Background:
The United States House of Representatives is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they compose the legislature of the United States.
Under the Articles of Confederation, the Congress of the Confederation was a unicameral body in which each state was equally represented, and in which each state had a veto over most action. After eight years of a more limited confederal government under the Articles, numerous political leaders such as James Madison and Alexander Hamilton initiated the Constitutional Convention in 1787, which received the Confederation Congress\'s sanction to amend the Articles of Confederation. All states except Rhode Island agreed to send delegates.
The issue of how to structure Congress was one of the most divisive among the founders during the Convention. Edmund Randolph\'s Virginia Plan called for a bicameral Congress: the lower house would be of the people, elected directly by the people of the United States and representing public opinion, and a more deliberative upper house that would represent the individual states, and would be less susceptible to variations of mass sentiment, would be elected by the lower house.
The House is referred to as the lower house, with the Senate being the upper house, although the United States Constitution does not use that terminology. Both houses\' approval is necessary for the passage of legislation. The Virginia Plan drew the support of delegates from large states such as Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, as it called for representation based on population. The smaller states, however, favored the New Jersey Plan, which called for a unicameral Congress with equal representation for the states.
Eventually, the Convention reached the Connecticut Compromise or Great Compromise, under which one house of Congress (the House of Representatives) would provide representation proportional to each state\'s population, whereas the other (the Senate) would provide equal representation amongst the states. The Constitution was ratified by the requisite number of states (nine out of the 13) in 1788, but its implementation was set for March 4, 1789. The House began work on April 1, 1789, when it achieved a quorum for the first time.
During the first half of the 19th century, the House was frequently in conflict with the Senate over regionally divisive issues, including slavery. The North was much more populous than the South, and therefore dominated the House of Representatives. However, the North held no such advantage in the Senate, where the equal representation of states prevailed.
Regional conflict was most pronounced over the issue of slavery. One example of a provision repeatedly supported by the House but blocked by the Senate was the Wilmot Proviso, which sought to ban slavery in the land gained during the Mexican–American War. Conflict over slavery and other issues persisted until the Civil War (1861–1865), which began soon after several southern states attempted to secede from the Union. The war culminated in the South\'s defeat and in the abolition of slavery. All southern senators except Andrew Johnson resigned their seats at the beginning of the war, and therefore the Senate did not hold the balance of power between North and South during the war.
The years of Reconstruction that followed witnessed large majorities for the Republican Party, which many Americans associated with the Union\'s victory in the Civil War and the ending of slavery. The Reconstruction period ended in about 1877; the ensuing era, known as the Gilded Age, was marked by sharp political divisions in the electorate. The Democratic Party and Republican Party each held majorities in the House at various times.
The late 19th and early 20th centuries also saw a dramatic increase in the power of the Speaker of the House. The rise of the Speaker\'s influence began in the 1890s, during the tenure of Republican Thomas Brackett Reed. Czar Reed, as he was nicknamed, attempted to put into effect his view that The best system is to have one party govern and the other party watch. The leadership structure of the House also developed during approximately the same period, with the positions of Majority Leader and Minority Leader being created in 1899. While the Minority Leader was the head of the minority party, the Majority Leader remained subordinate to the Speaker. The Speakership reached its zenith during the term of Republican Joseph Gurney Cannon, from 1903 to 1911. The powers of the Speaker included chairmanship of the influential Rules Committee and the ability to appoint members of other House committees. These powers, however, were curtailed in the Revolution of 1910 because of the efforts of Democrats and dissatisfied Republicans who opposed Cannon\'s arguably heavy-handed tactics.

Meyer, Herrmann Julius 1826 – 1909
Herrmann Julius Meyer and his father, Joseph Meyer (1796-1856) were German publishers of an illustrated travel series called Meyers Universum: Ein Jahrbuch für Freunde der Natur und Kunst
After an apprenticeship as a bookseller, he returned to work in his fathers publishing house that was founded in Gotha in 1826 as a bibliographic institute.
Joseph Meyer had admired the people and institutions of America and sent his son to establish a printing house in New York. In 1852 Herrmann published an American edition of the Universum Views Of The Most Remarkable Places And Objects Of All Countries which was published by the North American Bibliographic Institution (New York: H.J. Meyer; first volume, 1852; second volume 1853.) using prints from Germany.
In 1855 Meyer published The United States Illustrated; in Views of City and Country, with Descriptive and Historical Articles enlisting the services of Charles A. Dana, editor of the New York Tribune, to be editor of the series. Unfortunately, the series did not do well as most titles were a mix of German and English, making them scarce to find today of excellent views of early America.
Herrmann Meyer had six sons, among them: Hans (Africa researcher and first ascendant of Kilimanjaro, 1858-1929), Arndt (1859-1920), Carl (1861-1908) and Hermann (1871-1932, also explorer in Africa).
In 1884 Herrmann Meyer withdrew from the publishing house and handed it over to his eldest sons Arndt and Hans.
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