Our middle-aged kids came to visit us, and we wanted to do something special with them. But with the temperature in the mid-90s, none of us could tolerate being outside for long. Fortunately, Chattanooga has wonderful opportunities to have fun indoors with full-speed air conditioning. Given our long-time fascination with political artifacts, we were eager to check out the exhibit “Path to the Presidency,” hosted by the Chattanooga Public Library’s Local History and Genealogy Department and presented by the Robert L. Golden Institute of Art and History.
But before immersing ourselves in the downtown library’s exhibit, the four of us went to the Siskin gym. While my daughter swam in the pool, my husband, son-in-law and I went upstairs to work out, slightly. I walked around the indoor track as did the two guys until they stopped to prop a few items up at a slant. Then they played with a slinky on their invention. The Slinky Boys are proof that you’re never too old to be goofy.
Now you know that we were just ordinary folks going to the library. We do have a streak of the intellectual, but apparently we knew very little about how today’s presidential campaigns came to be. What we experienced seeing this exhibit was fascinating, educational and lots of fun.
It was amazing to be reminded that in 1788, when George Washington ran for president, there were no rallies, buttons or posters. Yet, by 1860 when Abraham Lincoln ran for president, rallies, posters and mass-produced buttons were the norm.
By 1896, the campaign of William McKinley spent more than $1 million dollars to advertise directly to voters. Today, that would be about $37 million. McKinley didn’t have access to the internet or television. If he had, he’d have raised and spent even more on marketing. Maybe his campaign could have looked like our current campaign season with Biden and Trump raising more than $600 million so far.