Anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964: Newly Digitized Material Coming Soon to the Digital Library

On July 2, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law. This legislation, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, ended segregation and unequal voter registration requirements. It also prohibited employment-based discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin.1 This legislation would be passed a few weeks

Older Americans Month 2021

In March of 1944, a 43-year-old Senator Claude Pepper introduced a resolution to designate the second Sunday in October as “Old Folks Day.” While the resolution did not pass, Pepper would go on to devote much of his energies in the Senate and later in Congress, to ensure that elderly Americans retained the ability to

Maggie Kuhn, Claude Pepper and the Repeal of Mandatory Retirement

“Some persons dodder at 30, others at 80, and some pass through life without “doddering” at all. Our concern should be with competency, not age, race, sex or religion” – Representative Claude Pepper, 1986 There was a time for many professions in the United States when a person’s 65th birthday signaled the end of their

Solar Energy: A Brief Look Back

In the early 1970’s the United States was in the midst of an energy crisis. Massive oil shortages and high prices made it clear that alternative ideas for energy production were needed and solar power was a clear front runner. The origins of the solar cell in the United States date back to inventor Charles

Claude Pepper and the National Institutes of Health

This Tuesday, April 7, was World Health Day, and to celebrate, we’re shining a spotlight on the work of Senator Claude Pepper and his role in expanding the National Institutes of Health. Established in 1887, the primary location of the National Institute of Health is based in Bethesda, Maryland. Originally known as the Hygienic Laboratory,

Discovering the Path: The National Institutes of Health in the Claude Pepper Papers

U.S. Senator and House of Representative Claude Pepper was an exemplary public servant who was solely committed to unifying healthcare opportunities for all Americans regardless of socioeconomic status or ethnicity. Throughout his career, he became a fierce advocator of health care reform in strengthening social security funding and Medicare/Medicaid benefits. Thus, creating provisions for at

Take a look back at over 40 years of American history in the pages of the Claude Pepper Diaries

From his first day as a United States Senator on January 1st 1937 to within four years of his death in office as a United States Representative on May 30, 1989, Claude Pepper kept a detailed personal account of his life as a public servant. During the summer of 2015, the staff of the FSU

Happy Birthday Senator

Today we would like to wish a happy 115th Birthday to Senator Claude Denson Pepper. Claude was born on September 8, 1900 in Camp Hill Alabama, to sharecropper parents Joseph and Lena Pepper, to whom he would remain a devoted son. After graduating with his undergraduate degree from the University of Alabama in 1921, Pepper