From candidate buttons to soap babies: How Smithsonian curators scavenge political conventions

Thousands of Republicans, from a presidential candidate to grassroots party members, began assembling in Milwaukee on July 15, 2024, for that quadrennial political ritual, the party convention. Political history curators from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History were there, too. They’re self-described “scavengers” of the physical objects that make up political campaign history, from candidate buttons to signs, banners and anything else that can enter the Smithsonian’s...