Wesleyan University students, faculty and staff join the rest of the world in anxiously awaiting the results of the 2008 election. A collection of campaign memorabilia dating back to 1904, which is on display in The Ames Library rotunda (1 Ames Plaza, Bloomington), offers a reminder to campus that win or lose, political campaigns are historic in their own right.
More than 100 buttons, ticket stubs and other campaign items make up the display, from a time when holographic imaging was the latest technology. Campaign buttons span the last 25 presidential contests, documenting the unsuccessful – Barry Goldwater ’64, the Rev. Jesse Jackson ’88 – and the victorious – Clinton-Gore ’92, Bush-Cheney ’00 – in equal measure.
The collection belongs to Steve Peterson, a member of Illinois Wesleyan’s Physical Plant staff and self-proclaimed “political junkie.” Peterson, who spent 18 years as a political commentator on a local radio station, inherited the first pieces from his grandmother but said the advent of eBay has made his collection balloon to more than 300 items.
“I used to pick up these things one at a time. I’d go into an antique store in New Orleans, and I might spend 80 dollars on an inauguration press pass,” said Peterson. “Some collectors pay thousands of dollars for a spoon used by Andrew Jackson,” but Peterson likes his postcard from former President Theodore Roosevelt just fine.