 | 202407 19Historical Images of the Library of Congress in the U.S. Capitol
July 19, 2024
For nearly a century, the Library of Congress made its home in the U.S. Capitol (1800–1897). Beginning in 1824, it occupied a grand, three-story space to the west of the Capitol Rotunda. After the Library of Congress moved into its own building in 1897, its former location in the Capitol was completely dismantled. Historical prints and photographs in the U.S. Senate Collection can help us to remember and revisit spaces—like the library—that are no longer extant but were once considered among the building’s architectural gems.
Of the many historical images in the U.S. Senate Collection that depict the Library of Congress in the Capitol Building, one 1897 Harper’s Weekly illustration stands out for its particularly chaotic depiction of the space. As the caption indicates, the scene portrays the institution’s “present congested condition” in the months just prior to the library’s relocation to its own building across the street. The illustration by artist William Bengough teems with visitors. Men and women, young and old, occupy every seat visible in the image and navigate mountainous piles of books and papers stacked high on the floor and on nearly every horizontal surface. In the background, the library’s innovative cast-iron architecture can be glimpsed above and behind the disorder of the central vignette. Though the library soared some 38-feet high, Bengough crops the vertical space, contributing to the claustrophobic scene. For all of this visual confusion, however, the illustration reveals at least three truths about the Library of Congress during its years in the Capitol (1800–1897): 1) it exceeded its founding purpose and served as an important public resource, 2) the library rapidly outgrew its physical spaces as its collections expanded, and 3) it was one of the Capitol’s architectural gems.
At the time of its founding, the library was intended to serve a narrower, albeit significant, purpose. Section 5 of the April 24, 1800, act relocating the nation’s capital from Philadelphia to Washington established the library. It appropriated $5,000 “for the purchase of books as may be necessary for the use of Congress at the said city of Washington, and for fitting up a suitable apartment [in the Capitol] for containing them.” Though its collections started small and its intended audience was “both houses of Congress and the members thereof,” within its first decades in the Capitol, the library’s holdings had grown in size and public importance. At the same time, its “suitable apartment” in the building grew in size and architectural stature.1
Bengough’s illustration shows the last of several Capitol spaces occupied by the Library of Congress. The library’s first two decades required it to be portable and adaptable. Though the founding act called for “fitting up a suitable apartment” to house the library’s collections, its books were first stored in the office of the Clerk of the Senate. It was not until 1802 that the library’s collections of 964 volumes and 9 maps were relocated to a large, two-story room in the northwest corner of the Capitol, a space that had most recently served as a temporary House Chamber. Just three years after moving into the new location, however, the library was asked to remove its collections to a committee room on the south side of the library so that the House could reconvene in the space. In a November 1808 report, architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe, who was hired by President Thomas Jefferson to oversee construction of the Capitol, observed that the committee room was already “much too small” and that the books were “piled up in heaps,” a situation that would certainly cause the “utmost embarrassment.”2
Despite Latrobe’s concerns, it was not until a devastating fire set by British troops at the Capitol on August 24, 1814, destroyed much of the building and completely consumed the library that it finally received a dedicated space. Congress acted quickly to replenish the Library of Congress’s holdings by purchasing the personal library of President Jefferson, but it took nearly a decade to rebuild the library itself. Congress asked Latrobe to create more committee rooms in the building’s north wing for the Senate’s use, and the architect decided to repurpose the space previously occupied by the library to fulfill Congress’s request. His March 1817 plan of the Capitol’s principal floor relocated the library to the west side of the Capitol’s center building. Architect Charles Bulfinch, who stepped in after Latrobe’s November 1817 resignation, defined the new library’s design and saw it to completion. Opened on August 17, 1824, the new library was widely recognized for its grandeur and refinement. As one commentator observed soon after the room opened, “The new Library Room is admitted, by all who see it, to be, on the whole, the most beautiful apartment in the building. Its decorations are remarkably chaste and elegant, and the architecture of the whole displays a great deal of taste.”3
The only known image of Bulfinch’s design for the Library of Congress, an 1832 view by architect Alexander Jackson Davis and artist Stephen Gimber, emphasizes the library’s impressive architecture and portrays it as a comfortable space for visitors. Four deep alcoves filled with books, as well as a second-story gallery with additional book storage, are visible along the left-hand side of the image. Monumental columns frame the library’s east and west entrances. The room is well appointed with large sofas, reading tables, and side chairs. One of the neoclassical iron stoves designed by Bulfinch to heat the room is visible in the image, towering over the library’s patrons. Architect Robert Mills remarked upon the public use of the space in 1834, “The valuable privileges afforded all, whether residents or strangers, who come properly introduced, are properly appreciated; for the room is usually well filled, during the hours it is accessible, both with ladies and gentlemen.” Thus, it is clear by this time that the library was frequently used by men and women of the public, albeit with the restriction that they “come properly introduced.”4
