The exhibition will be on view from February 20th through April 6th, 2025

The Museum Association of New York (MANY) today announced the next stop for the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service Museum on Main Street exhibition Voices and Votes: Democracy in America will be the Long Island Museum (LIM) in Stony Brook, NY.

“Long Island is full of inspiring stories of civic engagement and significant “firsts” in America’s 250 years of democratic history for civil rights and women’s rights,” said MANY Agora Project Fellow Ren Lee. “We are thrilled to work with the Long Island Museum as they use Voices and Votes as a launching point to engage with their community.”

The only Smithsonian Affiliate Institution in the Nassau-Suffolk region, LIM collects, preserves, interprets, and celebrates Long Island’s richly diverse past and its storied role in our nation’s history. 

“The Long Island Museum is honored to be involved in this statewide conversation about democracy,” said Co-Executive Director Joshua Ruff. “In our response exhibition and planned programs, we will especially explore how political participation throughout our region has expanded and been a shifting, challenging, and inspirational terrain over time.”

Building the Ballot Box will examine the role this region played in history from the Women’s suffrage movement, Civil Rights, and other movements in political history. This exhibition features key artifacts, including the Suffrage Wagon that traveled across New York State for public events advocating women’s suffrage in 1917. Other objects highlight regional trailblazers such as Shirley Chisholm, the first Black U.S. Congresswoman, and Geraldine Ferraro, the first female candidate nominated for Vice President by a major political party.

MANY is the statewide organizer for the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service’s Museum on Main Street Program, which previously brought the “Water/Ways” exhibition to six New York museums in 2019. The Museum on Main Street program offers traveling exhibitions, educational resources, and programming across America to communities through local museums, historical societies, and other cultural venues.

The Voices and Votes exhibition will be on view in the Cowles Gallery of LIM’s History Museum. Building the Ballot Box will be on view directly adjacent to Voices and Votes, in the History Museum’s Main Gallery. These exhibitions will be accompanied by a series of programs, including a drop-in day for Girl Scouts on Friday, February 21st. For a full description of the exhibitions and programs, visit the Long Island Museum’s website: https://longislandmuseum.org/.

This exhibition is supported through a Market New York grant awarded by Empire State Development and I LOVE NY, New York State’s Division of Tourism.

Learn more about the New York State tour of the Voices and Votes exhibition at https://agoranewyork.org/ and preview the full schedule of programming and events happening at the Long Island Museum.

 

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Voices and Votes is a Museum on Main Street (MoMS) exhibition developed by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service. It’s based on an exhibition by the National Museum of American History. It has been made possible in New York State by the Museum Association of New York. Support for MoMS in New York State has been provided by the United States Congress.

“A New Agora for New York: Museums as Spaces for Democracy” humanities discussion programs are made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Additional funding from the William G. Pomeroy Foundation supports public events, community exhibitions, free public lectures, workshops for teachers, and community discussion programs.