It’s the people of New Hampshire − much more than the politicians − who make the state’s presidential primary what it is.

Geno’s Chowder and Sandwich Shop in Portsmouth is still an essential stop for candidates, a tradition begun in 1964 by the late Evelyn Marconi, who that year favored Republican Barry Goldwater over Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson.

“She was a Goldwater girl,” Francesca Marconi Fernald said of her mom. “She was pregnant with me at the time.”

A 2011 photo of the mother and daughter and Republican candidate Newt Gingrich is among the many images featured in a Portsmouth Athenaeum exhibit opening Feb. 16, “First in the Nation: New Hampshire Presidential Primaries − 1920 to 2020.”

Fernald, 59, remembers being a teen when George H.W. Bush would stop by the Marconi home. He became vice president to Ronald Reagan (1980 to 1988) and president from 1988 to 1992.

“I’m a kid,” Fernald said. “it’s dinnertime in an Italian family. You sit down, and there’s a knock on the door. And I say, ‘Again?’  My mom says: ‘He may be president some day,’ and I said, ‘Not with my vote.’ I’ve eaten crow for that statement ever since.”

The biggest crowd Geno’s hosted was when Republican Mitt Romney showed up in 2011.”We had 250 people; we had to move some people outside,” said Fernald, who has been running the waterfront restaurant for about 30 years. 

“In New Hampshire we get to see you, shake your hand … we’re a small state, but we get to really scrutinize you,” Fernald said.

Mary-Jo Monusky, who is co-curating the Athenaeum exhibit with Ceal Anderson and Mara Witzling, said the goal is to give a brief history of the primary and tell the stories of local campaign workers as well as the politicians who come to the state.

Political activist and retired attorney Susan Roman of Durham became interested in politics as a University of New Hampshire student and campaigned for George McGovern starting in the summer of 1971. The Democrat would go on to run against Richard M. Nixon in 1972.

That year Roman helped organize a mass voter registration on the UNH campus, primarily for students 18-21 able to vote for the first time due to the passage of the 26th amendment. 

“There was a very large turnout,” she said. “I was watching the lines of new voters from the field house press box and directing monitors to help them through the process as easily as possible. It was an amazing day.”

Roman, a collector of political memorabilia, has loaned many items to the Athenaeum exhibit.

“My collection ranges from the sublime to the ridiculous,” she said with a laugh.

She was inspired in her 20s by an uncle who gave her Barry Goldwater and Lyndon B. Johnson dashboard dolls, and a pack of “I Like Ike” cigarettes from one of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s presidential campaigns. 

Some of her favorite items relate to women’s suffrage. Thanks to the 19th Amendment, women were able to cast their first official ballots in a presidential election on Nov. 2, 1920.

One of Roman’s suffrage buttons was used as an end piece on a thread holder in a textile factory in Lowell, Massachusetts.

“It reads, ‘Souvenir of Sarah’s Suffrage Victory, Help Cut the Fetters,’” Roman said.

The Athenaeum exhibit will include a button from each of the winners of the primary from 1952 forward — that was the year candidates’ names began appearing on the primary ballot. Before that, voters chose delegates for each presidential hopeful.

There will also be a video montage of campaign songs by film and music producer Dennis Kleinman of “Reading Rainbow” Fame.

The exhibit’s Feb. 16 opening will feature a 5 p.m. talk by retired Associated Press photographer Jim Cole, who covered every New Hampshire primary from 1980 to 2016. 

Cole, 66, was still a student at New England College in Henniker when he began freelancing for The Concord Monitor. He covered his first primary as a photographer for Foster’s Daily Democrat, starting in 1979. By fall 1981 he was working for The Associated Press.

Cole said he found himself in bigger and bigger crowds of reporters and photographers and learned to keep his distance.

“If you’re not playing rugby with other photographers, it’s easier to take pictures,” he said of the “scrum” of media that surrounds candidates.

In 1987 he watched the media board a plane with George H.W. Bush in Nashua.

“I stayed outside, hoping for a different shot, and he stuck his head out of the window and waved,” Cole said. “That was a two-page photo in LIFE magazine.”

Before the digital era, all photos were shot on film and had to be developed. 

Cole remembers bursting out of a makeshift darkroom in Dixville Notch on Feb. 28, 1984, to beat the United Press International in transmitting a photo of midnight voting. His image of Neil Tillotson casting the first presidential primary vote in the nation went worldwide.

“I don’t miss driving to Dixville Notch,” Cole said of the township near the Canadian border.

Now you’re more likely to find Cole assembling a 1,000-piece puzzle near his wood stove, or tying flies and salmon fishing on Lake Winnipesaukee.

He combed through two rooms of personal archives to find images for the exhibit.

Photographers Renee Giffroy, Roger Goun, Meryl Levin and Michael Sterling are also featured in the free exhibit, which runs through June 29 in the Athenaeum’s Randall Gallery, 9 Market Square.

It will be open Tuesday to Saturday, 1 to 4 p.m.

The Leftist Marching Band, which frequently performs on Market Square, will be playing at the Athenaeum entrance during the 4 to 7 p.m. Feb. 16 opening.

As part of the Athenaeum’s annual lecture series, Thomas Rath, former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party, will speak April 17 on the presidential primary. On May 15, James Pindell will talk about his experiences covering New Hampshire politics for the Boston Globe and other media.  

The Portsmouth Athenaeum, 9 Market Square, is a nonprofit membership library and museum founded in 1817. The research library and Randall Gallery are open Tuesday through Saturday, 1 to 4 p.m. For more information, call 603-431-2538 or visit www.portsmouthathenaeum.org.