Despite its many amenities, Bulfinch’s library was largely constructed of wood, and the threat of fire was a persistent source of concern. The space survived one on December 22, 1825—scarcely 16 months after it had opened—when a patron left a candle burning in the gallery after the library closed for the evening. The conflagration destroyed many of the books on the gallery level (most of which were duplicates of books stored elsewhere), but firefighters were able to extinguish the flames before they reached the ceiling’s large wooden trusses. This contained the fire to the library and prevented its spread to the Capitol’s dome. This near-disaster led to discussions about how to fire-proof the library, but the required fixes were deemed prohibitively expensive. Unfortunately, a second fire, sparked by a faulty flue leading from a fireplace in a room below, completely destroyed the library on December 24, 1851. Some 35,000 volumes—approximately three-fifths of the collections—as well as many priceless artworks burned. News of the fire traveled quickly, and the Cleveland Daily Herald reported—even before the fire had been extinguished—that the destruction of the library “cannot be regarded otherwise than as a great national calamity.” Though it had been founded as a library for the use of Congress, by the time of the 1851 fire, according to the newspaper, “it had become eminently creditable as a National Library.”5
Moving rapidly to rebuild, Congress called upon architect Thomas U. Walter, who was working on the Capitol extension, to design the world’s first completely fireproof library. With amazing speed, just 24 days after the fire, Walter provided architectural plans, sections, and elevations for a new library that was revolutionary in its use of cast-iron, a strong, noncombustible material that could be shaped into delicately ornamented panels. The library had three stories of tiered alcoves and galleries with cast-iron shelving. Recessed cast-iron semicircular staircases located at each end of the room enabled patrons to ascend to the upper levels. Large foliated pendants supported the weight of the cast-iron ceiling, the first in the United States to be constructed of this material. Marble, another fireproof medium, was selected for the flooring. With a robust appropriation of $75,000 from Congress, the library, as Harper’s New Monthly Magazine described it, “rose, phoenix-like, from its ashes.” A “large number of ladies and gentlemen” reportedly gathered for the library’s public reopening on August 23, 1853, and spectators were amazed by its iron architecture, describing it as “unsurpassed for its beauty and elegance.”6
Two large extensions added in 1867 to the north and south ends of the main hall tripled the library’s physical size and greatly expanded its capacity from 38,000 to 134,000 volumes. Such a substantial expansion was necessary to accommodate the rapid growth of the collections, which more than quadrupled in size from a reported 86,414 volumes in 1864 to 374,022 volumes by 1879. This tremendous increase was driven by several significant acquisitions and purchases, including a large transfer from the Smithsonian Institution library in 1866, as well as the 1870 Copyright Act, which required all materials copyrighted in the United States to be deposited with the Library of Congress.7
Throughout this period, commentators remarked on the library’s popularity with the public. In 1872 Harper’s New Monthly Magazine reported that it was almost impossible to “visit the library at any time when its doors are open without finding from ten to fifty citizens seated at the reading-tables, where all can peruse such books as they may request to have brought to them from the shelves.” The accompanying illustration presents a view of the library, looking down from the lower gallery. It shows patrons using the library’s collections at each level. People are depicted reading, but also socializing (as in the group of three chatting prominently in the foreground) and people-watching (as in the woman pictured on the right-hand side of the image, who gazes toward a man on the opposite side of the library at the left). The article emphasizes the public’s generous access to the Library of Congress and even claims, “The library is thus thrown open to any one [sic] and every one, without any formality of admission or any restriction.”8
Illustrators had the advantage of being able to represent the social aspects of visitors’ engagement with the library in ways not easily achieved in other media. Though the space was often reproduced photographically in popular stereographs during the late 19th century, the limitations of shutter speed during this period meant that people using the library—who possibly weren’t even aware that a photograph was being taken—appear blurry and indistinct. A stereograph of the Library of Congress published by J. F. Jarvis exemplifies the ghostly appearance of the library’s patrons. Though many are seated at reading tables, they elude the camera’s quest for fixity by flipping newspaper pages and shifting in their seats. The fleeting impressions of people in the space contrast with the tremendous detail that the camera captures of the library’s static and seemingly permanent fireproof architecture.
