Thinking Like a Historian: Making Modern Presidents

1. Household sewing machine company advertisement, 1880s. President Grover Cleveland, a bachelor, married young Frances Folsom in a quiet White House ceremony in June 1886. The bride, a college graduate who was twenty-six years younger than her husband, proved wildly popular. The Clevelands never authorized political or commercial use of the First Lady’s image. Nonetheless, over their objections, young women organized “Frankie Cleveland Clubs” to march in Democratic parades, while companies such as this one capitalized on her popularity in advertising.
   

   Picture Research Consultants & Archives.
2. Account of Benjamin Harrison’s front porch campaign in Indianapolis, New York Tribune, October 12, 1888. For much of the nineteenth century, presidential candidates left campaigning to their allies. A man who promoted himself risked appearing vain and greedy for office. By the 1880s, Republicans began to run “front porch campaigns”: party leaders arranged for delegations to visit the candidate at home.

   This morning General Harrison’s home was surrounded by visitors, who had arrived in the city in the night and on the early morning trains. … There were many relic-hunters among the early visitors and they swarmed about the house, taking, without protest from any one, whatever they were pleased to seize. There is no longer a fence about the house to be converted into relics, and so the visitors are taking the trees now. The shrubbery has almost disappeared. … The informal reception began as soon as the General got up from [breakfast] and continued until afternoon. The first delegation was composed of representatives of the Cincinnati Republican Clubs. … A delegation from Belleville, Ill., which … had patiently waited for more than four hours, were next invited to enter the house, and they were accorded the usual handshaking reception. …

   The parade early in the afternoon was the principal feature of the day’s demonstration. Two hundred or more clubs participated and they came from all parts of the State, representing various classes and interests. … There were mounted men and men on foot, women in wagons and women in uniform marching, brass bands. …

   On the balcony beside General Harrison stood his wife, with several of her lady friends.

3. Henry George on money in politics, Wheeling Register, September 19, 1896. Reformer Henry George was among many who warned of the influence of corporate contributions, solicited brilliantly in 1896 by William McKinley’s campaign manager, Mark Hanna. Short of funds, Democratic candidate William Jennings Bryan undertook exhausting nationwide speaking tours.

   There is no question which of the great parties represents the house of Have and which the house of Want. … Democrat[s] are cramped for want of funds. … On the other hand there is practically “no end of money” at the disposal of the McKinley committees. …

   As for the banks, the great railroad companies and insurance companies, who, even in ordinary times find it to their interest to help financially one, and frequently both, sides … , their purse strings are unloosed more freely than ever before, but only in one direction.

   The danger to a republican form of government of a money interest in politics is so clear that it needs not to be dwelt upon. … The steady tendency of American legislation, national and state, has not merely been to create great special interests, but in the very effort to control them for the benefit of the public, to concern them directly in politics.

4. Theodore Roosevelt on the campaign trail, 1904. Having watched Bryan’s electrifying tours, Theodore Roosevelt became the first winning candidate to adopt the practice. In 1904, after a summer front porch campaign, he undertook a thirty-day speaking tour of the West. To cover as much ground as possible, Roosevelt often spoke from the last car of his train.
   

   Library of Congress.
5. “Expenses of the Campaign,” Springfield Daily Republican, September 22, 1900.

   It is estimated that it costs $25,000,000 to elect a president of the United States. The annual allowance which the British Parliament makes to Queen Victoria is $1,925,000 … indicat[ing] that it is much cheaper to maintain a queen permanently than it is to elect a president. …

   More than half of the money spent by both national and state committees goes for campaign orators. During the next three months it is estimated that the Republican national committee will have 3000 “spellbinders” traveling out of the Chicago headquarters and 2500 who will report to the New York office. …

   The next largest item on the campaign bill is that for printing. … Each of the national committees will spend at least $500,000 in this way. Before the campaign is over it is estimated that both the Republican and Democratic committees will send out 100,000,000 separate documents. …

   One more important branch of the work is the two house-to-house canvasses of the voters. … Hundreds of men are employed in each state, and the work of tabulating and classifying the results is by no means small. …

   Some novel campaign methods will be adopted by both the great parties during the campaign just opening. The Republicans, it is stated, have decided to use phonographs. … Some eloquent party man … will deliver a speech before a phonographic record, from which any desired number of copies may be made … and sent far out into the rural districts, where it would be impossible for the more popular and important orators to go. …

   Democrats, on the other hand, will pin their faith to stereopticons [an early slide projector].