Introduction

Get Out the Vote! Campaigning for the U. S. Presidency

On November 2, 2004, American citizens exercise a fundamental privilege granted by the U.S. Constitution. By the time ballots are cast on the first Tuesday of November, Presidential candidates have already spent months campaigning to win over the voting public. These campaigns and their strategies have evolved considerably since the first contested Presidential election in 1796.

This exhibition examines the process of campaigning and electioneering through partisan artifacts, symbols and ballots. Ten featured elections-all well represented in the Cornell Library’s collections-are represented alongside recurrent campaign themes. Bandannas, mugs, pipes, walking sticks, sunglasses, and yes, even bars of soap, demonstrate how campaigns have employed imagery to create mythic personae for candidates, to fashion party mascots, and to entice Americans to vote.

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