She had buried two daughters before their father entered the White House. She buried an assassinated husband, She held one of the most visible positions in American public life while refusing to surrender entirely to the limitations imposed on her.

“The Girl Who Became a College.” A narrative of Daisy Williams’s life in the winter and spring of 1880 draws on her diary, transcribed by Tiffany Meadows, Sweet Briar College Class of 2008.

Voorhees became a major congressional advocate for the Library of Congress and served as chairman of the Senate Committee on the Library.

Payne's case was larger than Payne, as the nineteenth-century method of electing senators increasingly appeared vulnerable to money, corporate influence, and political machines. Legislative deadlocks were common. Accusations of bribery appeared in several states.

He became Speaker of the House, presided over one of the greatest concentrations of power ever held by a Speaker, survived a revolt against his authority, served forty-six years in Congress, and eventually had one of the great congressional office buildings on Capitol Hill named for him.