The Matheson History Museum in downtown Gainesville has opened two new exhibits about voting, and the timing couldn’t be better as Florida’s 2024 primaries approach Aug. 20, followed by the general election on Nov. 5. 

The museum’s main hall features Voices and Votes: Democracy in America, a traveling exhibit from the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum on Main Street. A companion exhibit, “Voices and Votes Alachua County,” is a product of a partnership between the Alachua County League of Women Voters (ACLWV) and the Alachua County Supervisor of Elections office. 

The Matheson is just one of five museums in Florida selected as a venue for the Smithsonian traveling exhibit.  

“Once we were notified that we would be one of the host museums, we kicked into gear putting together the Alachua County exhibit,” said Kaitlyn Hof-Mahoney, the museum’s executive director.   

Hof-Mahoney said both the ACLWV and the election supervisor’s office were eager to collaborate on the exhibit, which consists of items from the Matheson’s permanent collections, ACLWV documents, and archives from the county election office. Some items are borrowed from former mayor Jean Chalmers and Gainesville City Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut. 

“The local exhibit goes over 200 years of voting history in what would become Alachua County,” Hof-Mahoney said. “We start with one of the first elections to be documented here and go up to the 2020 elections.” 

The Matheson History Museum is a perfect venue for this look at our national and local electoral chronicle. It officially opened in 1994, but its roots date to the Alachua County Historical Society, founded in 1967.  

In 1977, Sarah Matheson agreed to donate her home and its contents to the society as a living house museum. A Matheson Trust Fund was established then, but it took almost another decade to develop a county historical museum.  

Dr. Mark Barrow headed that effort by organizing the nonprofit Friends of the Matheson Home, Inc. in the mid-1980s. Sarah Matheson pledged the deed to her home, which became the starting point for the Matheson complex.  

Today, it includes the main museum exhibit gallery, a library and archives in the former Gainesville Gospel Tabernacle and Melting Pot building, the 1867 Matheson House, and the Tison Tool Barn. Recently, the museum began collaborating with the city of Gainesville to maintain Sweetwater Park, which is located directly behind the museum.  

There was a lot of enthusiasm around the kickoff opening of the dual voting exhibits, with a formal ribbon cutting on July 20.  

Alachua County Supervisor of Elections Kim Barton was on hand and shared her story about her commitment to the electoral process, which began when she was a child and grew up in segregated Memphis, Tenn.  

“I came full circle,” she said. “I started with my parents taking me and helping me understand the importance of our voice, the importance of our vote. When you don’t vote, you leave it up to someone else to have that voice for you. This [exhibit] came right on time.” 

The exhibits, especially the local one, show how far the county has come. There is a ballot box from a 1922 Gainesville election on whether to pay for a trained nurse at the Board of Health. There are also references to Alachua County’s segregated past, including a voter book that has separate places for “Whites” and “Colored” to sign.  

The exhibit also shows how the voting process has changed from paper ballots to punch voting machines to optical scan technology, adopted here in 2000. That move kept Alachua County out of the “hanging chad” controversy of the 2000 presidential election.  

Local League of Women Voters president Janice Garry marveled over the exhibit.  

“The league is tickled to death to be teaming up with Kim (Barton), her crew, and the Matheson,” she said. Garry added that the community must “look at the past to move forward to the future. We have an incredible display of the past, and I see the future everywhere I look.” 

The Matheson History Museum is located at 513 East University Ave. in Gainesville. It is open 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday. Admission is free.  

The traveling exhibit will remain on display until Sept. 7, while the local exhibit will be available through early 2025.