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Before microphones improved the acoustics of the House Chamber in the 20th century, the official stenographers had to run from speaker to speaker to catch every word. This image from Leslie’s Weekly Illustrated, drawn by T. Dart Walker, shows “brainy, quick-witted resourceful men” recording a lively debate. It was an exhausting tag-team job, as the newspaper described it. “The reporter must project himself somehow [into the fray], straighten out the tangle on paper, and make everything run smooth for the pages of the Record. When one reporter has caught his thousand words he retreats to a room below to dictate them to graphophone, his place at the heart of things being taken by a second reporter.”
History, Art & Archives, U.S. House of Representatives, “"Taking Notes" in the House of Representatives,” http://history.house.gov/Collection/Detail/30521 (January 04, 2013)
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