How The U.S. Capitol Historical Society Keeps Democracy Real

The U.S. Capitol is one of the most recognizable buildings in the world, but many Americans don’t realize there’s an organization dedicated to preserving its story and turning that history into practical civic education. We sit down with Roswell Encina, president and CEO of the U.S. Capitol Historical Society, to talk about what it really means to “own” the people’s house and why the Capitol’s history includes far more than lawmakers, from preservation teams and librarians to the Capitol Police and everyone who keeps democracy functioning day to day. 

We get into the moments that make visitors stop and stare, like stepping into the Rotunda or Statuary Hall, and we share a few surprising Capitol facts you can’t unsee once you know them. One of our favorites is the star inside the Capitol that helps define Washington, DC’s quadrant grid and the symbolism behind the Capitol's location on a hill. We also talk about the building’s deeper legal history, including the era when the Supreme Court met inside the Capitol and why places tied to cases like Amistad still give people goosebumps. 

From there, the conversation shifts to teaching civics in a way that sticks. Roswell tells a story about following a group of Title I eighth graders through the Capitol and realizing just how hungry students are for real, place-based learning when they’re invited to ask honest questions. We also break down teacher professional development and classroom resources, including workshops centered on the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as well as guidance on how educators can use digitized primary sources from the Library of Congress, the National Archives, and presidential libraries from anywhere in the country. If you care about civic engagement, history, and practical civics education, subscribe, share this with a teacher or student in your life, and leave a review with the biggest question you want civics class to answer.

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Transcript

Welcome And The Society’s Mission

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome back to the Civic Senior podcast. I am stoked today because I think there are a lot of Americans that don't know that each of the three branches of government actually have historical societies attached to them. And today I get to talk to Roswell Ancena, who is the president and CEO of the U.S. Capitol Historical Society. So, Roswell, thank you so much for being here. First, can I ask, what is the U.S. Capitol Historical Society?

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Well, it is wonderful to be with you, Liz. Well, the United States Capitol Historical Society started in 1962. You know, our job is to preserve history and the story of the Capitol. That goes way beyond clearly just members of Congress and their staff. This includes for anybody who's been part of the history of democracy that happens here at the Capitol building, whether it's the members of Congress, clearly, or but most importantly, like the preservationists, the historians, the staff members, as I mentioned, the librarians at the Library of Congress, the Capitol Police, you know, the architect of the Capitol. They all are part of what makes the Capitol what it is, a place that symbolizes democracy for the nation. And we really want to make sure that people understand what happens in the Capitol, how bills are passed, and, you know, most importantly, what members of Congress are doing for their constituents back home.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

I love that. So can I ask the question first? What is the most interesting or fun part of your job as the president and

Why The Capitol Still Stuns

SPEAKER_01 1:29

CEO of the Historical Society?

SPEAKER_00 1:31

I mean, just walking into the Capitol every day is uh it takes your breath away still when you walk into the Rotunda or you walk into Statuary Hall. I mean, you're always marveled clearly over the, you know, the paintings and the murals. But what I find really energizing is when you see the faces of people coming from all over America who visit um Washington and come to the Capitol every day. You know, we there's a major flood of students that come in the springtime and it doesn't stop until almost like winter time, but it's still busy then. But you see their enthusiasm and their appetite, you know, for learning what's happening at the Capitol, this history of the Capitol. But most importantly, you know, every day feels like a civics class when it comes to current events. They start to understand why, you know, how did that bill get passed? Why did the government shut down? It's some of those things that we really want to kind of elevate and help not only students, but the average American who visits the Capitol, that this is theirs. It is their house. And, you know, we like to say that we do help and serve members of Congress and their staff. But most importantly, we're here to serve the people they represent back home.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

And I've been to the Capitol a couple of times. And you're right. Anytime I walk in, I'm my breath is taken away. And it's just, it's such a cool place, and there's so many little pieces of history kind of throughout the Capitol. What is like one surprising or lesser-known story about the Capitol that you think people should know?

SPEAKER_00 3:02

This is probably when you visit Washington, you'll probably always see the addresses at northwest or northeast or southeast. The Capitol is the city's grid. So at the very you know, the bottom floor of the Capitol building, there it it it it there's a star there. It pretty much divides the grid of the city. So if you're above it, you're you know, you're in the northwest and you're the corner of it, you're in the southeast. People do not know that. And that's how And Fant kind of designed the city and and used the Capitol as its guide. And you'll also know because there's a reason it's called Capitol Hill, it's

The Star That Maps Washington

SPEAKER_00 3:33

on top of a hill. And you probably wonder why didn't they put the White House on top of a hill? The reasoning behind that is because our founders didn't want to pattern ourselves like what was going on in Europe. Because you know, we don't report to a king, we don't report to a palace. So that's why they put the house, the cap, the capital, on top of the hill, because the focus of power there means it's the people. But clearly the Capitol and the White House are still connected via Pennsylvania Avenue.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

