Imagine it’s your job to go to a huge political event and collect all the swag, signs and odd stuff that people bring, wear and use at the conference. Then you get to figure out how to transport all that stuff back to where you work.

Sounds kind of fun, huh? The packing, maybe not so much.

That’s what three Smithsonian curators have ahead of them next week when they travel to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The curators, Claire Jerry, Jon Grinspan and Lisa Kathleen Graddy, will be there to collect stuff – or as the professionals call it, ephemera: everything from balloons to tickets to articles of clothing. Then they bring it back to the nation’s capital for the Smithsonian’s political campaign collection, which includes items dating back to George Washington.

For this week’s featured story, I interviewed the curators about their upcoming trip, as I did about their collecting at this year’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

There is, of course, a serious reason for their work − as historian Grinspan describes it, to “make sense of our moment to people wondering what we were all thinking.” But there are also the lighter moments, such as when the balloons drop at the end of the convention and the curators join the many attendees diving to grab some.

I asked them: “Were you thinking, ‘I have an advanced degree in history, and I am down on my hands and knees picking up balloons from around people’s feet’ to bring back to the Smithsonian?”

“Literally, I was,” Jerry said. “I thought I had my hand on one, and it bounced away, and I was very close to, actually, grabbing somebody’s ankle. I was a little embarrassed. I did not have any assignment in graduate school that said, ‘We will now practice grabbing balloons out of the balloon drop.’”

Also in this week’s politics news:

Naomi Schalit

Senior Editor, Politics + Democracy
Curators from the Smithsonian were at the GOP convention in July to bring back items for the museum, including balloons. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Historians diving for balloons and hoping for hot dish: What Smithsonian curators will be doing at the Democratic National Convention

Claire Jerry, Smithsonian Institution; Jon Grinspan, Smithsonian Institution; Lisa Kathleen Graddy, Smithsonian Institution

Will there be Minnesota hot dish hats worn at the upcoming Democratic National Convention? Curators from the Smithsonian will be there, looking for both routine and unconventional campaign items.
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