A close examination of the first gallery level of the library in this stereograph reveals piles of books and papers stacked high on the gallery floor. Once again, the library was stretched beyond capacity. By 1875 Librarian of Congress Ainsworth Rand Spofford reported that the institution had run out of shelf space, and that books, maps, and other collection items were “being piled upon the floor in all directions.” Four years prior, anticipating the spatial limitations of the Capitol, Spofford had proposed constructing a dedicated building for the Library of Congress in a separate location. In 1886 Congress authorized construction of what is now the Library of Congress’s Jefferson Building across the street from the Capitol.9
The Library of Congress remained in the Capitol until its new building opened on November 1, 1897. The large cast-iron rooms formerly occupied by the library remained in place until June 1900, when Congress passed a joint resolution authorizing the Architect of the Capitol to reconstruct the space into three floors, with rooms on two of the floors split evenly between the House and the Senate and the third floor turned into a shared reference library. The ironwork—once considered an architectural marvel—was dismantled and sold at auction for scrap. By 1901 evidence of the Library of Congress in the Capitol had largely vanished. Only traces remained in the building’s fabric, including the library’s black and white marble flooring, which was reused in the corridor one floor below.10
The early history of the library serves as a reminder that, when walking the halls of the Capitol today, it is easy to forget such spaces—even those, like the library, that were once considered among the building’s architectural gems. Historical prints and photographs in the U.S. Senate Collection can help us to remember and revisit the Library of Congress and other sites in the Capitol that are no longer extant. Additional historical images of the Library of Congress, as well as depictions of other interior Capitol spaces, are available on the Senate website.
Notes
1. An Act to make further provision for the removal and accommodation of the Government of the United States, 2 Stat. 55 (April 24, 1800).
2. An Act concerning the Library for the use of both Houses of Congress, 2 Stat. 128 (January 26, 1802); Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, The Original Library of Congress: The History (1800–1814) of the Library of Congress in the U.S. Capitol, report prepared by Anne-Imelda Radice, 97th Cong., 1st sess., 1981, 2, 5–7. Latrobe quoted in U.S. House of Representatives, Documentary History of the Construction and Development of the United States Capitol Building and Grounds, 58th Cong., 2nd sess., H. Rpt. 646, 148.
3. William C. Allen, History of the United States Capitol: A Chronicle of Design, Construction, and Politics (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2001), 109; Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, Original Library of Congress, 26; “Congressional Library Room,” Wilmingtonian and Delaware Register, January 6, 1825.
4. Allen, History of the United States Capitol, 147–48; Robert Mills, Guide to the Capitol of the United States, Embracing Every Information Useful to the Visiter [sic], Whether on Business or Pleasure (Washington, D.C., 1834), 47.
5. Allen, History of the United States Capitol, 157–59, 206; “The Fire at the Capitol,” Cleveland Daily Herald, December 24, 1851.
6. Allen, History of the United States Capitol, 207; “The Library of Congress,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 46, no. 271 (December 1872): 46; “Adornments of the National Capitol,” Sun [Baltimore, MD], August 24, 1853, 1.
7. “The Library of Congress,” 48; US Senate, Office of Senate Curator, Isaac Bassett Manuscript Collection, Box 8, Folder C, p. 125, Records of the U.S. Senate, Record Group 46, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.; Isaac Bassett Manuscript Collection, Box 13, Folder C, p. 58a; An Act to provide for the Transfer of the Custody of the Library of the Smithsonian Institute to the Library of Congress, 14 Stat. 13 (April 5, 1866); An Act to revise, consolidate, and amend the Statues relating to Patents and Copyrights, 16 Stat. 198 (July 8, 1870).
8. “The Library of Congress,” 49.
9. John Y. Cole, “The Main Building of the Library of Congress: A Chronology, 1871–1965,” Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress 29, no. 4 (October 1972): 267; An act authorizing the construction of a building for the accommodation of the Congressional Library, 24 Stat. 12 (April 15, 1886).
10. Joint Resolution Relating to the use of the rooms lately occupied by the Congressional Library in the Capitol, 31 Stat. 719 (June 6, 1900); Allen, History of the United States Capitol, 370.
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 | 202307 18Out of this World: Historic Space Artifacts in the U.S. Senate Collection
July 18, 2023
The U.S. Senate Collection includes thousands of fascinating and historic artifacts, but two in particular could be considered “out of this world!” These items—a 1969 United States flag and a 1993 printing of Thomas Jefferson’s A Manual of Parliamentary Practice—have flown to space on historic missions and are now under the care of the Office of Senate Curator. Together, these objects evidence the Senate’s support for space exploration and research and serve as tangible reminders of the first crewed lunar landing and NASA’s space shuttle program.
The U.S. Senate Collection includes thousands of fascinating and historic artifacts, but two in particular could be considered “out of this world!” These items—a 1969 United States flag and a 1993 printing of Thomas Jefferson’s A Manual of Parliamentary Practice—have flown to space on historic missions led by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and are now under the care of the Office of Senate Curator. Together, these objects evidence the Senate’s support for space exploration and research and serve as tangible reminders of the first crewed lunar landing and NASA’s space shuttle program.
