November 14, 2008
Make Campaign History, Share McCain/Obama Election Night Memories and Stories Here
Across the Smithsonian Institution, historians are collecting artifacts from the campaign and that historic night, Tuesday, November 4, 2008.
Smithsonian curators Larry Bird and Harry Rubenstein from the National Museum of American History have been carefully collecting artifacts throughout the primary and election season—everything from McCain and Obama campaign buttons and posters to sample ballots—even convention confetti (check out the video above). Curators at the National Museum of African American History and Culture snapped up a bunch of material, as well, including phone notebooks, photographs and furniture from an Obama field office.
Asked to recall a pivotal moment, Bird offered this: “Probably when we were in Iowa the night Barack won the caucus. Going to a caucus in the suburbs and then going to his victory speech in Des Moines. It was a seminal moment in American electoral politics. We had been collecting that day up to that moment. We have as an icon of that day a handmade, hand lettered Iowa corncob poster that we got from Obama’s Des Moines, Iowa, headquarters.”
Let us know in the comments about your election night experiences and what mementos and memories you plan on keeping to tell future generations about last week’s historic election.
(Video courtesy of the National Museum of American History)
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I saved issues of the Washington Post from the day after the election for my children and myself. I was happy to see street vendors doing a brisk business selling commemorative editions through the end of that week. Newspaper readership is decreasing because of the Internet, etc., but print is by no means dead. Also saved an Obama campaign button that features his photograph.
I was active in the Obama campaign since this past March, and have saved various campaign materials as well as local newspapers for my grandchildren. To show them that their grandpa was at least a small part of history.
I am living abroad in Santiago, Chile, and I attended the “Americans Abroad for Obama” election night party. It was just as thrilling to watch the election night results from thousands of miles away as it might have been in the States. I would venture to say that it was even more meaningful, seeing as I have been even more conscious of being an American and what that means this past year in Chile.
I am saving a number of Chilean newspapers that I purchased the day after the elections, all of which proclaimed Obama’s victory across their front page just as the newspapers did in the States. They’re a symbol of how Obama’s victory resonated around the world.