| Beatriz Juez |
WASHINGTON (dpa) – This year’s high-stakes primaries leading towards the election of the next president of the United States are already affecting the National Museum of American History (NMAH) in Washington.
Curators started travelled to the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary in February and are set to attend the Democratic and Republican national conventions in July in search of campaign materials and memorabilia for their collection of history.
They never come back empty-handed, but always with large black suitcases they fill time and again.
They send everything back to the museum through a parcel delivery company before getting on the plane themselves.
“I have lost my own luggage enough times. I think I would be a little nervous about losing the collection.
The National Museum of American History (NMAH) collection of hats includes this politically committed Democratic Party cheese-shaped hat worn by a Wisconsin delegate in 1996
The NMAH collection of hats includes this politically committed Republican Party panama hat worn by Puerto Rico delegates in 2012. PHOTOS: DPA
“It’s safer if we have it packed and just mailed back to us,” says curator Lisa Kathleen Graddy.
Graddy notes that she and her colleagues hand out many business cards so that people may send them used materials after the caucuses, primaries and conventions.
The National Museum of American History’s political history collection has been built up over the years thanks to donations from private collectors and materials that were purchased by curators on behalf of the museum, which is part of the Smithsonian organisation.
The collection includes objects related to the history of the US presidency and of election campaigns from the birth of the United States as a nation to the present day.
Everyday things can grow years afterwards into real national treasures: from the little portable desk on which Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence to the top hat that then-president Abraham Lincoln was wearing on the night of his assassination.
There are even some bronze buttons for clothing with the initials GW to celebrate George Washington’s presidential inauguration in 1789. And plenty of paraphernalia from more recent elections.
Some objects were of obvious significance during the election campaign in their day but now need more generous explanation, such as a golden bug. It was worn by supporters of the gold standard in the 1896 election campaign.
Beyond the merchandise that major candidates sell online or at campaign rallies, curators seek out materials that illustrate the political process.
For example, the museum’s collection holds one of the “butterfly ballots” from Palm Beach County, in Florida, which caused confusion to voters in the 2002 election between George W Bush and Al Gore. Votes had to marked in a central column, with names on two sides like the wings of a butterfly.
It also has a 2008 campaign calendar that belonged to John McCain, with the countdown until election day marked on it.
Of course, the collection also features the elephant and the donkey, the symbols that represent the Republicans and the Democrats, as bronze figures and stuffed toys. Both symbols were made popular by US cartoonist Thomas Nast late in the 19th century.
A brass button with the initials ‘GW’ on it, made in 1789 to celebrate the inauguration of George Washington as first US president
The top hat worn by President Abraham Lincoln on the night he was assassinated at the NMAH in Washington
The collection further holds materials that target specific groups of voters, including women, Hispanics and young people.
Curators carefully look at the souvenirs sold by street vendors and ask rally attendees to donate items – from hand-made signs with candidate names to eccentric hats – with which US citizens creatively show support for candidates and participate in their democracy.
“This is part of what forms and has shaped American democracy, this idea of participation on different levels, and also this incredible desire among people to participate,” says curator Harry Rubenstein.
He has travelled to the Iowa caucuses in three elections and has attended every New Hampshire primary since 1988 to collect materials for the museum’s collection.
“You mightn’t be part of the party, you mightn’t be invited to the ceremonies, you might not be on the stage, (but) you can actually participate by putting on a little button,” comments Rubenstein, as he shows a button collection from the campaign for the 2008 election.
The significance of many objects shrinks in time, like convention balloons, however.
The museum’s hat collection ranges from panama hats once owned by members of a Puerto Rican Republican delegation to cowboy hats from Texas as well as a hat decorated with chilis and spacecraft once worn by a New Mexico delegate.
Among the oddest is a hat in the shape of a slice of cheese that a Wisconsin delegate sported at the Democratic convention in 1996.
Many delegates opt for crazy hats in order to attract the attention of TV cameras and photographers, Rubenstein explains.
The National Museum of American History does not collect digital materials, such as tweets and other messages from candidates on social networks.It prefers to focus on tangible objects that convey the flavour of a given election.
“We could not display a tweet,” Graddy says.
This year’s collection, however, will probably include signs with hashtags and banners that urge supporters or campaign staff to share on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram their photographs with candidates at rallies.
Social networks may not be quite ‘tangible’, but their significance in election campaigns is growing fast.
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