Perhaps the most famous U.S. flag associated with the space program is the one astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin planted on the Moon on July 21, 1969. Approximately 650 million viewers worldwide tuned into live television to watch Armstrong’s and Aldrin’s first steps on the lunar surface. So momentous was this event that, in 1972, the U.S. Senate Commission on Art, under the leadership of Senator Mike Mansfield of Montana, directed the creation of a mural commemorating the mission for the Senate wing of the U.S. Capitol. Artist Allyn Cox completed the mural America’s First Moon Landing, July 21, 1969, in his studio, and the work was approved and installed in the Brumidi Corridors in April 1975.1
The three vignettes that comprise Cox’s mural—the Apollo 11 launch from Kennedy Space Center on July 16, 1969, at the bottom; the flag planting on the Moon on July 21, 1969, at the center; and the view of “Earthrise” at the top—intertwine themes of technological and scientific progress with national cooperation and commitment and signal their global implications. The Apollo 11 moon landing was the realization of President John F. Kennedy’s vision, stated in an address to a joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961, that the United States “should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth.” Kennedy appealed to national pride when requesting that Congress fund the effort, adding, “But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon—we make this judgment affirmatively—it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.” Prominently portrayed at the center of Cox’s mural, the U.S. flag signals the importance of U.S. government support and investment in making the endeavor a success.2
In addition to the U.S. flag famously planted on the lunar surface by Armstrong and Aldrin and pictured in the center of Cox’s mural, the Apollo 11 astronauts brought with them two flags that had previously flown over the U.S. Capitol. The one now in the U.S. Senate Collection flew over the Senate wing, traveled to space with Apollo 11, and was presented to Vice President Spiro Agnew by astronaut Michael Collins at a joint meeting of Congress on September 16, 1969. Armstrong presented the other flag, which had flown over the House of Representatives wing of the Capitol, to Speaker John McCormack. At the joint meeting, Armstrong credited Congress with making the Apollo 11 mission possible, declaring, “It was here in these Halls that our venture really began. Here the Space Act of 1958 was framed, the chartering document of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. And here in the years that followed the key decisions that permitted the successive steps of Mercury and Gemini and Apollo were permitted.”3
The flag presented by Collins to Vice President Agnew is a seemingly ordinary, cotton flag measuring five feet high and eight feet wide and manufactured by the Dettra Flag Company, but its involvement in the Apollo 11 spaceflight makes it extraordinary. Vice President Agnew acknowledged its importance when he accepted the flag, promising, “I can assure you that this memento … will be kept and appreciated with the dignity that it deserves.” The flag was turned over to the secretary of the Senate, who then delivered it to the curator of art and antiquities of the Senate for safekeeping. To satisfy the curious public, the flag was exhibited at the Capitol until the summer of 1970. After it came off view, the Senate Upholstery Shop sewed a cloth label onto the flag that identifies the object and its historic significance.4
Nearly three decades after the Apollo 11 astronauts gifted to the U.S. Senate a flag that had flown to the Moon, another artifact of space history was presented to the Senate: a hardbound 1993 printing of Thomas Jefferson’s A Manual of Parliamentary Practice. Senator John Glenn of Ohio, a former NASA astronaut, brought the book on the space shuttle Discovery for his final voyage to space. Prior to joining the Senate, Glenn had made history as the first American to orbit Earth, circling three times during a nearly five-hour flight aboard the Friendship 7 space capsule on February 20, 1962. He set another record in 1998, when, at age 77, he became the world’s oldest person to fly in space, joining mission STS-95 as a payload specialist and subject for basic research to study how weightlessness affects the body of older persons.5
Each crew member on the STS-95 mission was permitted to sponsor items to travel into space as part of the Official Flight Kit (OFK), a container measuring approximately two cubic feet that is “reserved for carrying official mementos of NASA and other organizations aboard Space Shuttle flights.” NASA requires mementos to be “of little commercial value” and small enough to fit in the shuttle’s OFK. After consultation with staff in the Office of Senate Curator, the Senate Historical Office, and the Senate Library, Senator Glenn selected this Manual of Parliamentary Practice for the STS-95 OFK. In sponsoring an OFK item for the U.S. Senate, Glenn recognized Congress’s history of support for the space shuttle program.6
The Manual of Parliamentary Practice was a practical choice because of its relatively small size and weight, but it is also a meaningful text in Senate history. While serving as vice president (1797–1801) and therefore as the presiding officer of the Senate, Jefferson compiled the manual to serve as a guide for legislative procedures. The cover of this 1993 printing features a profile portrait of Jefferson embossed in gold. In the months leading up to his vice-presidential inauguration in 1797, Jefferson reported feeling “entirely rusty in the Parliamentary rules of procedure” and set out to create a reference manual to support his rulings and to guide future presiding officers. After its publication in 1801, Jefferson deposited the book with the Senate, where it influenced the legislative body’s approach to order and decorum. The Manual also was integrated into the rules used by the House of Representatives.7
