Steve Livengood
welcomes the crowd in the Capitol's Mansfield Room.
the coming year's Combined Federal Campaign. USCHS President Ron Sarasin spoke about
plans for the Society's 50th anniversary this year and introduced the evening's speaker, Farar Elliott, Curator and Chief, Office of Art and Archives, U.S. House of Representatives. Elliott discussed her role as curator and using unique perspectives to view objects and learn more about the people who created and used them. She focused on the paintings in the Capitol by Albert Bierstadt, which originally hung temporarily in the
U.S. House of Representatives chamber, were taken down, hung again later, and finally taken down when the chamber was remodeled in the late 1940s. Her story illustrated how scientific inquiry and biography can bring to life more about an object than what meets the eye! Now the Bier- stadt paintings have been restored and given a permanent place in the stairwell from the Capitol Visitor Center to the Rotunda in the east front of the Capitol, so each year millions of Capitol visi- tors can see them up close.
House Curator Farar Elliott
To get involved as a Society volunteer, please contact Steve Livengood at slivengood@uschs.org or 202-543-8919 x17. 15 THE CAPITOL DOME
