Oral Factory

'Over the past quarter century, the Senate Historical Office has interviewed Senate officers, parliamentarians, clerks, police officers, chiefs of staff, reporters, photographers, Senate pages, and senators. These interviews cover the breadth of the 20th century and now the 21st century, and include a diverse group of personalities who witnessed events first-hand. Darrell St. Claire, Assistant Secretary of the Senate, offered reminiscences of senators from Huey Long to Lyndon Johnson. Ruth Young Watt, Chief Clerk to the Subcommittee on Investigations under Joseph McCarthy and "Scoop" Jackson, candidly described fellow staffers Roy Cohn and Robert Kennedy, and reminisced about witnesses such as Howard Hughes and Jimmy Hoffa. Jesse Nichols, clerk and librarian for the Finance Committee from 1937 to 1971, was the first African-American hired on the Senate’s clerical staff. He spoke of the long, slow transition from a segregated city to an integrated workplace.