From the days were a dollar was a significant political contribution

As many of you know, I also collect political items, mostly from 1824, when Andrew Jackson issued a significant number of political campaign medalets until 2008. Of late, I have been too disgusted with politics to do much collecting for post 2008 material.

Here is a piece from William Jennings Bryan's 1908 presidential campaign. This piece was given to those who chipped in a dollar. Before you laugh at that, you must realize that this was the better part of a day's wages for many people. Therefore this was a significant contribution.



Bryan was the only candidate to run in the fairly recent era who ran for President three times and lost all three times. He won the Democratic Party nomination on all three occasions. It's something that could never happen today.

The only other three time loser was Henry Clay, who ran in 1824, 1832 and 1844. Clay nominated himself in 1824. At the time there was only the Democratic Party, which was in the process of breaking up into factions. Later, the anti-Jackson faction formed the Whig Party, which broke up over the slavery issue in the early 1850s. Much of the modern Republican Party arose from those ashes circa 1854.

Here is an 1844 Henry Clay token. The Whigs were very pro-business, and that is reflected on the design of this piece.

 

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Very interesting, thanks for sharing. This sounds exactly like what I am learning in AP US History right now, haha!

 

I've heard of William Jennings Bryan and I knew he ran for President but I didn't know he ran three times and lost three times! Interesting!

 

Thanks for showing the neat campaign tokens and putting them in historical context.

 

Wow. Designed and struck in a time when spelling and grammar were beaten into children, and it STILL has apostrophe abuse!

 

But you have to give consideration to the grammar that was beaten in.
http://www.word-detective.com/back-d.html
"At the risk of giving aid and comfort to the "ungrammarians" among us, however, I must note that the difference between "it's" and "its" was not always so definite. Until the 19th century, in fact, "it's" was usually considered the possessive of "it" -- in the Fall, a tree shed "it's" leaves. The usual contraction of "it is" was "'tis." Only when "'tis" came to be regarded as an archaic form in the 19th century did the use of "it's" as a contraction of "it is" push out the use of "it's" as a possessive. I know this is a bit hard to follow, but the point is that the "rule" used to be the exact opposite of what it is today. And on that note, I move that we adjourn our seminar until next time, when we'll explore a few more holes in the logic surrounding our little friend "it.""

 

I'm a huge fan of "cousin it"

 

I had no idea that this was the case!

Another confirming source:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/the-tangled-history-of-its-and-its

The history of English usage is morbidly fascinating to me. It's like a train wreck in that way, and in so many others...