From the Front Porch to the Front Page: McKinley and Bryan in the 1896 Presidential CampaignTexas A&M University Press, 2005 - 230 pages The last presidential campaign of the nineteenth century was remarkable in a number of ways. -It marked the beginning of the use of the news media in a modern manner. -It saw the Democratic Party shift toward the more liberal position it occupies today. -It established much of what we now consider the Republican coalition: Northeastern, conservative, pro-business. It was also notable for the rhetorical differences of its two candidates. In what is often thought of as a single-issue campaign, William Jennings Bryan delivered his famous "Cross of Gold" speech but lost the election. Meanwhile, William McKinley addressed a range of topics in more than three hundred speeches--without ever leaving his front porch. The campaign of 1896 gave the public one of the most dramatic and interesting battles of political oratory in American history, even though, ironically, its issues faded quickly into insignificance after the election. In From the Front Porch to the Front Page, author William D. Harpine traces the campaign month-by-month to show the development of Bryan's rhetoric and the stability of McKinley's. He contrasts the divisive oratory Bryan employed to whip up fervor (perhaps explaining the 80 percent turnout in the election) with the lower-keyed unifying strategy McKinley adopted and with McKinley's astute privileging of rhetorical siting over actual rhetoric. Beyond adding depth and detail to the scholarly understanding of the 1896 presidential campaign itself (and especially the "Cross of Gold" speech), this book casts light on the importance of historical perspective in understanding rhetorical efforts in politics. |
From inside the book
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... Canton , Ohio . Portions of chapters 1 , 2 , 3 , and 10 appeared in an earlier version as " Playing to the Press in McKinley's Front Porch Campaign : The Early Weeks of a Nineteenth - Century Pseudo - Event , " Rhetoric Society ...
... Canton , Ohio , throughout the campaign . Thousands of people rode the train to Canton to hear him present brief speeches from his front porch . Within a few weeks of the campaign's beginning , the front porch speeches became dramatic ...
... Canton , Ohio , and the Republican Party's operations were controlled from dual headquarters in Chicago and New York , Bryan's traveling cam- paign was to a large extent organized state by state . None of the figures that have come to ...
... Ohio.21 However , he made few other campaign appearances out- side Canton . It is quite possible that given the disastrous state of the economy under President Cleveland , the election of a Democrat seemed so unlikely that McKinley saw ...
... Ohio , a local center of the tin industry , was among the first to visit Canton . Their factory had closed for the day so that workers could pay homage to McKinley.33 The delegates marched down Market Street carrying homemade tin signs ...
Contents
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Unmade by One Speech? Bryans Trip to Madison Square Garden | 69 |
McKinleys Front Porch Oratory in September 1896 | 90 |
McKinleys Speech to the Homestead Workers | 111 |
Bryans Railroad Campaign in September 1896 | 128 |
The Closing Weeks of the Front Porch Campaign | 146 |
The End of Bryans First Battle | 160 |
Identification and Timeliness Revisited | 176 |
Notes | 187 |
Index | 221 |