25 Amazing Political Artifacts From the New-York Historical Society

American voters have long prided themselves on proclaiming their favorite candidates for public office. Today, political parties spend millions of dollars staging public events filled with banners, balloons, and placards. They also buy radio and television advertising to promote their candidates and platforms. The Internet, which became a serious part of the campaign process in 2004, has reached critical mass in the current election year.

Nevertheless vigorous campaigning and public appeals have not always been the norm in the United States. Prevailing political decorum during the early republic mandated that candidates avoid the appearance of unseemly desire for public office. Most candidates before 1828 stayed in seclusion or at least out of public view during their campaigns. Similarly, supporters were expected to confine their electioneering to modest displays of appreciation for their candidate’s republican ideals.

Contemporary presidential electioneering owes its origins to Andrew Jackson’s anger over a lost election. In 1824, Jackson led his three rivals in popular and electoral votes, but lost the presidency when one of the candidates transferred his support to another. Jackson and his followers prepared for revenge in 1828. They created an explosive new political style, pairing emotional public rallies with the blatant display of candidate paraphernalia. By 1840, the presidency’s first full-blown campaign, these advertising techniques had advanced to feature both the enduring slogan of military heroism, “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too,” and the iconic images of humble origins, the log cabin and hard cider jug.

This selection of campaign objects from the New-York Historical Society’s vast collections illustrates some of the many forms of political persuasion that have been used over the past two hundred years. They range from a Lincoln lantern and an “I Like Ike” dress to the trademark fedora of Harry Truman and dozens of campaign buttons. These ephemeral artifacts reveal much about the characteristics that Americans valued and still value in their leaders. Even in our present age, saturated by electronic media, objects like these continue to resonate with the American voter.

Special thanks are due to Margi Hofer, Curator of Decorative Arts at New-York Historical Society.

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Cotton
Gift of Miss Charlotte Lowell, 1952.83

An advertisement for this item urged retailers to “Get on the ‘IKE’ Band-anna Wagon” and “cash-in on the current craze for campaign banners…You will be missing sales if you are not stocked with this popular scarf.” The ad further explains that men and boys can use it as a “neckerchief,” while women and girls can wear it as a scarf. The casual portrait of a grinning Eisenhower reflects the influence of television on the packaging of candidates’ public persona.

Cotton
Gift of George A. Zabriskie, 1944.146

The election of 1864 presented voters with one of the most significant decisions in the nation’s history. A vote for Abraham Lincoln supported continuation of the war effort, while a vote for General George B. McClellan backed a negotiated peace that would accept and protect slavery in the South. The clasped hands and waving flags in the corners of this kerchief symbolize Lincoln’s promise of a unified nation, and subtly invoke Lincoln’s anti-slavery goals. The same clasped hands appeared on a widely-circulated token issued by the American Anti-Slavery Society as early as 1840. The kerchief’s central image of Lincoln is after the well-known photographic portrait by Mathew Brady.

Cotton
Samuel T. Shaw Memorial Collection, 1946.243

An early example of “recycling,” this campaign flag was made in 1860 to promote John Bell and Edward Everett, nominees for president and vice president on the Constitutional Union ticket. In 1864, its lettering was altered to support the Republican candidacy of Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. The slogan, “The Union and the Constitution,” proclaimed Bell and Everett’s central campaign tenet: to preserve the Union through compromise on the issue of slavery. It remained unaltered on the 1864 version.

Paper
1954.55a

This elongated almond-shaped yellow and pale blue paper lantern is a souvenir of the 1876 presidential campaign, depicting winners President Rutherford B. Hayes (Republican, OH) and Vice President William A. Wheeler (Republican, NY).

Wood, paper
Gift of Bella C. Landauer, 2002.1.1455

This paper and wood fan from Woodrow Wilson’s president campaign reads "For The Cause Of Liberty". The reverse reads "Let Us All as American Citizens, Enjoying the Freedom and Privileges of the Most Wonderful Country in the World, Co-operate With the Government in Giving Freely to Every Demand Made Upon Us Regardless of Creed or Color.”

Metal
Gift of Bella C. Landauer, 2002.1.3837

A black rectangular pinback campaign button printed in white and blue with a portrait of Bill Clinton playing the saxophone next to the words in white "Clinton/ A Cure For The Blues", a reference to his famous pre-election appearances on MTV and Saturday Night Live.

Republican Senator Barry Goldwater ran an unsuccessful bid for the presidency in 1964 with Congressman Bill Miller. The five-term Senator from Arizona, known as "Mr. Conservative," faced incumbent Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson. The election was one of the biggest landslides in American history. The Democratic campaign, known as Daisy, employed a young girl counting daisy petals, one to ten, until the screen was filled by nuclear explosions. The implication, if you haven't guessed, was that Goldwater would provoke a nuclear war. No prizes if you haven't guessed by now why the election was an easy victory for Johnson.

Cotton
Inv.1387

Samuel Tilden (1814-1886) ran for president in 1876 with Thomas Hendricks against Rutherford B. Hayes. Tilden received the majority of the popular vote, but lost the election when key states were claimed by Republican managers.

Metal
INV.6889

By the 1920s, manufacturers were able to economically create political buttons by printing directly onto metal with color borders and images of political candidates. Today’s modern graphic design, printing, and laminating techniques have exploded the possibilities of pin-back buttons.

Metal
INV.7262

Seeking an unprecedented third term, Franklin Roosevelt ran against maverick businessman Wendell Willkie in 1940. Willkie challenged FDR's approach to ending the Depression. This button, with aeroplane at center, is one of the most unique designs in American political history.

