Inaugural addresses that newly minted presidents have given over the past 250 years have aimed to do several key things, including unify the country and establish the speaker’s qualifications for the job.
- Political History Curator, Smithsonian Institution
Debates are moments in time, but even years later, key items can evoke their history and reinforce their importance in American democracy.
The Whigs started holding political conventions in the 1830s − and historians from the Smithsonian who visited the GOP and Democratic conventions this year found the tradition is still very vibrant.
The items people wear, buy and wave at the convention are key pieces of American history.
Will there be Minnesota hot dish hats worn at the upcoming Democratic National Convention? Curators from the Smithsonian will be there, looking for both routine and unconventional campaign items.
Tight security may be the reason that the GOP Convention isn’t filled with the homemade, and often wacky, stuff that’s usually found by Smithsonian political ephemera curators at the event.
Curators from the Smithsonian will be at the GOP convention collecting items from buttons to banners. Their goal: to add objects to the museum’s collection that will ‘make sense of our moment.’
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