and artifacts is is available on the site. >> this was the fist of a two-part program. you can view this and all other programs on our website at c span.org/history. you're watching "american history tv". every weekend on c-span 3, explore our nation's past. c-span 3, created by america's cable television companies as a public service and brought to you today by your television provider. weeknights this month, we're featuring "american history tv" programs as a preview of what's available every weekend on c-span 3. tonight a look at civil war objects. a historian at the new york historical society held a series of online talks about artifacts featured in their joint publication. the civil war and 50 objects.

they discuss objects related to uniforms. watch tonight beginning at 8:00 eastern and enjoy "american history tv" this week and every weekend on c-span 3. 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 a second of a two-part program, we continue the story beginning in the 1940s with republican congresswoman claire booth. >> i'm the curator, and i take care of a lot of the artifacts, the artwork, the objects that document the house's rich heritage. >> i'm the higstorian of the house. and my job is to collect information on members to gather data and historic 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. today we thought we would try to do that with you by telling you about the history of women in congress. which is the history that dates back to the 20th century. >> this is a nifty piece of campaign. it's for claire booth. her reelection campaign. and it's quite handy. use this column when voting for

claire booth luce and make sure you're pulling the levers to reelect claire booth. >> she would have been the republican counterpart of helen douglas. she was one who was well known to the general public. her career really had started as a writer and editor. she was the managing editor for vanity fair magazine in the 1930s. she eventually later in the 1930s married henry luce, the founder of "time" and "life" and fortune magazines. she had a prominent background before she came to congress. she was elected to two terms in the 1940s. she originally had been a supporter of the new deal and she turned against fdr's domestic policies. by the time she comes to congress, she's one of the more eloquent spokes people in terms

of criticisms of fdr's wartime management. she's not an isolationist. she also is a woman who supports the equal rights amendment and enhanced role for women in the military services and outside the home. so she's something of a feminist as well. >> from america, this comes to the western front on a democr democratic mission. the congresswoman play wright serve on the military affairs committee. >> they travel toward the battle line powering the big push to the rien.

off to look over newly liberated areas behind the lines, they will make their report to the american nation. >> she serves two terms. this would have been for 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. she retires from the house at the end of the 79th congress in the 1947. she and douglas would have overlapped for a term. they certainly would have been known ifby the general public a two very prominent women with both in a political sense, but

also kind of in a cultural sense as well. >> this is one of my favorite buttons in the collection. it says continue with minnesota's first congresswoman. she's this wonderful person. matt talks about the transition of 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 in the 1940s and $50s after world war ii ends. this is a photograph of her with her husband. he plays a prominent role. >> up to this point in the story, there's so many pwomen wo come to congress through that connection through their husband. and itshe loses her congression career because of that connection. she came up through the -- she's

from a district in minnesota for two terms, but she came up through the democratic farmer labor party in minnesota. that's how she the got her political start. she served in the minnesota house of representatives. and had a promising political career. in 1954, she decides to run for a u.s. house seat. and she goes against the wishes of democratic leaders who are the not happy with the fact that she doesn't want to stay in the state house of represent. she has to fund her own political campaign. 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 in the house has a very successful career. she gets on the agriculture

committee. it's a promising career. she wants to push for a federal student loan program. and she manages after the 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 democratic farmer labor operatives sabotage her campaign. they write a letter they get her husband andy to sign. the letter says that their marriage is suffering because she's far from home and it i intimates there might be some kind of untoured relationship with a staffer that she has. and the tag line on the letter

is coya come home. and she essentially loses reelection because of the negative publicity that's generated by the letter. a the 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'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's unsuccessful. julia butler hanson of washington state is definitely one of the women in this era who ises pushing the ball along for women in terms of the apprenticeship they are serving as a group. she becomes a very influential member of the house. her background was a long-time member of the washington state

house of representatives. she has a lot of legislative experience before she ever comes to capitol hill. she was the chair of a couple different agree kmooes in the legislature. she serveds speaker pro tem. one of the things she did in washington was she was a prime mover behind establishing the ferry system in the state. so she has a lot of lgbtive experience. she's not your typical freshman lekted. she quickly moves into a position of influence. she gets a seat on the appropriations committee. 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 agency subcommittee. it's a tough competition, but she wins out. but the chairman of the

