The Cape Coral Lee County Library is currently housing the “Voices and Votes: Democracy in America” exhibit through a collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution and Florida Humanities.
The exhibition is part of Museum on Main Street (MoMS), which is a program that brings Smithsonian content, exhibitions and programs to communities across the country.
The purpose of MoMS is to bring exhibits to smaller communities.
“If one out of every five Americans lives outside urban centers, so in rural America, that is one out of every five people, and not everyone is able to make it to Washington, D.C.,” Selwyn Ramp, program director of MoMS, said.
Voices and Votes focuses on democracy throughout American history. It showcases the creation of the United States through the American Revolution and the Constitution, voting rights throughout the years, political campaigning, petitioning and protesting.
“Really knowing where we came from, and knowing our history, and being educated about the process in general, is all very important,” Melissa Baker, manager of programming and community outreach for the Lee County Library System, said. “And it's an important part of being an American and understanding our roles and our responsibility.”
Baker said citizens who have gone through the exhibit have been sharing their stories of becoming citizens and how meaningful this exhibition is for them.
“Especially as I got older, the right to vote became so important to me. Even when I was in college, I always voted,” Phyllis Hare, a Cape Coral resident, said. “But as I went through life, the right to vote was important, and I had to really figure out how I was going to educate myself on what I was voting for.”
Parts of the exhibit are interactive, such as testing visitors with questions from the citizenship test.
“One of the parts that I really enjoyed of the exhibit is the ‘creating citizens’ section, and it really talks about our rights and responsibilities of citizens and why we should take it seriously,” Baker said.
There is a part of the museum where viewers can answer the prompt: “I believe a good citizen should...” The cards are hung up on a wall behind the exhibit. Some reflection answers include caring for their neighbors and fellow citizens, being kind, abiding by the law, voting, being educated and welcoming all.
“I've been living in Cape Coral for about 15 years now, and I feel, with my involvement that I have, that people don't take their civil duty seriously,” Hare said. “So, something like this could show them information that they probably don't have.”
Voices and Votes is a traveling exhibit, meaning it moves to different cities throughout its “tour.” There are four copies of this exhibit so that it can be in four states simultaneously. The project launched in 2020 and will end its tour in 2026. It will have gone to almost 30 locations in that six-year run.
It is based on an exhibit in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington. That exhibit is called “American Democracy.” Voices and Votes was created through a collaboration between the Smithsonian and the American history museum’s chief curators.
“Using this exhibit, we're able to share Smithsonian content, and in addition, we're able to use this content, these exhibits, to help shine that spotlight and revitalize the interest in local culture and history as a result,” Selwyn Ramp of MoMS said.
Voices and Votes showcases many artifacts such as campaign memorabilia, interest group mementos and lobbying materials from Congress.
“Because we work with a variety of venues that don't always handle the Smithsonian climate controls of original Smithsonian collection items, we work together [with the National Museum of American History],” Ramp said. “We have a ton of stuff at the Smithsonian, but there's so much more around the country where I believe it belongs. And so, there are ways to get access to items, even throughout the country.”
Florida Humanities has been working with MoMS since 2012 to bring exhibitions to different areas in the state.
“We partner with them (MoMS) to provide grant funding for communities across our state to bring those traveling exhibitions to their communities and develop public programming to go along with them,” Patricia Putman, associate director for Florida Humanities, said.
Cape Coral isn't the only Florida site being visited. By the end of its Sunshine State tour, Voices and Votes will have visited four other cities including the Sulfur Springs Museum and Heritage Center in Hillsborough County, the Okeechobee County Historical Courthouse, the Matheson History Museum in Gainesville and the Leesburg Public Library in Lake County.
An exhibit stays in a state for 10 months before it comes back to Washington to be refurbished. This entails cleaning it and repairing any major damages.
Florida Humanities provides federal funding for humanities programs across Florida, including the partnership with the Smithsonian. The organization receives proposals from various communities to apply to host the exhibit.
“We look at things like geographic spread,” Putman said. “We want to make sure that the exhibit tries to go to as many corners of Florida as possible. It's a big state. We look at a community's ability to do public programming around the exhibit.”
Ramp said the great part about the MoMS program is that communities can choose to create their own exhibits alongside Voice and Votes.
“The Lee County Elections provided the Votomatic voting machine used in 2000 election with the hanging chad,” Baker said. “And the student artwork that they are displaying is winning artwork over the past decade or so.”
The library is offering several programs about democracy and voting along with the exhibit. All events are free and can be found on the library’s website. The Voices and Votes exhibit will close on Nov. 8.
WGCU is your trusted source for news and information in Southwest Florida. We are a nonprofit public service, and your support is more critical than ever. Keep public media strong and donate now. Thank you. Reporter Tori Foltz is an intern in the WGCU News Path program.