And I actually have a picture of my feet at that star because I remember going with a teacher group and being like, I did not know this existed. And I will say, I think my favorite part of the Capitol is the fact that the Supreme Court was in the basement before their building was even built. It's such a cool thing to see.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

And that Supreme Court, there's so many uh historic cases that were tried there, especially the case of Amistad, you know, of the enslaved folks who were taken from Africa. And it was in that chamber when where arguments were made. So, like everywhere else in the Capitol, there are certain places that you enter that will give you goosebumps, especially when you're reminded of what happened in there or who was in there. And you know, these are the same steps that uh Abraham Lincoln walked, or James Garfield and all to our contemporary um members of Congress. It is it it humbles you, but it also realizes um how far the nation has come, especially as we celebrate America 250 this year.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Yes, and the rotunda too. It is, I think when I walked in there, I was so overwhelmed in the best sense. And I remember standing there and like a couple members of Congress just walked by because this is their like they're working, they're doing stuff.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Yes, that is one thing that's also fascinating. Uh especially when if you're a tourist, if you're a student and you're walking around, of course, you're marveling clearly at how beautiful the rotunda is. But as you mentioned, yes, you'll bump into members of Congress and their staff. Sometimes they're the ones doing the tour. And you see that despite, you know, what you may think of each of them or their politics, that they're people, that they do represent their constituents back home, and they are dedicated to uh upholding democracy in our nation.

The Supreme Court Under The Capitol

SPEAKER_00 5:55

Um, I want to talk about you know the people who visit, and I want to just tell you a little experience that I did earlier this year. Earlier this year, on January 6th, was the fifth anniversary of you know the January 6th thing. The Capitol was open. It was open for business, business as usual. We had a tour, but one of our, I'll talk about this later, are we the people tour for Title I eighth graders? So at first I thought, you know, I'll follow them around. See, yeah, I wanted honestly to see how they react to these tours. At first, you you remember how you were in middle school, you were just happy to get out of the classroom, you know. So, and you know, and then you were going on a field trip, and you know, we'll just have fun. Uh, so I just thought they would barely be paying attention to the docents. However, and this is what really kind of inspired me. You see these kids, and these are eighth graders, by the way. You know, it's hard to hold the attention of middle schoolers nowadays. They were genuinely paying attention and asking questions and raising their hands. And I realized, oh, this just proves that there is an appetite for it among kids. And, you know, I love teachers to death, but you know, they're given some constraints that they can't do. Um, you know, but civics and history is not taught the same way as we were kids. And um, we're hoping what we do at the Capital Historical Society, we could help the students and help the teachers and really kind of fill in the void that that's been missing.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

And I think that place-based civics too is something. I mean, I taught middle school for 13 years, and being at a place and being able to see it, I think is so cool for kids because you can read about it all day or they can look up stuff online. But when they're there, I think the learning is just different for kids. So it doesn't surprise me that middle schoolers were like, this is actually kind of cool.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Exactly. And you know, and these are middle schoolers who live in the District of Columbia. What's shocking is many of them have never been to the Capitol. And that's why we do this program. So, I mean, this is literally in their backyard or front yard, or it's just down the street from their schools. And we want to open it up to them. You know, my big dream is hopefully we can open that up more to Title I schools around the country, or at least in the greater DC area. But, you know, we'll get there someday. But I really feel like, because as I mentioned, there is an appetite for it that could really help, you know, inspire kids. I went, I used to work at the Library of Congress before I came here, so which is still part of the Capitol Hill up Clearly campus that we still kind of try to elevate. It was the middle of winter. So the students were coming to the library for a tour so they could understand primary sources and all that stuff. But it was in the middle of a the snow was coming down and it was very cold, and the school was open. I'm just surprisingly schools were open in DC that day. So they had to walk from the school. So these poor, you know, they just had to trek through the cold to get to the library. So they made it. At first, you know, they're kind of like, oh, man, warming up. Then when they finally looked at the building, the Library of Congress is arguably one of the most beautiful libraries in the world.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

They were like, they really got kind of got their, you know, it took their breath away. And I remember hearing one of the kids, the next time we come back here, we need to dress up because this is clearly where future presidents come and visit. And I'm like, oh my goodness. So you know, I think many of us kind of minimize what we expect out of middle schoolers and kids. They're paying attention. And I think they are hungry to learn more and have and want to, you know, pave the path for their generation, of course, or at least for what they want to learn.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Oh my gosh, that gave me like goosebumps. I I know, right? This is this is why I love teaching so much is those little moments. So, what do you hope then that visitors, whether they're students or the general public or teachers, take away from capital tours and these educational programs that your organization offers?

