Political campaigns during the 19^th century differed greatly from modern campaigns. Before the 20^th century, candidates were not expected to publicly campaign for themselves. In fact, to do so would have been seen as an inappropriate act. The office was meant to seek the candidate and not the other way around. However, there were many individuals within the party who would campaign for their party’s candidate. During the election of 1876, campaigns included published political cartoons, speeches, and pamphlets in newspapers alongside public gatherings and night parades lit by torchlight. Campaigns also had a variety of materials they distributed to spread their message like buttons, ribbons, paper lanterns, and songs. Below are a selection of manuscripts and artifacts that showcase the 1876 campaign, including those already mentioned and more like celebrity endorsements from Mark Twain and a behind-the-scenes look at the candidate’s inner thoughts through a collection of letters and diary entries from Rutherford B. Hayes.

Exactly 100 years after the founding of our country and following the passing of the 14^th and 15^th Amendments, the election of 1876 presents us with a unique snapshot of voting rights in U.S. history. Not only did it demonstrate the work being done to expand suffrage to disenfranchised groups, but it also revealed that the right to vote did not guarantee the ability to vote in U.S. elections. Following election day in 1876, reports of fraud, intimidation, and violence against black men in the South to persuade and prevent their votes all together were rampant. This fraud and intimidation became the central focus of canvassing boards in Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana, who were still under incumbent Republican leadership. Below is a collection of resources that explore the topic of voting rights in 1876, including voting charts, newspaper reports, and personal testimonies. There is also a selection of sources dedicated to the cipher dispatches that played a role in additional fraud following election day, as party officials plotted to intervene by purchasing entire canvassing boards and individual electors through coded telegrams. This time-period also saw the start of Jim Crow throughout the South, making for an interesting case study into the complex and non-linear history of voting rights in the U.S. while opening discussions around voting rights today.

While candidates were expected to remain civil towards their opponents and distant from their own campaigns, the media was not. By the 1876 election, newspapers featured journalistic opinions and attention-grabbing headlines to capture their specific audiences’ attention. In fact, newspapers were often known to be either a “Republican” or “Democratic” newspaper. As such, media coverage of the 1876 election presents us with the opportunity to learn the unfolding of events as individuals from that time would have learned. The media coverage featured below includes political cartoons, bold headlines, and political articles that revealed the varied opinions and stories being relayed to the public during the electoral crisis and following controversy. Most headlines and articles are features from The Sun (a Democratic paper in New York, NY), The Chicago Tribune (a Republican paper from Chicago, IL), and The Courier- Journal (a Democratic paper from Louisville, KY). While HPLM has most of these newspapers in either physical or microfilm format, the scans used in this collection were clipped from the digital scans on Newspapers.com. We do suggest following a timeline provided here by Harpweek to help track the events being reported on and reacted to by these newspapers.