Charles Bulfinch was an early American architect, and regarded by many as the first native-born American to practice architecture as a profession. That distinction is also claimed for Robert Mills. Bulfinch split his career between his native Boston and Washington, D.C., where he served as Commissioner of Public Building and built the original rotunda and dome of the U.S. Capitol. His works are notable for their simplicity, balance, and good taste, …

Thomas Ustick Walter (September 4, 1804 - October 30, 1887) of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was the dean of American architecture between the death of Benjamin Latrobe and the work of H.H. Richardson. He was the fourth Architect of the Capitol, responsible for adding the north (Senate) and south (House) wings and the central dome that brought the U.S. Capitol building to essentially its modern appearance.

Ziad Samir Jarrah (May 11, 1975 - September 11, 2001), was the hijacker who acted as pilot of United Airlines Flight 93, part of the September 11, 2001 attacks. He is believed to have taken over as the pilot of the aircraft and made an unsuccessful attempt to crash the plane into the U.S. Capitol. There are many variations on his name, including Ziad Samir Al-Jarrah, Zaid Jarrahi, Ziad Jarrah Jarrat, …

Jacob Joseph Chestnut (April 28, 1940-July 24, 1998), one of the two United States Capitol Police officers killed in the line of duty on July 24, 1998, was the first African American to lie in honor in the U.S. Capitol. Chestnut is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. His funeral included a speech by President Bill Clinton and a fly-over by military jets in a missing man formation.

Lavinia Ellen Ream (Vinnie Ream) (1847-1914) was an American sculptor. Her most famous work was the statue of Abraham Lincoln in the U.S. Capitol rotunda.

Sarah Winnemucca (born Thocmentony, Paiute: "Shell Flower") (ca. 1841 - October 17, 1891) was notable for being the first Native American woman known to secure a copyright and to publish in the English language. She was also known by her married name, Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, under which she was published. Her book, "Life Among the Paiutes: Their Wrongs and Claims", …

Zebulon Montgomery Pike Jr. was an American soldier and explorer for whom Pikes Peak in Colorado is named. His Pike expedition, often compared to the Lewis and Clark Expedition, mapped much of the southern portion of the Louisiana Purchase.

John Burke (February 25 1859-May 14 1937) was an American lawyer, jurist, and political leader from North Dakota. Burke was born in Keokuk County, Iowa and moved to the Dakota Territory. After North Dakota was admitted to the union, he served in the state's House of Representatives in 1891 and in its Senate from 1893 to 1896. He served three terms (1907-1913) as a Democratic governor at a time when the North Dakota Republican Party had little practical opposition.

Thomas Bulfinch (July 15 1796 - May 27, 1867) was an American writer, born in Newton, Massachusetts. Bulfinch belonged to a well educated Bostonian merchant family of modest means. His father was Charles Bulfinch, the architect of the Massachusetts State House in Boston and parts of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.. Bulfinch supported himself through his position at the Merchants' Bank of Boston.

Oscar Marion was an American slave and Revolutionary War militiaman. Oscar Marion was the servant of General Francis Marion (1732-1795), the legendary "Swamp Fox." In December of 2006, Oscar Marion was recognized as an "African American Patriot" in a ceremony at the U.S. Capitol, …

John Campbell Greenway was an American mining, steel and railroad executive: a man of many trades in many states. He also had a distinguished career as a soldier, both cavalry and infantry. Greenway was born in Huntsville, Alabama and attended Phillips Academy, Andover and then the University of Virginia although he graduated in 1895 from the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University. His early employment as a furnace helper for the Carnegie Steel Company was brief, …

Edward Lewis "Bob" Bartlett (April 20, 1904 - December 11, 1968) was an American politician, and was a member of the Democratic Party. Bartlett was born in Seattle, Washington. After graduating from the University of Alaska in 1925, Bartlett began his career in politics. A reporter for the Fairbanks Daily News until 1933, he accepted the position of secretary to Delegate Anthony Dimond of Alaska.

J. Sterling Morton (April 22, 1832 - April 27, 1902) was President Grover Cleveland's Secretary of Agriculture. He was a prominent Bourbon Democrat. Morton was born in Adams, Jefferson County, New York. He was raised in Detroit and attended the University of Michigan. After receiving his diploma in 1854, he moved with his bride to Nebraska, which was not yet organized as a territory, and staked a claim in Nebraska City.

