A Look Inside "See How They Ran", the New Exhibit at Roosevelt House, On View Through November 30

The 2016 election season has been one for the history books—and the blogs. The media is exploding with minute-to-minute coverage of the dramatic race between Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton, and as we watch these precedent-breaking candidates fight their way towards an inevitably history-making conclusion, it's illuminating to reflect on the history that will be made. Accordingly, the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College has unveiled a new exhibit highlighting campaign artifacts and art from elections past - particularly, the five presidential campaigns in which the House's namesake, Franklin D. Roosevelt, participated. See How They Ran! FDR and His Opponents: Campaign Treasures from the New York Historical Society, will give visitors a flashback to the once cutting-edge media tools—buttons and radio broadcasts—that FDR used to entice and excite the votership back in the 1930's and 40's.

The second special exhibit hosted by Roosevelt House since its re-opening in 2010, it follows on the heels of Women Take The Lead, a collection of rare, never-before-showcased posters, pamphlets, manuscripts and items from the women's suffrage movement. That exhibit, which lined the walls of Roosevelt House from January through May, presented remnants from a very canny feminist campaign that employed wit and wordplay to coax an audience of men into enfranchising the other half of the population.

See How They Ran also immerses viewers in campaign strategies and materials, the ones that led FDR to overwhelming electoral and popular success. On the evening of September 28, a special preview audience—including eminent Roosevelt scholar Geoffrey C. Ward and former mayor David Dinkins—got the first opportunity to experience the new exhibit in all its informative vibrancy. Harold Holzer, director of Roosevelt House and himself a veritable presidential scholar, treated the first-nighters to a special peek at the wares on the walls of the house where FDR planned his first campaign and assembled his first cabinet, as well as a conversation with Ward about Roosevelt's campaigns and the road they paved leading to modern political life. "Roosevelt was a master of the medium of his day," Ward said. Holzer agreed that, were he alive in our current digital age, FDR would be a champion at social media, with a mesmerizing instagram account.

Between 1933 and 1945, Roosevelt won 103 million votes over the course of four elections—leaving his unsuccessful opponents with a collective total of just 76. Roosevelt, a master politician, loved both the art and the science of campaigning. He galvanized the election process by using every tool available— including the ones he invented—to reach American hearts and minds, gaining a unity of support that the country has not since shown a candidate. See How They Ran reveals a glimpse of what created that success: there are posters, pins, buttons, signs, manuscripts, cut-out figures and artifacts, as well as newsreels on constant loop. The exhibit paints a vivid portrait of a remarkable political artist, a man who—despite the challenges of a massive national economic depression and his own severely compromised physical abilities—brought the country from its knees and into hopeful forward motion. Of course, FDR had his detractors, and visitors to the exhibition will also get to see some 40's negative advertising, like buttons emblazoned with the slogan "We Don't Like Eleanor Either."

Eleanor may have not been popular with everyone, but she too changed the paradigm of the political process, as her husband's partner, adviser, and not-so-secret weapon. See How They Ran highlights her contributions and celebrates the legacy of other powerful political women, like the ones who ran for president more than a century before Hilary Clinton made history as the first woman to be nominated as the candidate from a major political party. There was Victoria Woodhull in 1872, Margaret Chase Smith in 1964, and CUNY graduate Shirley Chisholm in 1968. "I am quite well aware that in assuming this position I shall evoke more ridicule than enthusiasm...but this is an epoch of sudden changes and startling surprises," said Woodhull when she announced her candidacy—a statement which still resonates all too strongly in 2016. But, while it was once inconceivable to imagine a woman holding the highest office in the land, today there are Barbie for President dolls on the market—and on display at Roosevelt House.

The exhibit has already been featured on Fox 5 news and, as Trump and Secretary Clinton hurtle toward the finish line of 2016's presidential race, it becomes more and more relevant every day. Curated by Deborah Gardner, historian and curator of Roosevelt House, the collection is largely drawn from that of the New York Historical Society, led by Louise Mirrer. Mirrer's mission at the Historical Society is to make the past feel present, and at the September 28th exhibit opening, she pointed out that our current bitterly contested election may be news—but it isn't new: "Nothing is ever exactly the same, but history is very instructive."

See How They Ran will be open for viewing Monday to Saturday from 10 AM to 4PM, through November 30; come be instructed—and enlightened.