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Sep 20, 2024 | 
retroreport.org | Matthew Spolar |Brian Kamerzel
To trace the roots of America’s culture wars, we look back at the 1856 election, where issues of slavery, gender, and religion fueled political conflict. John Frémont, famed for his role in the westward expansion of the United States, was the first presidential candidate nominated by the newly-formed Republican Party. As the campaign unfolded, he and his wife became lightning rods for cultural debate. Explore how the aftershocks from that period continue to shape modern American politics.
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Sep 20, 2024 | 
retroreport.org | Matthew Spolar |Heru Muharrar
Gaffes have cast a shadow on many U.S. elections, from the tense final days of the battle between Grover Cleveland and James G. Blaine in 1884 to modern-day missteps that spread like wildfire across the Internet. Amid our ever-changing media environment, discover how a single phrase or blunder can end up dominating our political discourse, from the 19th century to today. Stay up to date. Subscribe to our newsletters.
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Sep 6, 2024 | 
retroreport.org | Matthew Spolar |Cullen Golden
Negative campaigning is a longstanding tradition in U.S. presidential elections, from the first contested race in 1796 to modern times. Clashes between early political figures like John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr set the stage for the intense, divisive campaigns we see today. Learn how these strategies evolved, and what they reveal about American democracy. Stay up to date. Subscribe to our newsletters.
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Jun 5, 2024 | 
retroreport.org | Sianne Garlick |Kit R. Roane |Cullen Golden |Matthew Spolar
Skip to content Posted inEducation Este mapa interactivo permite a los estudiantes explorar los acontecimientos que fueron clave en la Guerra Fría en América Latina a lo largo de cuatro décadas.
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Apr 17, 2024 | 
retroreport.org | Matthew Spolar |Heru Muharrar
Within Democratic President Lyndon Johnson’s landslide victory in 1964, there was a compelling regional story: many voters in the Deep South, long loyal to a conservative wing of the Democratic Party, voted for the Republican candidate. Two years later, the 1966 midterm elections would continue that trend, with voters across the South electing Republicans to offices for the first time in nearly 100 years.
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Mar 15, 2024 | 
retroreport.org | Matthew Spolar |Brian Kamerzel |Victor Couto |Sianne Garlick
The process of political conventions can prove baffling, as the same qualities that make one candidate a loser at one convention, can make him or her a big winner at the next. In 1976, conservative Republicans rebelled against the moderate in the White House – President Gerald R. Ford – and arrived in Kansas City loudly backing Ronald Reagan.
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Mar 14, 2024 | 
retroreport.org | Matthew Spolar |Victor Couto |Amy Lee Hochman |Sandra McDaniel
Political conventions are designed to choose presidential candidates, but underneath all the noise they can reveal profound truths about America. That was the case at the 1924 Democratic Convention in New York City, where the party split. New York Governor Alfred E. Smith led a faction of urban Democrats who supported a vision of a nation built on manufacturing, immigrants who provided cheap labor, and sprawling urban centers full of opportunity.
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Mar 13, 2024 | 
retroreport.org | Matthew Spolar |Brian Kamerzel |Victor Couto |Sandra McDaniel
Introduction This five-minute video introduces students to the “civil war” between the Republican Party’s moderates and conservatives that led to one of the most raucous conventions in American political history. After disciplined and combative conservative forces successfully nominated Senator Barry Goldwater, the party’s moderates sabotaged their own nominee at the convention, virtually ensuring President Lyndon Johnson’s landslide victory in November.
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Mar 12, 2024 | 
retroreport.org | Matthew Spolar |Brian Kamerzel |Victor Couto
Presidential nominating conventions are so much a part of today’s political landscape, it’s hard to believe they resulted from a 19th Century populist movement obsessed with conspiracy. The Anti-Masonic Party rose in the late 1820s to oppose what it believed to be the control of the American political process by the Freemasons, a secret fraternal organization that numbered among its members many prominent politicians and statesmen, including George Washington.
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Mar 9, 2024 | 
retroreport.org | Matthew Spolar |Brian Kamerzel |Victor Couto
There hasn’t been a contested national convention after the first ballot since 1952, so the need to provide drama often falls on the keynote speaker to deliver a message that isn’t forgotten when the clapping stops. The standout keynote speaker of the last 20 years was a “young guy out of Chicago” named Barack Obama who spoke at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. At the time, Obama was a two-term state senator from Illinois, running for a U.S. Senate seat.
