William Henry Harrison

The partisan ballyhoo of prints, cartoons, song sheets, and broadsides was particularly effective during the raucous electioneering of the 1840 presidential campaign. Promoters transformed William Henry Harrison, the college-educated Whig candidate, into a champion of the common man. When a critic sneered that Harrison, if given a pension and a barrel of hard cider, would be content to retire to his log cabin, Whig campaigners seized upon the imagery, enlivening mass rallies with free cider, new campaign songs, and log cabin pictures. The words to "The National Whig Song" helped inspire Harrison's supporters: "Come to the fight; we'll win the field-away with doubts and fears; The People's man is HARRISON-let's give him three good cheers." The lower and middle classes had suffered keenly after the Panic of 1837, and populist symbols, slogans, and tunes greatly helped Harrison's cause.