In previous years, legislation providing federal support for the arts had failed in the House, but on July 14, 1965, the House Education and Labor Committee reported H.R. 9460 which was similar to the bill the Senate had approved. Supporters of the…

The administration bill and S. 316 were referred to the Subcommittee on Arts and Humanities, chaired by Pell, which held a joint hearing on February 23, 1965 with the Special Subcommittee on Labor of the House Committee on Education and Labor. As…

In his State of the Union address, President Lyndon B. Johnson called for a National Foundation on the Arts, but he didn’t mention a similar foundation for the humanities. S. 1483 was an administration bill introduced by Senator Claiborne Pell…

On June 14, 1965, the House Democratic leadership rallied the majority to “support the President” and to fulfill “a specific pledge of the Democratic Platforms both in 1960 and 1964” by voting for H.R. 6927. They warned that the bill’s opponents’…

Chairman Dawson convened an executive session of the full committee on May 5, 1965 to vote on H.R. 6927 and report the bill to the House. He stated that the legislation simply upgraded the existing Housing and Home Finance Agency (HHFA) to…

While there was strong support for a new department from city residents, urban political leaders, and housing advocacy organizations, rural America was less receptive. This letter from John C. Lynn, Legislative Director of the American Farm Bureau…

In the House of Representatives, Representative Dante B. Fascell (D-FL) introduced H.R. 6927 that created a Department of Housing and Urban Development. Representative William L. Dawson (D-IL), chair of the House Committee on Government Operations,…

Between 1961 and 1964, Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson annually proposed that Congress pass legislation creating a cabinet-level housing department. On March 28, 1965, this typed copy of the administration- backed bill creating a…

On July 9, 1965, the House rejected the Republican substitute bill, H.R. 7896, by a vote of 166 to 215. The House then considered fourteen amendments to H.R. 6400, but only passed three that made no consequential changes to the bill. The House…

On June 1, 1965, the House Judiciary Committee reported a revised H.R. 6400, but Celler endured a month’s delay in bringing the bill to the floor when Howard W. Smith (D-VA), chair of the House Committee on Rules, kept the voting rights bill bottled…