This is what democracy looked like : a visual history of the printed ballot / Alicia Yin Cheng.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cheng, Alicia Yin, author.

Contributor:

Sylvia W. Kauders Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ballot--United States--Design.

Ballot.

Printed ephemera.

Design.

United States.

Physical Description:

176 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 27 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Princeton Architectural Press, [2020]

Summary:

This Is What Democracy Looked Like, the first illustrated history of printed ballot design, illuminates the noble but often flawed process at the heart of our democracy. An exploration and celebration of US ballots from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this visual history reveals unregulated, outlandish, and, at times, absurd designs that reflect the explosive growth and changing face of the voting public. The ballots offer insight into a pivotal time in American history-a period of tectonic shifts in the electoral system-fraught with electoral fraud, disenfranchisement, scams, and skullduggery, as parties printed their own tickets and voters risked their lives going to the polls.

"This Is What Democracy Looked Like, the first visual history of printed ballot design, illuminates the noble but often flawed process at the heart of our democracy. An exploration of US ballots from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this volume examines the unregulated, ornate, and, at times, absurd designs that formed the very foundation of our electoral system. These ballots offer insight into a pivotal time in American history, tracing the explosive growth of an evolving electorate as well as a legacy of electoral fraud, disenfranchisement, and skulduggery embodied by such schemes as the tapeworm ballot and the Tasmanian Dodge. A foreword by Julian E. Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, and an essay by Victoria Bassetti, fellow of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, further explore the vicissitudes of the vote, bringing the story of the ballot up to the electoral complications of the twenty-first century."--back cover.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: The Physical Dimension of Democracy / Julian E. Zelizer

The Most Fugitive Ephemera / Alicia Yin Cheng

Plates

New Anxieties And Old Friends / Victoria Bassetti.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Sylvia W. Kauders Fund.

ISBN:

9781616898878

1616898879

OCLC:

1113416580

Publisher Number:

99985256038