The Speaker of the House of Representatives is the most powerful partisan figure in the contemporary U.S. Congress. How this came to be, and how the majority party in the House has made control of the speakership a routine matter, is far from straightforward. Fighting for the Speakership provides a comprehensive history of how Speakers have been elected in the U.S. House since 1789, arguing that the organizational politics of these elections were critical to the construction of mass political parties in America and laid the groundwork for the role they play in setting the agenda of Congress today. Jeffery Jenkins and Charles Stewart show how the speakership began as a relatively weak office, and how votes for Speaker prior to the Civil War often favored regional interests over party loyalty. While struggle, contention, and deadlock over House organization were common in the antebellum era, such instability vanished with the outbreak of war, as the majority party became an "organizational cartel" capable of controlling with certainty the selection of the Speaker and other key House officers. This organizational cartel has survived Gilded Age partisan strife, Progressive Era challenge, and conservative coalition politics to guide speakership elections through the present day. Fighting for the Speakership reveals how struggles over House organization prior to the Civil War were among the most consequential turning points in American political history.

For 150 years, U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) has produced the digital documents of democracy crucial to an informed citizenry. Keeping America Informed: the U.S. Government Printing Office, 150 Years of Service to the Nation, published to mark GPO's 150th anniversary as a Federal agency, tells the story of this unique organization through a readable and concise narrative and numerous historic photographs, many of them never before published. This handsome new volume provides a panoramic view of GPO, which opened its doors for business on March 4, 1861, as Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as the 16th president of the United States. After a description of the previous history of “publick printing” and the founding of GPO, Keeping America Informed covers the agency's physical and technological growth in the Gilded Age, its reform during the Progressive Era, and its crucial role in supporting the Government's efforts to grapple with the Great Depression and two world wars. Post-World War II, the book describes GPO's transition from traditional printing to the digital technology of today. It also highlights the hugely significant role the agency has played in the dissemination of federal Government information through its publications sales and Federal depository library programs. Much of the information in Keeping America Informed is new, the product of the latest research into GPO's history. Above all, its authoritative text and unique images depict the enormous contribution of its employees, past and present, to the well-being of the American people and nation.