At a time when our national politics seems more negative, more gridlocked, and more divisive than ever . . . When the cost of campaigns appears to put our elected officials even more distant from the people whom they represent. . . And at a time when more U.S citizens are looking to the future with doubt and despair because the present state of our democracy seems to be devoid of hope…
We must lo
ok to the past. The campaign ephemera of electoral seasons gone by have much to teach us, offering unique insight into the attitudes and characters of past presidential candidates, their campaigns, and the times that shaped them. U.S campaign artifacts are more than electoral accouterments. These uncommon examples of American political expression, from buttons to bumper stickers to ballot-boxes, are the people’s heirlooms of American democracy. The collection radiates exuberance and activism, civic duty and patriotic purpose. As you work your way through each giant crate (more than a million pieces are stores carefully but randomly), the passion and persistence of great ideas and the people who dreamed them come alive – and all the skepticism and cynicism of modern day politics melts away. For the public good – to remind all Americans who we once were, who we are today, and who we can strive to be in the world tomorrow – these mementos of electoral crusades and presidential contests deserve to be preserved, protected, and promoted. The Museum of Democracy (“MoD”) began with an innocent act of curiosity by a ten-year-old Brooklyn boy about five decades ago. Delighted to discover a box of free promotional buttons at a Robert. Kennedy Midtown campaign office, Jordan M. Wright scooped a handful into his back pocket. The moment marked the start of a lifelong, forty-year passion to find, acquire, and collect what would become a million or more assemblage of presidential and issue memorabilia – spanning the campaigns and administrations of George Washington to Barack Obama – those who won, those who lost, and the ideas and organizations that propelled them into the history books forever. Today, there’s no doubt that the Wright collection is unsurpassed in quantity, quality and potential impact.
