At the 2024 Democratic National Convention alongside politicians and delegates from across the country are political history curators from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, who are collecting what museum curators call “ephemera” – items that people wear, carry, hand out, display or otherwise use during the convention.
The Conversation U.S. politics editor Jeff Inglis spoke with Claire Jerry and Lisa Kathleen Graddy about what they have seen so far and how attendees are using a wide range of items, including those distributed in an area called “DemPalooza.” They have not yet seen any hot dish-themed items referring to vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, who is the governor of Minnesota, where that type of meal is popular. But they have seen cheese-shaped hats and a couple of very interesting lapel pin-type buttons.
Inglis: What have you seen or collected so far?
Graddy: Some of the buttons we’ve been seeing are referencing the memes that have been coming out. One of the buttons says “Coconut farmers for Harris,” a riff on her mother’s saying, “Do you think you just fell out of a coconut tree?”
I was sitting on a shuttle on Aug. 20, heading to the convention center. There were a couple of women sitting near me, and one said she didn’t have any buttons yet, so the other – if I were going to hazard a guess at her age, I would say late 60s, early 70s – offered her a button to wear. As she was handing her a button, she said, “Here, you can wear one of mine. I don’t know why it says ‘coconut’ on it. Maybe it’s referencing her heritage.”
And I thought, “Interesting! You’re obviously not on social media. You haven’t seen this as a meme.”
At the 2024 Democratic National Convention alongside politicians and delegates from across the country are political history curators from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, who are collecting what museum curators call “ephemera” – items that people wear, carry, hand out, display or otherwise use during the convention.
The Conversation U.S. politics editor Jeff Inglis spoke with Claire Jerry and Lisa Kathleen Graddy about what they have seen so far and how attendees are using a wide range of items, including those distributed in an area called “DemPalooza.” They have not yet seen any hot dish-themed items referring to vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, who is the governor of Minnesota, where that type of meal is popular. But they have seen cheese-shaped hats and a couple of very interesting lapel pin-type buttons.
Inglis: What have you seen or collected so far?
Graddy: Some of the buttons we’ve been seeing are referencing the memes that have been coming out. One of the buttons says “Coconut farmers for Harris,” a riff on her mother’s saying, “Do you think you just fell out of a coconut tree?”
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