Jordan Wright, 50; collected political trinkets
NEW YORK - Jordan M. Wright, who at 10 was thrilled to learn that politicians hand out self-promotional baubles, then collected more than a million bumper stickers and other campaign artifacts - from the time of George Washington to that of George W. Bush - died May 11 at his home in Atlantic Beach. He was 50.
The cause was an embolism, his mother, Faith-Dorian Wright, said.
Mr. Wright, a lawyer, businessman, and publisher, died just as his political treasure chest was getting wider notice. This year, he published a book with pictures and commentary on his vast collection, some of which will be exhibited by the Museum of the City of New York this month. In recent months, interviews with Mr. Wright appeared in newspapers around the country as he and a tiny fraction of his collection toured.
For years, only his closer friends were privileged, or perhaps prevailed upon, to peruse what the museum calls "the nation's largest and most comprehensive collection of campaign artifacts."
Few could forget what the museum calls his "one of a kind" porcelain and cloth doll depicting, when held upright, President William McKinley. Turned upside down, a black baby can be seen. The doll was meant to be a helpful reminder of the rumor that McKinley had fathered a black child out of wedlock.
Other items in the collection include bars of "Clean Up With Ike" soap and tiny jugs bearing candidates' names so voters "would remember who had gotten them drunk," Mr. Wright said in an interview with The
There are parasols with images of Teddy Roosevelt, a paper minidress promoting Senator Robert F. Kennedy, George and Barbara Bush slippers, George W. Bush toilet paper, and Good Humor ice cream wrappers offering a choice: John F. Kennedy or Richard M. Nixon. In all, Mr. Wright said, there are more than 1.25 million items in the collection.
It all began in 1968 when as a not-quite-teenager he grabbed a handful of "Bobby Kennedy for President" buttons from a Midtown campaign office. In an interview with The Village Voice, he said he used logic to figure out his next step.
"It occurred to me that if Bobby Kennedy was giving out buttons, Hubert Humphrey was, Richard Nixon was, and I roamed around the city going from headquarters to headquarters picking up buttons," he said.
Before long, Mr. Wright had piles of buttons, as well as ballot boxes, bumper stickers, matchbooks, umbrellas, license plates, posters and, in recent years, webpages from around the world. He hounded antiques stores and auctions, befriended politicians, and enlisted an army of friends to pursue political paraphernalia.
Mr. Wright told The Voice that a friend in Las Vegas sent him one of his all-time favorites this year: a pair of thong underwear proclaiming "Bill Richardson in '08." Mr. Wright mused, "How important is the stripper vote really?"
Jordan Merritt Wright was born in Brooklyn on Feb. 26, 1958. His mother is an artist and art teacher, who with her husband, Martin, became an energetic art collector, particularly of works from the Pacific and Africa. Martin Wright is a senior curator in these areas for the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, to which the Wrights donated a gallery.
Mr. Wright's passion for Oceanic art was reflected in a trip to New Guinea to take photographs that were exhibited in several museums.
Starting in 2005 he helped revive Pacific Arts, a scholarly journal that had ceased publication. Carol S. Ivory, an editor of the journal and chairwoman of the department of fine arts at Washington State University, said that Mr. Wright helped develop a new format and generated critical ad sales.
In addition to his parents, who live in Manhattan, Mr. Wright, who was divorced, leaves a daughter, Mackenzie; a son, Austin of Phoenix; and a sister, Ingrid of Stamford, Conn.
The greatest lesson Mr. Wright drew from sifting through ephemera from many, many electoral crusades was sad but perhaps predictable: "There hasn't been an election since Washington's when we didn't go to the voting booth holding our nose," he said. 