Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 9 · column 5 of 6 · from the scan, no model involved
who is “of the people,” Melder said.
Harrison also ran as a military hero, and that theme has cropped up in campaigns since, he added.
The earliest objects included in the collection were commemorative items from innaugurals. Pitchers with portraits of presidents were quite popular, he said.
Banners and ribbons were also frequently used. In earlier campaigns the parties organized rallies and parades while the candidates remained at home “above the fray,” he noted. Banners were used in the parades, but the oldest banner in the Smithsonian collection celebrated the election of Thomas Jefferson. It was found by a school boy near a railroad track in Massachusetts in 1958, Melder said.
Images of the military hero, the common man, the simple farmer and the candidate from outside the usual political circles, have long been part of our political history, he said, adding that “candidate imagery if probably necessary.”
Negative campaigning also has a long history, he said, showing many vicious political cartoons from the Smithsonian’s collection. The earliest uses of the donkey to represent Democrats and the elephant to represent Republicans were in such negative cartoons, he noted, but they were adopted by the parties and put to positive use.
Early campaigns were “full of highjinks and fun,” he said. By the
86.0%