RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
As we've been reporting today, Nancy Pelosi passes the gavel to a new speaker of the House, John Boehner. That phrase, passing the gavel, caught the ear of one of our producers. So NPR's Travis Larchuk looked into the expression.
TRAVIS LARCHUK: We should really be saying passing a gavel, because many, many gavels are used by the speaker of the House. And that's for a very simple reason.
Mr. MATT WASNIEWSKI (Historian): Gavels break, you know, from frequent use.
LARCHUK: Matt Wasniewski is a historian for the House of Representatives. And here's an example of what he means.
Mr. WASNIEWSKI: Joe Cannon, who was one of the great speakers in House history, in the early 20th century, we have accounts where he's gaveling away furiously and the head flies off and lands one or two rows down the rostrum among the reading clerks.
LARCHUK: Aside from the occasional gaveling accident, speakers also like to hand out gavels as souvenirs. Farar Elliott's a curator at the Capitol. She says things are different in the Senate, where there really is just one gavel. The Senate version's a bit more stately. It doesn't have a handle, and it looks like an hourglass-shaped paperweight made of ivory.
Ms. FARAR ELLIOTT (Curator): It dates back at least to the 1830s, maybe earlier. The gavel they have now is a replica of the original gavel, because in the 1950s, then-Vice President Richard Nixon was presiding over the Senate, and he rapped it and it broke.
LARCHUK: The government of India kindly sent a replacement, which the Senate has used ever since. But the House can be much rowdier. Four hundred thirty-five members with two-year terms make a lot more noise, and the polite tap of a piece of ivory just doesn't cut it.
(Soundbite of paper rustling)
LARCHUK: Here in the room at the Capitol, where artifacts from the House are stored, curator Farar Elliott's unwrapping some acid-free paper to show off one of the newer models.
Ms. ELLIOTT: This is a gavel of the variety that is used in the House chamber.
LARCHUK: And here's what it sounds like.
(Soundbite of banging)
LARCHUK: Over the years, House gavels have been made in different sizes with different materials. The current model?
Ms. ELLIOTT: It's made of maple. It has a lacquer finish on it, little lines are incised in it. They're burned in it, like a wood burning kit you might have used as a child.
LARCHUK: The new design looks a bit more sporty than the old version.
Ms. ELLIOTT: You know, times change.
LARCHUK: And the gavels are made onsite by carpenters at the Capitol. The Office of the Architect didn't want to discuss this on tape, but one of the guys who works there told me he expects they'll make a couple hundred gavels for this Congress.
Still, one of these gavels has managed to distinguish itself - a gavel set aside by the clerk of the House to use once every two years to open a new session of congress. Here's Farar Elliott.
Ms. ELLIOTT: This tradition does date all the way back to the last century.
LARCHUK: Yes. All the way back to the far-off year of 1999.
Ms. ELLIOTT: In 1999, the clerk of the House used a gavel to open the proceedings of Congress and decided to save that gavel and use it again to open every Congress. So the clerk took that one gavel, put a piece of Scotch tape around it so he would remember to use that gavel next time, and kept it.
LARCHUK: If you look at that gavel, you can still see the residue from the Scotch tape. This is how history is made.
Travis Larchuk, NPR News.
MONTAGNE: And you can see some historic gavels used in the House of Representatives at our website, npr.org.