The pounding of the Speaker’s gavel may not sound artful to everyone,
but the House History and Preservation Office is honoring the familiar
legislative tool.
The new Speaker’s gavel display, just outside the House floor’s visitor galleries, shows off the instrument’s more delicate and historic sides.
{mosads}A small wooden case holds five gavels arranged behind glass in a half-circle and includes three photos of gavels being made and handed over to leaders.
“The commanding rap of a gavel punctuates each meeting of the House of Representatives,” the display’s text reads. “Both a parliamentary tool and a symbol of authority, the gavel has a longstanding association with congressional proceedings. This display highlights gavels of Speakers of the House and illustrates their roles as emblems of leadership.”
House Curator Farar Elliott said Speakers’ gavels can act as vessels of the Congress’s history.
“There are very few things in the institution that symbolize the work of the legislative body as much as the gavel,” she said. The new display came together, she said, because Speakers have traditionally donated significant gavels to the House or gifted them to congressional staffers, often with inscriptions.
One of the display’s gavels came from Tip O’Neill (D-Mass.), who was Speaker from 1977 to 1987. He gave a gavel to longtime House employee Gilman Udell after Udell won the McCormack Award for congressional employees.
In black ink, O’Neill wrote in capital letters across the gavel head: “To Gil Udell, with my thanks and congratulations, Thomas P. ‘Tip’ O’Neill, The Speaker, Used during Hon. John Brademas’ speech on recipient of 1976 John W. McCormack Award, May 26. 1977.”
Elliott said her office tries hard to maintain the gavels in the condition in which they were given, rather than restore them.
{mosads}“One of the gavels had a piece of Scotch tape over it, probably to protect the ink on it, and we would not remove the Scotch tape, because that was part of its history,” she said.
The House’s gavels are made in-house, under a division of the Chief Administrative Office. One of the display’s photos shows a machinist looking at a line of several gavels being made in 1938 for then-Speaker William Bankhead (D-Ala.).
Other gavels in the collection include Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) initial gavel when she was sworn in in 2007 as the first female Speaker; a 2000 gavel from then-Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.); and a 1965 gavel from then-Speaker John McCormack (D-Mass.).
Art: “Call to Order!” A collection
of the Speaker’s gavels
Location: Third floor of the Capitol, facing the House Members Family gallery