committee, the chairman of the full committee, decides, well, he tested her in getting the chairmanship and he's going to test her as a new chairman. so the first time she comes to the full committee with her bill for interior agencies, which is hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, it's a big appropriations bill. he says this is great. but you got to cut $2 million out of it. she looked at him and said, yes, mr. chairman. she went back to her subcommittee and comes back a couple days later to the full committee. she says i want to report back to you. 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. he never bothered her again. martha, who was a power in her

own right said of julia hanson that she knew how to exercise power better than any woman who she had seen in any legislature. we have a campaign postcard of martha, who was one of the influential members. she represented a michigan district and like some of the earlier women here, she has got a lot of experience before she ever comes to congress. she's a lawyer. she serves as a judge in michigan. she's elected to the house in 19 1954. she comes in 1955. she moves into positions of influence. she's 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.

she really weighs in on a lot of issues affecting women monetarily but she's 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. the bill was stuck and never came out. she was a lawyer by training. 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. 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 snalt and then she comes back and does it again in the following congress. and finally, era passes.

it's never approved, but martha was really among a core group of women 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. but she was cagey about how she did. she knew the chairman of the house rules committee howard smith, who was a committed segregationist, that he wanted to sink the 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 puopportunity, equal economic opportunity, title vii of the civil rights act. so she held back because she knew smith could bring a lot of

southern votes with him. he intended this as a gimmick to sink the civil rights act. he gets on to the floor and talks about how he wants to insert the word into the amendment and this is laughter and giggles around the chamber. and martha follows smith up on behalf of the amendment and 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 sigh will not. eventually that amendment and title vii was included in the civil rights act. so another key legislative action by martha. >> this is a campaign poster for the first african-american woman in congress. i love this because it says unbought and unbossed. but it's not for her congressional campaign. it's actually for something else entirely.

>> it's actually for presidential campaign that she waged in 1972. and she went to the democratic convention and rounded up 10% of the votes. she's the first african-american woman to run for president. she is had a very admirable showing. but she had a reputation, a national reputation well before 1972. she's elected to congress in 1968 from a district that encompasses much of brooklyn. she becomes prominent in that campaign. her opponent in the general election on the republican liberal ticket was james farmer. one of the great civil rights leaders. and there's this back and forth and runs on the idea thatted

brooklyn needs a man in congress. that's the one expressed on the poster is unbought and unbossed. i'm here to be your congresswoman. she becomes the first in 1969. she serves a career that in a lot of ways is is symbolic. she's a first. she helps establish the congressional black caucus in 1971. which is the committee that pulses legislation on to the floor. so she had her hands on a lot of important developments in the house. but she also had a national reputation. is she was someone who was very

outspoken, which represents really a lot of the women who were coming into congress at this point. her colleague from new york city was bella abrug, who would try to be elected may your. these were two women who spoke their mind. whether it was about committee assignments that they didn't agree with. shirley was signed to the agriculture committee. and she went to the leadership and she was told by the speaker of the house, be a good soldier. so she went out on to the house floor and started saying things like, i got a lot more veterans in my district than i do trees. she's assigned to the veterans affairs committee. these were not people who were going to sit is and be quiet either in terms of the expectation for freshmen generally, or for women members. so they really kind of

challenged the system. this really reflects on what's going on in wider society with women's rights movement in the 1960s and 19 70s 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 surgeonly represents that. >> one of the things that we didndid in @ last ten years was commission portraits of some of the pioneers in the house. that certainly included shirley and the portrait we did very mu deliberately depicts a lot of what matt was talking 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 portrait. it highlights the figure, the subject who was there, but the

