Ballot Box c. 1939

Rose Campbell-Gerke rendered this watercolor of a ballot box, its physical manifestation, at an unknown date. With its curious combination of transparency and containment, the ballot box comes to stand for both democratic openness and the potential for enclosure, or even obstruction. Made in the USA, it is impossible to view it divorced from the institutional history of American electoralism, where the practices of voting have often been less than transparent, and where the ideal of universal suffrage has been consistently undermined by those keen to maintain their own power. Think of the Jim Crow South, for example, where black Americans were disenfranchised through poll taxes, literacy tests, and outright intimidation. Archival records can offer insight into the artist’s life, revealing possible social contexts that might have shaped her perspective. We historians bring the important understanding that the meaning of art is never fixed, but emerges from the push and pull of social forces and the institutional structures that govern them.