Following Glenn’s request to include the Manual as an OFK item, it arrived at the space center at least 45 days prior to the flight for processing. The book was listed on the cargo manifest, packaged and sealed in this light pink plastic sheath, weighed, and stowed aboard the Discovery space shuttle orbiter. A small yellow sticker on the back of the plastic packaging denotes the Manual’s number on the STS-95 OFK, #106. After the flight, the Manual was returned to Glenn. The accompanying certificate of authenticity, issued from NASA’s Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, provides the official statistics of the spaceflight, reporting that STS-95 (and its OFK items, including the Manual) reached a maximum altitude of 355 miles, a maximum speed of 17,950 miles per hour, and traveled 3.6 million miles over the course of eight days, 21 hours, and 45 minutes between October 29 and November 7, 1998. On December 3, 1998, at an event at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., Senator Glenn presented the Manual to Senate Minority Leader Thomas Daschle of South Dakota and Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana. The artifact was later accessioned into the U.S. Senate Collection.8
Toward the end of his term in the Senate, Glenn reflected on his dual careers as an astronaut and a legislator: “Both fields take a lot of dedication to accomplish anything. That would be a big similarity, dedication to country and dedication to what you’re doing. But that’s about where the similarities end.” Though the similarities of working in the two “fields” might be few, it is clear that their histories are intertwined. The U.S. Senate Collection includes artworks and artifacts that make visible some of these historical intersections and the role the Senate has played in supporting and celebrating space research. For more on these objects and others, please visit the Space and Aeronautics thematic collection on the Senate website. 9
Notes
1. “Apollo 11 Mission Overview,” NASA, last updated January 5, 2022, https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/missions/apollo11.html; William Kloss and Diane K. Skvarla, “America’s First Moon Landing,” in United States Senate Catalogue of Fine Arts (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2002), 16.
2. Congressional Record, 87th Cong., 1st sess., May 25, 1961, 8881.
3. Congressional Record, 91st Cong., 1st sess., September 16, 1969, 25610.
4. Congressional Record, 91st Cong., 1st sess., September 16, 1969, 25611, 25577; Letter from Richard Baker (then Senate curator) to Francis R. Valeo (secretary of the Senate), December 10, 1969, in the files of the Office of Senate Curator. According to an unsigned, handwritten note on Office of the Secretary stationary, dated September 25, 1970, and located in Office of Senate Curator files, the label was applied to the flag that month.
5. “Profile of John Glenn,” NASA, accessed June 23, 2023, https://www.nasa.gov/content/profile-of-john-glenn.
6. 14 C.F.R. 90 § 1214.601 (1998); Memorandum from Diane K. Skvarla (Senate curator) to Sebastian O’Kelly (staff member serving Sen. Glenn as chairman of the Committee on Governmental Affairs), June 26, 1998, in the files of the Office of Senate Curator. This support began with the approval of $78.5 million dollars for shuttle research and development in fiscal year 1971. See: Migdon R. Segal, “The Space Shuttle: A Historical Overview,” Congressional Research Service, 73-123 SP, July 5, 1973, 13.
7. Wilbur Samuel Howell, ed., Jefferson’s Parliamentary Writings: “Parliamentary Pocket-Book” and A Manual of Parliamentary Practice, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 2nd series (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 9; Gaye Wilson, “Manual of Parliamentary Practice,” Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia, accessed June 5, 2023, https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jefferson-encyclopedia/manual-parliamentary-practice/; Senate Historical Office, “Idea of the Senate | The Senate's Rules,” accessed June 5, 2023, https://www.senate.gov/about/origins-foundations/idea-of-the-senate/1801Jefferson.htm.
8. 14 CFR 90 § 1214.605 (1998); “STS-95,” Space Shuttle Mission Archives, NASA, accessed June 23, 2023, https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/archives/sts-95.html; Ed Henry, “Heard on the Hill. Glenn’s Goodbye,” Roll Call, December 7, 1998.
9. Ed Henry, “Glenn Counts Down to Launch with Complete Support from Wife and Colleagues, Senator Set to Repeat History,” Roll Call, October 5, 1998.
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![Image: [Robert] Dole (Cat. no. 11.00129.096)](/about/resources/graphics/blog-cropped/11_00129_096.jpg) | 202206 01Picturing the Senate: The Works of Eleanor Mill and Lily Spandorf
June 01, 2022
In 2018 14 drawings by artist Eleanor Mill, featuring mostly senators and vice presidents, joined an important group of illustrations by the artist Lily Spandorf, expanding the Senate’s holdings of works by women artists. Bolstering the Senate’s extensive collection of works on paper, these illustrations demonstrate how these two women used their artistic talents to memorialize their perspectives on the Senate. Together, these collections showcase key events, buildings, and individuals that helped shape the Senate in the second half of the 20th century.