capital is present too. you know where she is. but it makes the capital smaller than her stature nationally. and also it's a very assertive portra portrait. she's looking at the viewer and gesturing practically to the viewer. and in order to do that, we sought out artists who we felt could really sort of tell a story quickly. and this particular portrait was done by someone who internationally award winning children's book illustrator. and interestingly, it's become one of the portraits that is the most beloved by children who visit the capital. because they look at it and they immediately can see what is going orphan. and it's 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. >> she's a great example. you would really call the modern era. a the lot of the women elected to congress increasingly have prior legislative experience. she served in the new york state legislatiure. and she had that background. a lot of the women coming in with her have that kind of legislative experience already. and that makes a tremendous difference when you get into the latter decades of the 20th century. the '80s, the 90s, because you have women who are experienced running campaigns. and they are stronger candidates. that's part of the reason we see the growth in congress 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 women, have it is a nating stories. but one of the things that i love is seeing them altogether and seeing this it great richness in variety of women putting themselves forward to serve their country and congress. i'm deep ly impressed by all th women who run for congress and served there. one of my favorites is lindy

boggs. >> it's interesting because 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 had represented a new orleans district for almost three decades. he had risen to become majority leader in the house. many people expected him to become speaker of the house. during a campaign trip to alaska, his aircraft disappeared and he was presumed dead. the seat was later vacated. lindy was presumed on to run the seat. she had for years been her husband's eyes and ears in the district. she ran his campaigns back home,

particularly as he moved up the leadership ladder in the house. she knew his office and his agenda intimately. she came into kacongress and it was unlike the shirley, she had a quiet determination to push women's rights along. there's a great story she has in her memoirs of get iting an assignment to the banking and currency committee. this 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. she had just become a wid doe

and had to have the finances transferred over to her. this was fresh this her mind. so she quietly took a pencil and inserted the phrase sex or marital status, got up, walked to the copier, made a poe fhotoy 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 wholeheartedly greeted. with that, the committee voted unanimously for the change. that's how she worked. 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, the history of this place.

>> we also are a nation where the majority of women who are heads of household with children under 6 years of age are in poverty. >> as women started gaining power and the second wave of feminism got going in the 1970s, something happened that was really kind of wonderful. it's called superer sisters. it happened in 1978 when a little girl in new york collected baseball cards and was pretty young. i think she was 8 or 10 years old. she came to her mom and said 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 70-some cards of important women, mostly present, but some past, and got a grant from new york state to produce them. they became trading cards. they were very popular.

15,000 sets of the 70-some cards were sold. quite a few are women in congress. these are just a few. we don't have a full set of the supersisters, we have a full set of the women in congress. the fronts have an image of them. the backs have stats, no rbis or anything like that, but birth, home, little bits about each person. they are 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. >> those cards really coincide

with a trend that begins in the late 1970s. 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, hwhich has a successful agenda pushing women specific issues in the 1980s and '90s. in the 1980s you begin to see the development of a political action committee 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 then 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 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 we would support them through that race to victory. because this is what you can get if you work at it. thanks. >> every election after that, every cycle, that number begins to tick up slowly. as there's 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 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 you go back to 1917, it's been this span of 298 women, almost 300 women up to this point. it's a long story, but it's a good one. >> you can see this and all other programs on our website at c span.org hsh list ri.

you're watching "american history tv." every weekend on c-span 3, explore our nation's past. c-span 3, created by america's cable television companies as a public service and brought to you today by your television provider. weeknight this is month, we're featuring american history tv programs as a preview of what's available every weekend on c-span 3. tonight a look at civil war objects. historians at the new york historical society held a series of online talks this summer about artifacts. the civil war and 50 objects. in the fist of four programs, they discuss objects related to soldiers' uniforms. watch tonight beginning at 8:00 eastern and enjoy "american history tv" this week and every weekend on c-span 3.

up next, a discussion on the role of women in politics since the 1920s both behind the scenes and as elected representatives. historians talk about suffragists, new deal political appointees and politicians barbara jordan and nancy pelosi. "american history tv" moderated this session at the organization of american historians annual meeting in philadelphia. >> good morning, everyone. welcome to this morning's discussion. a roundtable on women wielding political power. i'm with "american history tv" every weekend. we are happy to coordinate with the organization of american historians to moderate this panel discussion. and of course, it could not come at a better moment in history with the 19th amendment granting the women the right to vote passed by