Traveling Exhibition

American Democracy: A Great Leap of Faith

Sep 12, 2020 - Jan 3, 2021

America’s national treasures come to life in this engaging exhibition from the Smithsonian.

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**NAACP In Action Brochure**

This 1943 brochure comes from a voter registration drive in the racially segregated city of Baltimore.

**Admission of Colorado to the Union**

Artist Joseph Hitchens created this image to celebrate Colorado’s admission to the United States on August 1, 1876.

**1888 Campaign Torch**

Torchlight parades were a popular way for voters to support their candidates in the 1800s, and many carried torches like this one through city streets.

**Sigamos la Causa**

This campaign poster comes out of the Chicano movement of the 1970s when a rising sense of cultural pride helped spark a new wave of political activism.

**Order Admitting Colorado to the Union**

President Ulysses S. Grant approved Colorado’s statehood by signing this order on August 1st, 1876.

**Reproduction of Thomas Jefferson’s Lap Desk**

A reproduction of the desk that Jefferson used in 1776 to write the first draft of the Declaration of Independence.

**2014 “Be A Voter” Sign**

The 1965 Voting Rights Act requires some counties around the country to create multilingual materials to help ensure that everyone who is eligible to vote has the chance to cast a ballot. In 2014, the San Francisco Department of Elections published signs like this one to encourage Chinese Americans to vote.

Explore the history of citizen participation, debate, and compromise from the nation’s formation to today. Awe-inspiring objects captivate guests while interactive elements spark conversation about civil rights, politics, conflict, and consensus. Artifacts range from the pre-statehood handwritten laws of Buckskin Joe’s mining camp to the priceless inkwell from the Civil War surrender at Appomattox. The exhibition is a core element of our ambitious and multifaceted public engagement initiative, This Is What Democracy Looks Like, designed to inspire renewed participation in election-year democracy.

American Democracy also features a Four Freedoms Project by local artists David Ocelotl Garcia, Rochelle Johnson, Cori Redford, and Carmen Richards. These artists created personal interpretations of four American values—freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear—articulated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on the brink of World War II. As a study in contrast that powerfully speaks for itself, their works are displayed alongside archival reproductions of Norman Rockwell’s patriotic interpretations that were widely embraced in the U.S. during and following the war.

Video by Alexis Kikoen courtesy rmpbs.org

Who Gets To Vote?

This special virtual field trip is available temporarily through the History Colorado Center. Students in Fall 2020 explore the Smithsonian’s American Democracy: A Great Leap of Faith traveling exhibit to discuss what it means to have the right to vote and to meaningfully participate in a democratic society. Students will also have opportunities to examine what contemporary artists have to say around the Indigenous identity, Norman Rockwell’s Four Freedoms, and women who have made an impact throughout history by “Behaving Badly.” (Middle and High School.)

For more on women’s suffrage specifically, please check out the 1918 program offered by the Center for Colorado for Women’s History!

The Denver presentation of American Democracy: A Great Leap of Faith is sponsored by Peter and Rhondda Grant, the Abarca Family Foundation, Richard and Mary Lyn Ballantine, and George and Mary Sissel

American Democracy: A Great Leap of Faith was developed by the National Museum of American History and adapted for travel by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service.

American Democracy: A Great Leap of Faith

Who Gets To Vote?

Location

History Colorado Center

39.735281, -104.9873965

Tickets

Who Gets To Vote?

Location

39.735281, -104.9873965

Tickets

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