As the United States marks its 250th anniversary, the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility and the Center for the American Experience at The New School look back not only to 1776, but also to another anniversary moment: 1926, the year of the American sesquicentennial.

The 150th anniversary unfolded in the shadow of World War I, the Red Scare, the consolidation of modern mass media, the rise of expert administration, and the restrictive Immigration Act of 1924. Taking the so-called “Lippmann-Dewey debate” as one point of departure, this panel considers how debates over democracy, public opinion, expertise, media, and political belonging in the 1920s can illuminate the unresolved questions of American democracy today.

How is public knowledge produced? What role should experts, journalists, universities, and civic institutions play in democratic life? Who belongs to “the people” or “the public”? And what would it mean to imagine the American public as dynamic and unfinished?

Gary Gerstle

Gary Gerstle is Paul Mellon Professor of American History Emeritus at University of Cambridge.

Nicholas Lemann

Nicholas Lemann is the Joseph Pulitzer II and Edith Pulitzer Moore Professor of Journalism at Columbia Journalism School.

Jeff Pooley

Jeff Pooley is Research Associate and Lecturer at Annenberg School for Communications, University of Pennsylvania.

Mira Siegelberg

Director and Associate Professor of Politics