who have political careers in their own right that are elected to the house. she follows that old widows mandate route. her husband had represented a new orleans center district for almost three decades. he'd risen to become 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 lindy boggs was prevailed on to run for the seat. the district, she ran campaigns back home as he moved up the leadership ladder in the house. and she knew. and she came into congress and was unlike the shirley chisms, she kind of a quiet determination to push women's rights along. and there's a great story of her 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, you know,

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 inserted the phrase sex or marital status, got up, walked to the copier. made a photo copy for everyone, 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 whole heartedly greeted. and with that, the committee voted unanimously for the change in the amendment. that's how lindy boggs worked. and she was a real institutionalist and someone who cared very much about the history of the house. and loved to tell visitors about it and wanted folks to know about the richness and 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 it's called super sisters. 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 who was a schoolteacher and said how come i have no baseball cards with girls on them? and her mom quite rightly said, i don't know, that's crazy. she developed a series of 70-some cards of important women. mostly present, but some past. and got a grant to produce them. they became trading cards, they were popular, 15,000 sets of the 77 cards were sold. and of those, quite a few are women in congress. these are just a few. we actually have -- we have -- we don't have a full set of the super sisters, we have a full set of women in congress represented in supersisters. and the front image of them and the backs have stats. no rbis or anything like that. but birth, home, and little bits about each person. and they're wonderful because

some of them have quotations from these women, and what their accomplishments are and how they got there. and they became a wonderful piece of 1970s 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 really coincide with a trend really that begins in late 1970s. and that's 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 has a very successful legislative agenda pushing women's specific issues in the 1980s and 1990s. in the 1980s, you begin to see the development of political action committees that fund women candidates. that had been one of the things that held women candidates back quite a bit was money for expensive campaigns. and in the 1990s we began 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. >> 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 then that we support them through that race to victory.

because this is what you can get if you work at it. >> and every election after that, every cycle the number begins to tick up slowly. and as there's more women elected to the house, they get better committee assignments. they get a more diverse range of committee assignments and move up into leadership positions. and right down to the modern era where we have kathy mcmorris rogers 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. it's been a span of almost 300 women up until this point. so it's a long story. but it's a good one.