I love the humor you can get out of politics.1
So stated Eleanor Mill about her work as a political cartoonist and caricaturist. Fourteen of her drawings, all featuring the Senate, were donated to the Senate in 2018. The gift, which also included 84 works on paper by the artist Aurelius Battaglia, came from the artists’ daughter, Nicola Battaglia, in memory of her parents. Mill’s drawings represent the most recent addition of works by a contemporary woman artist to the Senate Collection. The drawings join an important group of 70 illustrations by the artist Lily Spandorf, expanding the Senate’s holdings of works by women artists. Together, these collections reflect a range of artistic techniques and showcase key events, buildings, and individuals that helped shape the Senate in the second half of the 20th century.
Eleanor Mill (1927–2008) was born in Michigan. Her father was an executive at General Motors, and the family relocated with such frequency that by the time she graduated from high school, she had attended 21 schools in 18 states. Eleanor trained at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C., and married Aurelius Battaglia in 1948, although they would later separate. She enjoyed early success illustrating children’s books.
It was not until the middle of her career that Mill found her true calling: political cartooning. The artist reflected on this transformation in an interview she gave to the Hartford Courant in 1988: “I spent a lot of my life doing what other people told me to do, or what other people told me I was good at. I had to get older to realize I could do what I wanted. I love what I’m doing now.” In a second interview in 1992, she discussed how her art served as a form of advocacy: “I’ve always been political, I just never thought I could do anything about it in my work until I got old.” She was well aware how few women artists were creating political art and recalled how an art director at Life magazine once told her agent that “it would be a lot easier for [Mill] if [her] name were Edward.”2
Mill’s principal focus was people, often without dialogue or background, and her use of pen-and-ink was well suited to newspapers. Mill found that televised news could be one source of inspiration: “I also use my VCR to record people so I can draw them. I don’t like to rely too much on photographs. It’s better to see [people] in movement; you get more personality.”3
Mill self-syndicated her drawings through the Mill News Art Syndicate, and her work appeared, sometimes as illustrations for op-eds, in more than 40 national newspapers. Mill sought to connect readers with topical contemporary issues ranging from politics to homelessness. While she hoped that her drawings focusing on social issues might inspire viewers to action, she had a different intention for her political drawings: “Just make them laugh.”4
The Senate’s Eleanor Mill collection consists primarily of political cartoons and caricatures of senators and vice presidents that date from the 1980s to the early 2000s. Many of her caricatures, such as those of Albert A. Gore (D-TN) and Robert J. Dole (R-KS) emphasize certain facial features of her subjects, often for humorous effect. She sometimes departed from caricature to provide a more realistic portrayal, such as in a later drawing of Gore. Other caricatures, such as one referencing Dole’s 1996 presidential campaign, include additional detail to anchor the subject in the historical moment.
Lily Spandorf (1914–2000), a native of Austria, worked for the Washington Star as a contributing artist from 1960 to 1981, providing artistic interpretations of news subjects such as the 1968 Democratic National Convention and the White House Easter Egg Roll. Her work can be found in museum collections and in the book Lily Spandorf’s Washington Never More (1988), which showcases more than 70 of her paintings of Washington, D.C., neighborhoods and buildings. Spandorf preferred creating her work “on the spot” and often searched for outdoor locations in which to draw or paint.5
In 1961 the Washington Star assigned Spandorf to sketch scenes from the filming of Otto Preminger’s Advise and Consent , taking place on location on Capitol Hill. After completing the drawings for her initial assignment, she used her press pass over the next several weeks to continue sketching scenes from the filming. “It was exciting and I loved every bit of it,” she recalled in a 1999 interview. Her work caught Preminger’s attention, and at his request her drawings were displayed at the Washington premiere of the film.6
Spandorf worked in pen-and-ink and gouache (a water-based painting technique) to create these drawings, which include numerous views of the Capitol and the Russell Senate Office Building. In the drawing of the actor Don Murray in the Russell Building corridor and in one featuring a cameraman in the Russell Building stairwell (shown here), Spandorf documents the entire scene to impart as much information to the viewer as possible. The cast and crew are captured in a moment of filming, in backgrounds of bricked archways, grand stairwells, and marble arches. She developed friendships with the people on the set, and that intimacy is reflected in her portraits of individuals, such as that of the actor Charles Laughton.
The Advise and Consent drawings chronicle interactions between people and architecture, a hallmark of Spandorf’s work. “I combined the action on both sides of the camera with the setting of the U.S. Capitol and Washington. The images capture the events surrounding this unique filming—the only time the interior of the Capitol has been used as a movie set.” The work was challenging, but rewarding: “When I looked at them after years, I was amazed at myself. How could I do that? Because many times I had to be standing up somewhere in the corner to catch the people, and I got amazing likenesses.”7
The drawings by Eleanor Mill and Lily Spandorf bolster the Senate’s extensive collection of works on paper, which range from the 19th century to the present, and demonstrate how these two women used their artistic talents to memorialize their perspectives on the institution. Selections of drawings by both artists can be found by visiting the Art & Artifacts section of the Senate website.
