Statuary Hall is a room in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., that houses statues of outstanding American citizens from many states. The hall itself is a semicircular domed chamber. It lies near the magnificent Rotunda on the side of the Capitol leading to the chamber of the House of Representatives.
In 1864, Congress decided that each state should be invited to send two statues to be displayed in the Capitol. The states were asked to contribute statues of distinguished citizens who were “worthy of this national commemoration.” Congress set aside the former House of Representatives chamber to display the statues.
The first statue arrived in 1870. The collection grew over the years. In 1933, architects decided that the hall was overloaded. As a result, Congress then authorized that some of the statues be moved to other sites in the Capitol.
By 1971, all 50 states had sent at least one statue. By 2005, each state had sent two. The statues honor pioneers, political and religious leaders, and other outstanding citizens. Thirty-five of the statues stand in Statuary Hall. The others are in the Rotunda or elsewhere in the building. In 2000, Congress approved legislation allowing any state to replace its statues in the Capitol. A number of states have installed replacement statues since 2003.
In 2005, Congress unanimously approved legislation to add a statue of the civil rights activist Rosa Parks to the Capitol’s collection. The Parks statue, dedicated in 2013, does not represent any one state. It was the first in the collection to honor an African American woman. In 2012, Congress voted to accept a statue of the abolitionist Frederick Douglass in the Capitol. The statue, also dedicated in 2013, was the first to represent the District of Columbia. The district’s second statue, of the French engineer and architect Pierre Charles L’Enfant, was dedicated in 2022. L’Enfant devised, in 1791, the first city plan for the U.S. capital in the District of Columbia.
Many important events in American history took place in what is now Statuary Hall. The House of Representatives met there from 1807 to 1857, except for a period of repair work from 1815 to 1819. The chamber needed the repairs after the British burned the Capitol during the War of 1812. The House met in the hall to choose the president in the contested election of 1824 and elected John Quincy Adams. Millard Fillmore took the oath as president there in 1850.
In honor of the bicentennial celebration of 1976—the 200th anniversary of the founding of the United States—workers redecorated Statuary Hall. They partially restored the room to look much as it did when the House of Representatives met there. They reopened the original fireplaces, put in reproductions of the old mantels, and installed replicas of the red draperies and oil-burning chandelier that hung there.
The floor of Statuary Hall has nine bronze markers. They honor the nine presidents who served in the chamber as representatives when the House met there.