Metal, paper, plastic
INV.6961

The large-scale production of campaign buttons began at the end of the 1800’s with the patent of celluloid (plastic) buttons

Metal, plastic
Gift of Richard Rabinowitz and Lynda B. Kaplan, 2010.15.2

As this design indicates, from the day he announced his candidacy in Springfield in February 2007, Barack Obama’s campaign for the presidency was cast as the analogy and true fulfillment of Lincoln’s path.

Metal
1940.521

The 1940 contest between Franklin Roosevelt and Wendell Willkie inspired the greatest volume of campaign objects in American history. While buttons—an estimated 54 million—dominated campaign advertising, pennants and kerchiefs also promoted the candidates.

U.S.A.
Brass, metal, glass
X.188

This lantern dates from Theodore Roosevelt’s 1912 presidential campaign. After trying and failing to block William Howard Taft’s Republican nomination, Roosevelt spearheaded the Bull Moose or Progressive Party, which called for far-reaching progressive reforms.

Printed cotton
Purchase, 2004.9

Today’s political memorabilia is dominated by the campaign t-shirt, baseball cap, bumper sticker, and coffee mug. Bandanas are rarely produced as an official campaign item. An exception is the line of “farm-ranch team” western products, including this bandana, created by the George W. Bush campaign to exploit the President’s Texas roots. In the age of text-messaging, it is assumed that voters will have no trouble identifying the candidate by a single initial.

Printed cotton
Purchase, 2004.20

With television and the Internet now the primary modes of political advertising, textiles and other campaign objects are manufactured in far fewer numbers. Today, special interest groups are one of the few producers of political kerchiefs. This “Bikers for Kerry” bandanna was created by a group of motorcycle enthusiasts in support of Democratic challenger John Kerry, who rode his own Harley-Davidson onto Jay Leno’s “The Tonight Show” to fuel his campaign publicity.

Printed synthetic textile
Purchase, 2003.91

The design of Richard Nixon’s vibrant scarf reflects the “groovy” aesthetic of the 1960s.

Cotton, plastic, metal
Gift of Bella C. Landauer, 2002.1.4648

This women's mid-length white cotton dress is printed all over in a red pattern with the word "IKE,” touting the candidate’s presidential campaign.

Metal
Gift of Bella C. Landauer, 2002.1.3201

A tray commemorating William Howard Taft's run for the presidency in 1908. Lithographed in color around the rim are stars and stripes shields interspersed with portraits of every Republican Party (G.O.P.) candidate since its inception in 1856 with the date of their candidacy and the words "Grand Old Party/ 1856-1908/ Standard Bearers."

Maruzella & Co., Japan
Printed rayon
Gift of Susan Levine, 2000.37

Dispensing with slogans and campaign issues, this kerchief plays on the Kennedy mystique and the candidate’s youthful good looks.

W. S. Reed Toy Co, Leominister, Massachusetts, (Jeanie P. Clarke, designer; Forbes Co., engraver)
Cardboard, paper
The Liman Collection, 2000.308

Players in this game acted as candidates, racing against one another to reach the office of Mayor, Governor, Congressman, Senator, and eventually, President. When played with more than four players, teams are formed and the aim is to gain party control.

"Many games played within the family circle reinforced subjects taught at school, such as literature, history, and geography. American board games flourished at a time when mandatory public schooling was still new and city schools were overflowing with new immigrant pupils. Game manufacturers produced enormous numbers of educational games between the 1870s and 1900s, catering to an audience sold on the notion that well-educated children provide the foundation of a moral, democratic, and prosperous nation."

Source: Margi Hofer, The Games We Played: The Golden Age of Board and Table Games. (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2003), 54

Lee, Fifth Avenue, New York, New York
Felt, ribbon, leather
Gift of President Harry S. Truman, 1952.338

President Harry S. Truman reportedly had an extensive hat collection and almost always wore one on the campaign trail or had one in hand.

Printed silk
Gift of Mrs. J. Insley Blair, 1941.130

The American campaign kerchief officially arrived with the presidential bid of William Henry Harrison in 1840. Democratic opponents jeered at the 67-year-old Harrison, labeling him an old “has been” content to retire to his log cabin and drink hard cider. Whigs seized upon the intended insult and turned log cabins and hard cider barrels into positive emblems of the campaign, championing Harrison as a man of the people. A flood of political kerchiefs featured the ubiquitous log cabin and barrels. Ironically, the man perennially portrayed as a simple frontiersman at the door of his humble log cabin was actually an aristocratic Virginian who lived in a stately residence.

Tin, glass, paper
Purchased from Elie Nadelman, 1937.585

This lantern was used in torchlight parades held during Abraham Lincoln’s re-election campaign.

Albert H. Henderson
Printed cotton
Gift of Bella C. Landauer, 1936.803

The election of 1896 was the most highly charged presidential contest since 1860. Intimidated by the energy and charisma of populist and Democrat William Jennings Bryan, the Republicans rallied around Ohio governor William McKinley and the defense of industrial capitalism. Campaign manager Mark Hanna applied his business skills to “selling” McKinley to voters by organizing party workers, disseminating propaganda, and raising enormous sums of money. This vivid banner, depicting the stately McKinley addressing a cheering crowd, reflects the sophisticated marketing behind his campaign. Proclaiming McKinley’s commitment to “honest money” (the gold standard) and protective tariffs, the banner also assures national prosperity under his leadership.