Object Details
The County Election
1854
Object Essay
Following the Compromise of 1850, political giants such as Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, Daniel Webster, Stephen Douglas, Jefferson Davis, William Seward, and others began adding territory to the United States in present-day Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and California. In 1851 the Erie Railroad was the first track between the East Coast and the Great Lakes, and two years later the rails reached Chicago. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 repealed the Compromise and opened new territories to government by popular sovereignty. Internal civil wars broke out in many states over social, political, and economic issues, not the least of which took place in George Caleb Bingham’s Missouri.
The scene for these two pictures is Arrowrock on the Missouri River (Acc. No. 82.5). As in many American towns, politics were a great passion, and the painter wanted to capture this spirit on canvas and popularize his work through the printed medium. These prints can be seen as glorifying popular sovereignty by showing a broad range of men participating in the process of electioneering and voting. The rich and the poor, the old and the young (Bingham’s son is playing in the foreground of each), the practical and the theoretical (Bingham, the artist, is in each), all contribute to make democracy work. Or do these pictures warn viewers of the perils of voting? Each has drunkards, sleepers, and oafs participating in directing the national destiny. The original oil paintings were highly prized in the artist’s lifetime. So too were the prints, as evidenced by the care and feeling with which these two were framed and preserved.1Labels attached to the pine slats on the backs of the frames to Acc. No. 82.5 & 82.6 read: “Harrington & Mills,/140 Baltimore Street,/Manufacturers of/Looking Glasses,/Portrait and Picture Frames,/and all Descriptions of Gilt and Ornamental Work/Photographs, Drawings, and Engravings Framed and Mounted./Dealers in Plated Ware, Cutlery, House Keeping Articles, Gas, Fixtures, Chandeliers, &c. &c.” Harrington & Mills operated their business at that address from 1864 to 1872, according to Baltimore city directories. The author wishes to thank Laura Cox of the Maryland Historical Society for the information on Harrington & Mills. They stand as telling documents of the American political scene.
Donald H. Cresswell
Excerpted from Jonathan L. Fairbanks. Becoming a Nation: Americana from the Diplomatic Reception Rooms, U.S. Department of State. New York: Rizzoli, 2003.