Notes
1. Tom Condon, “Artist Vents Conscience in Cartoons,” Hartford Courant, October 15, 1988, D-1.
2. Condon, “Artist Vents Conscience”; Steve Kemper, “Eleanor Mill: ‘I see no reason to draw pretty pictures….The good things are not the things you need brought to your attention,’” Hartford Courant, September 20, 1992, 14.
3. Kemper, “Eleanor Mill.”
4. Condon, “Artist Vents Conscience.”
5. David Montgomery, “A Perennial Draw Pictures Washington: ‘On-the-Spot’ Art Preserves City’s Past,” Washington Post, December 28, 1998, B-1.
6. Amy Keller, "'Advise and Consent' Exhibit Features First and Only Hollywood Movie Allowed to Be Filmed in the Capitol," Roll Call, September 30, 1999, 35–36.
7. U.S. Senate Commission on Art, “Senate Unveils Exhibit of Original Artwork from Filming of 1962 Classic Advise and Consent,” press release, July 26, 1999; Keller, "'Advise and Consent' Exhibit."
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 | 202110 05Hollywood on the Hill: The Filming of "Advise and Consent"
October 05, 2021
In the fall of 1961, two worlds collided when a Hollywood film crew arrived at the U.S. Capitol to film Advise and Consent, a movie based on Washington correspondent Allen Drury’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about a bitter Senate confirmation battle. Director Otto Preminger brought to the Hill an all-star cast, a crew of more than 150 people, and a lot of commotion.
In the fall of 1961, two worlds collided when a Hollywood film crew arrived at the U.S. Capitol to film Advise and Consent, a movie based on Washington correspondent Allen Drury’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about a bitter Senate confirmation battle. Director Otto Preminger brought to the Hill an all-star cast, a crew of more than 150 people, and a lot of commotion. "There's more excitement on Capitol Hill about the soon-to-be filming of 'Advise and Consent' . . . than about the long anticipated adjournment [of Congress]," the Washington Post reported. "Nearly everyone . . . on Capitol Hill is getting into the picture one way or another.”1
The star-studded cast included Franchot Tone as the president, Lew Ayres as the vice president, Henry Fonda as the controversial secretary of state nominee (whose character lied about a youthful flirtation with communism), Walter Pidgeon as the Senate majority leader, and Charles Laughton as the president pro tempore, with other roles portrayed by Peter Lawford, Burgess Meredith, Gene Tierney, and George Grizzard. Adding to the public intrigue, and much speculation in Washington, was the fact that some of the characters in Drury's novel were based on real-life politicians. Grizzard’s character, for example, was loosely based upon Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. Actress Betty White made her feature film debut playing the film’s only female senator, a character based upon Maine’s Margaret Chase Smith.2
When Preminger and his film crew arrived on Capitol Hill, Washington socialites, Capitol Hill staff, members of the press, and even senators quickly found themselves a part of the action both on and off camera. “Scores of Senators' secretaries have been signed up to play themselves in the film and can hardly wait for the Senate to adjourn so they can begin their movie career,” noted one reporter. Preminger hired hundreds of extras, including socially prominent Washingtonians, to stage a key party scene filmed at the palatial Washington estate Tregaron. Members of the Washington press corps were hired to recreate the annual White House Correspondents Dinner at the Sheraton-Park Hotel. Former senator Guy Gillette of Iowa landed a role as a fictional senator, as did Arizona’s former senator, 87-year-old Henry Ashurst, who was cast as an elderly senator with a habit of dozing off during proceedings. Washington senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson played himself in the party scene.3
To ensure authenticity, the filmmakers brought in Allen Drury as technical advisor and consulted other experts, including Senate staff. Ruth Young Watt, chief clerk of the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, recalled in an oral history interview being asked to come in on a Saturday morning to advise the movie crew on setting up the large Caucus Room in the Old Senate Office Building (now called the Russell Senate Office Building) for a hearing. When she arrived, she was informed that they planned to have her in the scene as a clerk working at the nomination hearing, but she declined. The film’s director instead cast her colleague Gladys Montier in the role.4
Preminger was permitted unprecedented access to many spaces throughout the Capitol complex. Filming took place in the Senate Press Gallery, the Capitol corridors outside the gallery of the Senate Chamber, the old Senate subway, and inside the Old Senate Office Building. Remaining off limits, however, was the Senate’s Chamber. A long-standing Senate rule prohibited filming in that historic space. Fortunately, Preminger had a remarkably accurate replica at his disposal. Back in the 1930s, when director Frank Capra was similarly denied permission to film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington in the Senate Chamber, he constructed an impressive reproduction on a Hollywood sound stage. Preminger brought Capra's old set out of storage, updated it to reflect the modern Chamber, and used the Hollywood set to shoot all Chamber scenes.5
