53rd Annual Delaware Show

DOMESTIC POLITICS BY LYDIA BLACKMORE Every four years, after each presidential election, there are newspaper op-eds claiming that the campaign that year was longer, nastier, and more divisive than ever. The truth of the matter is that presidential campaigns of the past could be just as long, nasty, and divisive as modern political contests. They certainly could be more colorful. The populist campaigns of the second quarter of the nineteenth century were marked by an explosion of material culture bearing slogans, icons, and portraits of the candidates. From hickory canes for “Old Hickory” Andrew Jackson in 1828 to log cabin carriages for William Henry Harrison in 1840 and glass flasks molded with battle cries surrounding the bust of Zachary Taylor in 1848, a full range of decorative and useful objects was fashioned to show partisan support that lasted well beyond an election (fig. 1) . Fig. 1. Glass flask with the bust of Zachary Taylor, made at the Dyottville Glass Works, Philadelphia, 1846−40. Gift of Mrs. Harry W. Lunger 1973.402.6 — 26 —