The cheering, clapping and talking is over. Historians from the Smithsonian National Museum of American History have returned from trips to the 2024 conventions to gather materials — from balloons to banners to flashing wristbands — at each of them. For the last in a series of interviews with the curators of political history, The Conversation senior politics editor Naomi Schalit spoke with Claire Jerry, Jon Grinspan and Lisa Kathleen Graddy to learn more about their haul from the recent Democratic National Convention — and what observations they’ve made as historians at each parties' events.
Shalit: What have you ever been fascinated with because you left the Democratic National Convention?
Grady: I'm all the time fascinated by the props that folks use. Because they made a lot of it, I assumed in regards to the giant prop book from Project 2025. It kept popping up on the convention. It was a staple of the nights. I feel it will be interesting to see if we are able to track it down. The undeniable fact that they made a prop in any respect and used it for therefore many nights moderately than simply once is interesting in itself, as is the way in which they kept coming back to it.
Shalit: This is actually a commonly seen artifact of the convention. Were there any others?
Grinspan: These light-up wristbands. If you watched when Harris received her speech and gave it, you saw this big thing after which all of the lights got here on. They handed out these individual wristbands that were on the seats. We collected several of them, just a bit of blue wristband with a light-up wristband. They're wireless and once they dim the regular lights, they flash red and yellow and blue.
They haven’t any content, no meaning. But I just think it's interesting that the conventions haven't really modified. For 200 years, we've been doing the identical thing, the party supporters are in a constructing, and you may have to cheer them on and send them home with all different — sometimes meaningful, sometimes silly — ways to rally the troops. And this was just a pleasant little physical example of the identical query: how do you get a gaggle of individuals in a room excited? And this time, they got here up with this thing, and it's just a pleasant physical demonstration of the right way to get people excited like that in 2024, versus 1924, while you got people excited like that. This is the brand new answer to a fundamental query.
Shalit: Can you spontaneously remember what might need excited people in 1924?
Grinspan: There were often fireworks displays outside of the conventions. These bracelets were a form of firework display contained in the convention, using latest technology.
Read more: How Smithsonian curators are mining political conventions to clarify the current to the longer term and save every little thing from hats to buttons and umbrellas to soap
Shalit: As a historian, are you able to tell the history of those two conventions to museum visitors of the longer term? Can you link every little thing together?
Grinspan: I used to be fascinated with the incredible energy and enthusiasm of the party supporters, while the apathy of those that are usually not a part of these parties is so great. When you’re at these two party conventions, you actually feel prefer it is the entire universe. Everyone is so excited.
And then you definitely get out and get in an Uber, and the Uber driver says, “Oh, I'm not going to vote for any of these people.”
In this world that we live in, people's partisan identity is a giant a part of their identity. And yet, many individuals have a look at this election and say, “I don't like any of the candidates. I'm not even going to vote.” The exaggeration of the partisan identity of believers and the apathy of so many individuals is just a extremely interesting contrast.
Shalit: Is there anything these conventions inform you specifically about this moment?
Grinspan: Partisanship is a stronger think about people's identity today than it was within the twentieth century. Of course, people within the twentieth century had political opinions, they were necessary to them, right? But these have developed into tribes, and there’s a Democratic tribe and a Republican tribe, and that is absolutely the core.
You can see it in the way in which people walk around, and you possibly can see what a Democrat in Chicago looks like once they get off the plane in comparison with a Republican in Milwaukee. You're not all the time right, but it surely's borne out by so many statistics, the way in which these two parties that need to run the federal government have turn out to be two growing camps, tribal camps. It's palpable, and it doesn't just show up within the statistics – it shows up in the way in which people dress and behave, the way in which they organize their conventions and all these other things.
Shalit: Can you describe a difference?
Grinspan: I noticed on the Republican convention that the lads wear very expensive shoes and fancy hairstyles, while the ladies often wear Fox News-style dresses. And on the Democratic convention, there’s rather more diversity in clothing. I don't mean diversity – racial, ethnic – but just different styles and appearances are so different that there’s less uniformity.
AP Photo/Brynn Anderson
Shalit: Do you may have any final thoughts so that folks understand what you do and what you learned from these two congresses?
Grinspan: I used to be surprised that each parties held exciting, meaningful, significant conventions. I assumed after the pandemic necessitated virtual conventions in 2020, possibly we just wouldn't have conventions on the identical scale anymore. The Whigs began having conventions within the 1830s, and possibly it's just an outdated tradition. And after the disruptions and the way in which we've tousled so many political norms since 2016, I assumed possibly they'll just go away.
But I discovered the party conferences really powerful and meaningful. I don't know what impact they're going to have on the polls, but I feel they're necessary to the people who find themselves involved in these parties. And I just find that surprising – this really old tradition that seems so analogue, doesn't it? You put these people in a room. It doesn't seem very twenty first century, but it surely still has a meaning and power that you could't get online.
Grady: I loved watching the delegates, sometimes from different states or different parts of their state, run into one another within the hallways, rushing towards one another and hugging. It was unbelievable. The undeniable fact that they were so pleased to see one another and the immediate, intense conversations that were happening – I felt that was partly because they hadn't been in a position to do anything like that in 2020, there was this craving to reconnect. Both parties are doing it because they consider that face-to-face contact will make a difference.
Jerry: Anyone who’s a delegate on the convention is already pretty committed, right? They know who they're going to vote for. They know their party – they usually still need to see their candidate in person. It's necessary to them to share that space with someone. They're not convinced at that moment to vote for that person, but they still need to be there.
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