Existing comment:
The House Chamber: 1840-1961:
The House Chamber is designed in the shape of a Greek amphitheater and features a semi-circular screen of Corinthian columns. The room has been restored to its 1840-1865 appearance with the original colors and decorative painting schemes. The 120-member House of Representatives, known as the House of Commons, debated and enacted laws in this chamber until 1961. It moved to the State Legislative Building in 1963 due to a lack of space and modern conveniences in the Capitol. Today this room is used for educational programs and special ceremonies.
As in the Senate Chamber, most of the furnishings in this room are original. The Speaker of the House presided at the upper desk, while clerks sat at the lower desk. Newspaper reporters worked at the curved front table. It is believed that the Ordinance of Secession likely was signed at the reporter's table on May 20, 1861, as North Carolina entered the Civil War as a Confederate state.
Thomas Scully's portrait of George Washington was purchased by the state for $500 in 1816 to hang in the House Chamber of the State House, which stood on this site until a fire started on the roof and destroyed the building in June 1831. This portrait is one of the three items saved during the fire and has hung in this room since 1840.
In 1920, 26-year-old Lillian Exum Clement of Buncombe County became the first woman elected to the North Carolina House of Representatives. She won by a landslide (10,368 votes to 41) and, ironically, entered the office shortly before the ratification of the 19th Amendment granted women the right to vote. Clement was not only the first female elected to the NC General Assembly, but she was also the first woman to serve in any state legislature in the South. |