While many on Capitol Hill were star-struck and enthusiastic about the making of the film, there were others who complained about the chaotic atmosphere. As cameras and equipment blocked streets and crowded the corridors of the Old Senate Office Building, senators, staff, and reporters found it difficult to go about their daily business. "In comes a company, lock, stock, and booms,” one person complained, “invading the Capitol and acting for all as though this exalted ground is merely another prop on sound stage seven.”6
As filming continued, events around town brought together Hollywood and Washington celebrities. At a cocktail party in the Senate Caucus Room, actor Charles Laughton chatted enthusiastically with Mississippi senator John Stennis, whose voice he had been studying for his role as a southern senator. "It's getting hard to tell a senator from an actor—and vice versa,” lamented Josephine Ripley of the Christian Science Monitor. “Not only that, even more confusing is the problem of deciding whether a Washington party is a party after all, or just a movie set.”7
To capture the action of Hollywood on the Hill, Washington’s Evening Star newspaper sent artist Lily Spandorf to create on-the-spot drawings. By the time Spandorf completed her assignment for the paper, she had become so enthralled by the movie-making process that she continued sketching throughout the duration of the Washington shoot. She produced more than 80 illustrations, depicting both the filming and the relaxed hours of waiting between takes. Her distinctive pen and ink drawings show Preminger and the actors at work in Washington and around the Capitol. Spandorf’s work caught the director's attention, and at his request her images were displayed at the Washington premiere of the film. “It was exciting and I loved every bit of it," Spandorf recalled. The U.S. Senate Commission on Art later acquired Spandorf’s sketches as a permanent addition to the U.S. Senate Collection.8
On March 20, 1962, senators attended a preview screening of Preminger's Advise and Consent at Washington's Trans-Lux Theater. The film became a box office success, but senators offered predictably mixed reviews. "Many thought it was 'good theater,' but . . . they seemed to agree they were not quite looking into a mirror," the New York Times reported. "We're much more complicated than that," Minnesota senator Eugene McCarthy complained. His fellow Minnesotan, Hubert Humphrey, added, "It was good theatre and good drama. If anyone wants a totally accurate reflection of the Senate, he can ask for a newsreel."9
Although it was a thrilling experience, the filming of Advise and Consent proved to be the last time a motion picture production crew was allowed largely uninhibited access to Senate spaces. The disruption of Senate work and other ongoing distractions prompted the Senate to refuse subsequent requests and eventually adopt rules that restrict filming and prohibit commercial use of Senate spaces unless authorized by resolution. Nevertheless, the movie captured a unique moment in time. Today, it serves as a mid-20th century time capsule of Senate history, illustrating through Preminger’s carefully constructed and edited video footage what life was like on Capitol Hill in the 1960s.10
Notes
1. Marie Smith, “Senators Won't Be in the Show, But Their Aides Will Be,” Washington Post, August 27, 1961, F5.
2. Robert C. Byrd, “The Senate in Literature and Film,” in The Senate, 1789–1989: Addresses on the History of the United States Senate, vol. 2, ed. Wendy Wolff, S. Doc. 100-20, 100th Cong., 1st sess. (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1991), 487.
3. Smith, “Senators Won't Be in the Show, But Their Aides Will Be.”; Betty Beale, "Capitalites Play Themselves in Film," Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), September 22, 1961, C-4; Eugene Archer Washington, "Cinema Congress: Capitol Sites, Sounds Serve 'Advise' Film," Washington Post, October 1, 1961, X7.
4. Washington, "Cinema Congress"; “Ruth Young Watt, Chief Clerk, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, 1948–1979," Oral History Interviews, July 19 to November 9, 1979, Senate Historical Office, Washington, D.C.
5. Byrd, The Senate, 1789–1989, 487.
6. "Capitol Stardust," Roll Call, September 20, 1961, 4.
7. Isabelle Shelton, “Celebrities Meet Celebrities: Women's National Press Club Is Host to Actors,” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), September 13, 1961, C-1; Josephine Ripley, "The Senate Meets Itself: An Intimate Message From Washington," Christian Science Monitor, September 16, 1961, 14.
8. Amy Keller, "'Advise and Consent' Exhibit Features First and Only Hollywood Movie Allowed to Be Filmed in the Capitol," Roll Call, September 30, 1999, 35–36.
9. "60 Senators Caucus at 'Advise' Preview," New York Times, March 22, 1962, 42; "'Advise and Consent,'" New York Times, May 13, 1962, SM36.
10. Keller, "'Advise and Consent' Exhibit"; Mike Canning, “Through a Dome Darkly: The Capitol as Symbol, Touchstone, and Admonition in American Film,” The Capitol Dome 55, no. 2 (2018): 5–6.
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