PACKAGING PRESIDENTS
Two Centuries of Campaigns and Candidates
February 5, 2008 (Super Tuesday) – January 4, 2009

The quadrennial political rite of the American presidential campaign has undergone profound change over the past two centuries. Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and many of their successors would hardly recognize an electoral process that today involves endless polling, dawn to dusk campaign stops, non-stop advertising, and the expenditure of tens of millions of dollars.

Packaging Presidents will explore this changing phenomenon via an exhibition, which will open on Super Tuesday, February 5, 2008, at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, and an accompanying publication. The exhibition will highlight items lent by Merrill Berman, one of the nation's pre-eminent private collectors of presidential campaign memorabilia, as well as materials from the ALPLM's own holdings.