Highlights Archives
Presidential Election Exhibit Now Online
This month witnesses the inauguration of Barack Obama as president of the United States, a historic moment in American history. Obama's inauguration follows a remarkable election season. Nearly 73 percent of Wisconsin voters cast their ballots during the November 4, 2008, general election — the second highest turnout in the country. Enthusiasm among African Americans and Democrats for Barack Obama's candidacy is believed to have pushed voter turnout to the highest level nationally in 40 years. Obama won 58 of Wisconsin's 72 counties, winning many that had gone Republican in previous election years, on his way to becoming the first African-American president. The high voter turnout also helped Wisconsin Democrats seize control of the state Assembly, giving the party control of both houses of the Legislature and the executive branch.
For several months during last year's historic election season, the Wisconsin Historical Museum hosted the exhibition, That's the Ticket! A Parade of Presidential Elections. The exhibit closed shortly after November's election, but because of popular demand, major portions of it now live on in the Society's latest online exhibition.
Along with hundreds of authentic artifacts, the original That's the Ticket! exhibition included colorful interpretive panels that presented election statistics and highlights and historical photographs from the rich collections of the Wisconsin Historical Society, the Wisconsin State Journal, and The Capital Times. Visitors found these panels to be interesting and informative, and museum educators considered them to be a valuable resource for teachers. These panels are now presented as web pages.
The exhibition's starting point is the election of 1856, the first in which the Democratic Party faced off against the Republican Party, which had been founded two years earlier in Ripon, Wisconsin. The original exhibition ended with the election of 2004, but the online version has been updated to include the election of 2008.
That's the Ticket! is the latest in a number of online versions of museum exhibitions presented by the Wisconsin Historical Society.
:: Posted January 19, 2009
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