SPEAKER_00 9:41

For the tour, I'm hoping you know it builds a little bit of, it feeds a little nugget, you know, thinking, oh, and when they see all the statues around Saturday Hall, I could be Frederick Douglass, you know, I could be Rosa Parks and really see themselves when they visit the Capitol. It this is not a place just for you know scholars or historians or politicians. It's it's theirs. And we really want them to feel inspired, at least that will really let them understand the history of the past 250 years and the milestones that have happened in the past 250 years. Uh, I think there's gonna be a lot of focus clearly this year of what happened 250 years ago by our founders and the writing of the Declaration and the Independence and everything. But I like to stress, especially from what we do, a lot was accomplished in 250 years that we need to recognize. You know, as

January 6 And Student Curiosity

SPEAKER_00 10:32

we all know, uh U.S. history is not as you know joyful as it should be. But we need to recognize that. But because of that, there are some major parts of history that Congress played a major part. They passed landmark legislation that both made the country more inclusive, it you know, made things more freer for people, um, from you know, Voting Rights Act to um, you know, to environment protection acts to a lot of that has helped America. That I we want to kind of try to let people understand that a lot needs to be celebrated aside from what just happened 250 years ago, because you know, the country's come a long way. But for our other programs, and those are just the tours. As I mentioned, we have our Capital Civics program. One of the big things I'm very proud of are these teacher workshops that we do around the country. We go, get out of the DC Beltway and go to our partner institutions around the country. We've so far we've been to Ohio, Illinois, and Florida, and we're hoping to make it to, well, not we're hoping, we're going to Texas later this year. So we partner with other institutions, whether it's a presidential library that we're doing at Texas will be the LBJ Library in Texas. In, I mean, in Florida, we partnered with uh Florida State University. Illinois, we partnered with Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library. So there's a connection of, you know, and a theme that we want to bring teachers to experience these places. But most importantly, we want to give them the tools and like lesson plans of how to go back to their classrooms. We look that as like a generational change, hopefully, we could do. Clearly, whatever we teach the teachers goes beyond that one classroom that they're teaching that day or that this school year. That it will, they'll take it to future, you know, classes that they'll be teaching. And hopefully it impacts several years of how they teach and what they are teaching to their students. And we're very proud of that. And I believe that we see the difference it's making of how getting the teachers to energize. And I think most importantly, we just want to know, let the teachers know we're here to support them. You know, being a teacher nowadays is tough by itself. And uh, we want to make sure that the they're aware of these resources that's available to them. You don't have to attend the workshop. Clearly, we have many of this on our website, that and giving them the resources that's available to them, whether it's the primary sources from the Library of Congress or the National Archives, all these other presidential libraries, that this is there for them. And there's a reason why these libraries and archives and institutions are digitizing these items. So you don't have to come to Washington to view Rosa Parks's papers at the Library of Congress or see the Declaration of Independence at the National Archives. That these are all available to you from your classroom in Montgomery, Alabama, or, you know, or Seattle, Washington, or you know, or up in Maine. These are for them.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

And that makes me so happy. You know, as a former teacher, I think there are a lot of teachers out there that just within their undergrad or grad didn't really get a whole lot of civics. And so having all of these resources and listeners, these will be in the show notes. They're actually very easily accessible through any search. But this is why I love organizations like yours, right? Like we're here for teachers, we're here for students. How can we help? How can we help? So, can I ask a question about like the teacher professional development? So this year's is at the LBJ Library and it's on the Voting Rights Act of 1965. So, can you just give me a little like look into what that looks like for teachers?

SPEAKER_00 13:57

We decided on that subject matter, but for two reasons, because it is an election year, it's the midterms. So there's nothing more basic in civic engagement than voting, you know. Um we're hoping, so we're assuming many of their students are going to be asking about that, especially it's in the news a lot, especially going into the next school year, which is the few months leading up to the midterms. And we selected that because it's the Voting Rights Act and the LBJ presidency helped pass that, or at least it happened during his presidency. And we're hoping that it will fill the void of the questions there that the teachers will be asked, especially the importance of, you know, why the voting acts, writing acts, voting rights act came about. I mean, for a complete generation or generations, they probably don't understand that not everybody were allowed to vote. I mean, as 60 years ago, or even um at this point, about 100 years ago, women couldn't vote. So these are the things that they need to understand. So it will deep dive

Making The Capitol Feel Like Yours

SPEAKER_00 14:55

deep into that, and hopefully it will help give the resources for the teachers when they go back to schools. I I I pulled this out of you. I wasn't sure if you noticed. Um, it's it's it's our little it's one of our earlier publications here at the Society of the History of the Aphrodite Historical Society. There's one thing I've always kind of underlined, and I always kind of kind of use this as a guiding light. Congressman Schwenkel, who started uh the Historical Society, says uh he believed that this new society could become a history teacher to the nation. And I really kind of saw that as something that we do. Uh of course, you know, we'll always kind of elevate the history of the Capitol building, but that is the main uh crutch of I believe that calls for the moment, especially now. Reaching out to teachers, reaching out to students, reaching out to parents of what they could all do, or at least teach their kids, or at least instill them both to be both critical thinkers, but also to acknowledge our shared history.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