Robert Brent (circa 1763-1819) was the first mayor of Washington, D.C., the federal capital of the United States of America. Brent was born into a prominent Catholic family in Woodstock, Stafford County, Virginia. His mother was Ann Carroll, the sister of Bishop John Carroll, the first bishop appointed for the U.S. His father was a contractor and quarry owner. In 1789 Brent married Mary Young - the daughter of Notley Young, a plantation owner in Prince George's County, …

William Tyler Page, was best known for his authorship of the American's Creed. He was born in Frederick, Maryland, a descendant of Carter Braxton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence; and of the tenth U.S. President John Tyler. In 1881, at the age of 13, he travelled to Washington D.C. to serve as a page at the U.S. Capitol, thus beginning a 61-year-long career as a national public servant.

Rita Jenrette (born November 25, 1949) first came to the public eye as the wife of John Jenrette, congressman from South Carolina from 1975 to 1980. John Jenrette was implicated in taking a bribe during the Abscam investigation and his wife testified at the hearings, describing how she found $25,000 in one of his shoes. She appeared on the Phil Donahue show while he was in jail, and he called in live to join. She gave an interview to "Playboy" magazine in 1981, …

Paul N. Norton was an American artist, born Feb. 15th, 1909 in the town of Moline, Illinois. The son of a railway clerk, Norton painted more than 500 watercolors in his career, and also created many memorable logos for companies such as Dairy Queen, Pella Windows, and others. His paintings can be found hanging in the White House, U.S. Capitol, and the Iowa Governor's Mansion, among others.

Pompeo Luigi Coppini (May 19, 1870-September 26, 1957) was a sculptor, born in Moglia, Mantua, Italy, the son of Giovanni and Leandra (Raffa) Coppini. He grew up in Florence where he studied at Accademia dell'Arte del Disegno under Augusto Rivalta. Many of his works are in Austin, Texas, displayed on the grounds of the Texas State Capitol and on the campus of The University of Texas.

Michael G. Turnbull, FAIA (April 13, 1949 -) is an American architect who has spent much of his career in the public sector as a custodian of major public buildings, notably the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC as the Assistant Architect of the Capitol and as the Director of Design and Construction at the Art Institute of Chicago. In recognition of his achievements in architecture and his dedication in maintaining these national treasures, …

Samuel Nicholas Smallwood (1772 - 1824) was the fifth and seventh mayor of Washington, D.C. and was the first popularly elected mayor of the city. Appointed to a one-year term in 1819, Smallwood was elected the following year to a two-year term, which he served from 1820-1822. He then was re-elected in 1824, but served only three months of his second term before dying at the age of 52. Smallwood was born in Charles County, Maryland, in 1772, …

Walter Lenox (1817-1874) was Mayor of Washington, D.C. for one two-year term, from 1850 to 1852. Lenox was the first mayor to be born in the city of Washington, graduating from Yale in 1837 and returning to the capital to practice law in the early 1840s. During at least part of that period, he lived with future Washington mayor Richard Wallach. Lenox served on the Washington city council (the lower of its two legislative chambers) from 1842 to 1843, …

John Thomas Towers (1811-1857) was Superintendent of printing at the U.S. Capitol and Mayor of Washington City, District of Columbia, from 1854 to 1856. Towers was born in Alexandria, Virginia in 1811 to parents who had recently arrived in Virginia from Bingham, England. He was trained as a printer, joined the Columbia Typographical Society in 1834, …

Elzy Burroughs (1771/77-1825) was an American stonemason, engineer, lighthouse builder and keeper. A native of Stafford County, Virginia, Elzy Burroughs' family leased and operated a sandstone quarry in the Aquia Creek area of Stafford County. Known as Aquia sandstone, material from quarries in this area was utilized in the construction of Mount Vernon, the U.S. Capitol building, the White House, …

Gordon S. Wood (born 1933) is Alva O. Way University Professor and Professor of History at Brown University and the recipient of the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for History for "The Radicalism of the American Revolution". His book "The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787" won a 1970 Bancroft Prize. Wood was born in Concord, Massachusetts and grew up in Worcester and Waltham.

Randolph Rogers (July 6, 1825, Waterloo, New York - January 15, 1892) was an American sculptor. He was a prolific sculptor of subjects related to the American Civil War and other historical themes. Rogers studied in Florence, Italy, from 1848 until 1853. After that, he opened a studio in Rome, Italy, and resided in that city until his death in 1892.

Allyn Cox born in New York City, painted many of the walls in the US Capitol, including murals of scenes from US history. In 1953, he was hired to complete the frieze in the Capitol Rotunda, which had been originally started by Constantino Brumidi and left unfinished since the 1880s. He painted murals on many of the other walls in the building, including a depiction of the first landing on the moon in the Senate’s Brumidi Corridors of the Capitol.

John Francis Eisold, M.D. is the current attending physician of the United States Capitol. Dr. Eisold holds the rank of Rear Admiral in the United States Navy. He graduated from Dartmouth Medical School and did his postgraduate training at the National Naval Medical Center Program specializing in general internal medicine and geriatric medicine.