SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Footage of America’s first televised presidential debate has been digitized and posted online by an Illinois’ Lincoln Presidential Library.
It said in a Tuesday statement that it produced the digital version of a 16mm film copy of the debate between Democrats Adlai Stevenson II and Estes Kefauver. It occurred in 1956 during the primary campaign. The issues debated included school desegregation, the Soviet Union and nuclear energy.
ABC broadcast it on May 21, 1956, before Florida voters went to the polls. Stevenson, a former Illinois governor, won the Democratic nomination. He lost the general election to Republican Dwight Eisenhower.
Stevenson’s son, former U.S. Sen. Adlai Stevenson III, speaks Thursday at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum about his family’s legacy in politics.