I I really love that. And again, listeners, we will put all of this on. And if you ever get to Washington, DC, I mean the Capitol, the archives, like all of these buildings, the Library of Congress, again, another building that when you walk into, it just absolutely takes your breath away. And again, these are cool buildings, but they're also workplaces, and they're also like you're in the heart of DC and of democracy. So is there anything else? That's all you want to get in. Everything is free. Is there anything else you'd want our listeners to know about the historical society, about DC, anything like that?

SPEAKER_00 16:35

It's important to know, especially during as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of our nation, that democracy still is very vital and understanding how that works. You know, there's a lot of clearly the nation does feel a little bit divided. But I know this is not a direct quote, but Doris Kern Scoodwin likes to say that there is hope in history. And, you know, throughout history, the nation has not always kind of gone along, but it does find its way to resolve itself through um, you know, either working together, working across the aisle, passing landmark legislation. You may feel a little depleted or defeated right now because of kind of the tone of politics and um how everything's going on. But hold hope that people are doing the right thing, that they do have the average American in mind. And I believe, I mean, that they will make it work like all the generations of politicians and everybody who came before us.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

Yeah, because this, I mean, the United States has been through some pretty hard times. I mean, good doing this podcast, we've talked about the Civil War, we've talked, I mean, there's so many pieces, but you're right, democracy lives through hope and it lives through that working together. And I think that the Capitol is a perfect example, right, of groups of people working together

Teacher Workshops And Digital Resources

SPEAKER_01 17:57

to just better our country and live the ideals of the Declaration of Independence.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Indeed. And, you know, we we try to do a lot of public programming now too that we're thinking outside of what we normally do. We've been doing a lot of these conversations of host hosting like historians. You know, we partnered at Seasman. So we recently had Douglas Sprinkley, Candace Millard, Doris Curns-Goodwin, we even had Nick Offerman a couple of weeks ago because he starred as Chester Arthur and uh and Candace Millard's Netflix adaptation of her book about the Rise and assassination of James Garfield. So we're trying to really make sure that people we connect to them, make it relatable, make it more digestible, of whether for students or the average American. You know, we try to make sure that we give them an entry point of how on how to hook them. You know, when I was a kid in it was those uh schoolhouse rock cartoons that I'll always remember, I'm just a bill, which coincidentally is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. So I feel like if that did it for me, it made me understand it. I'm hoping we could do little things like that for students and the average person visiting Washington.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

I I feel so I'm reading Candace Millard's book right now because one of the scholars that works at ASU talked a little bit about James Garfield. So I watched The Death by Lightning with Nick Offerman, and it was it was, you know, it's only four episodes. And then I started reading this book, and I have not watched the conversation yet because I wanted to finish the book, and it's very funny because this has just been a thread that keeps getting mentioned throughout these podcasts. But James Garfield is not somebody I would have ever considered learning about, right? He wasn't president for that long, and Chester Arthur, like the story is so cool. And so I love that you have, and you talk about Douglas Brinkie and Doris Kearns Goodwin. Like, I can look at my library and I have those. And I love, I love that you're bringing historians to the people because I think that that is such a rich thing for Americans. You know, historians are incredibly accessible and they have such cool stories. And the fact that you guys are doing that for the general public is just, it makes my history heart so happy.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

And it does really, you know, it it re-energizes you. I mean, historians like, you know, Doug and Candace and and Doris and like John Meachum and everyone else, they do such a great job in explaining it. You know, I don't want people to think that you read their books like it's like reading textbooks. They write them like they're novels. And it really lets you they flesh out these uh people that you probably just kind of like, oh, you know, like like James Garfield's a good example. Just because he was only

Hope In History And Closing

SPEAKER_00 20:45

president for a couple months, people forgot what he stood for and how he became president. And and and the you know, the big story there of how he died. And uh the change of in Chester Arthur from what he was into he rose to the occasion to become president of the United States after the assassination of Garfield. It's that is what I really like. They really make these people you understand what they were going through when the nation was going through the same thing, and understanding where the country was at the same time, both you know, socially, economically, how they treat enslaved folks, how they were treating, you know, you know, poor folks compared to the class system and everything else. So it's there's a lot there to learn.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

Yeah. Uh Roswell, I feel like I could talk to you forever about this stuff because it is, it's it's so fun. And again, it's so accessible to teachers, to students, to the general public. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for that shared love of history and for talking to us about the US Capital Historical Society.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

It is my pleasure, and I welcome everyone to visit us in Washington.