About this Item
Forty-two party tickets, seven single-issue ballot slips, and one illustrated printer's advertisement. Most in very good condition with only old folds or short closed tears. A few with longer tears or splitting along folds, one ticket split completely along lower fold. Each piece dated on verso in pencil, some with additional contemporary or slightly later annotations in pencil or ink. An impressive collection of 19th-century political ballots for Boston and the surrounding area, spanning a period of thirty years. This collection includes a total of forty-two party tickets representing many different parties, seven individual yes-or-no single-issue ballots (mostly related to Prohibition), and one illustrated printer's advertisement. Ballots such as these were not centrally distributed in the 19th century; instead, political parties would print their ballots in newspapers to be clipped by voters or distribute them by hand at polling places, leading to the wide variety of shapes, sizes, and conditions present in this collection. A number of the ballots have candidates' names circled or shaded, written in, or printed and pasted on. In addition to the Democratic and Republican tickets are several tickets from other parties, including the Temperance Party, Prohibition Party, and anti-partisan Citizens' ticket. Massachusetts was an early adopter of written ballots, and as the 19th century progressed and the political landscape grew more complicated, the printed ballot became a popular way to save voters time and effort. After the Massachusetts Supreme Court upheld their legality in 1829, printed party ballots became the de facto method for voting in the state. At the polls, representatives of the different parties did their best to push their ballots on voters, leading to sometimes dramatically-illustrated and colorful, eye- catching ballots (such as this collection's 1864 Union Republican ticket, with a large patriotic illustration on the front and bright blue eagle on the verso). An attempt to curtail these efforts was passed in 1851, but repealed two years later. It would not be until 1888 (the same date as the latest ballot in this collection) that Massachusetts would become the first state in the Union to adopt a centralized ballot with all candidates, known as the Australian Ballot. A remarkable and extensive collection of political ephemera from the latter half of the 19th century, documenting the evolving political landscape and election strategies in one of the nation's oldest political centers. Will Evans, "Nineteenth-Century Political Ballots." Boston Athenaeum (online). Seller Inventory # WRCAM57485
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