Sam Houston
(1793-1863)
At age sixteen, Sam Houston left home to live with the Cherokee. After living with the Cherokee for three years, he enlisted in the army in March 1813. 
Houston fought in the War of 1812 and was promoted to First Lieutenant and made subagent to the Cherokee Indians. A dispute with Secretary of War John C. Calhoun in 1818 caused Houston to resign from his positions and he moved to Nashville. Houston was admitted to the Tennessee bar in 1818. In addition to practicing law, Houston served as a local prosecutor and had a command in the Tennessee militia.
In 1823, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. He served two terms in the House before successfully running for Governor of Tennessee in 1827. He resigned from the position in April 1829 and moved to Indian Territory where he lived with the Cherokee. In October 1829, he became a member of the Cherokee Nation.
In 1832, Houston left for Texas where he settled in Nacogdoches and practiced law. Houston supported the call for separate statehood and served on the committee that drafted a constitution for the Mexican state of Texas. On November 12, 1835, Houston was named Commander in Chief of the Texas army and renamed to the position on March 2, 1836 when the convention adopted a declaration of independence.
After seeking medical treatment in New Orleans for an injury at the Battle of San Jacinto, where Houston led the Texans to victory, Houston returned to Texas in the summer of 1836 and was elected the first President of the Republic of Texas on September 5. Under Houston’s presidency, which ended on December 10, 1838, the Republic gained diplomatic recognition from the United States. Houston was elected to serve in the Fourth Texas Congress in 1839.
Houston ran for President of the Republic in 1841. Though the campaign between Houston and David G. Burnet was bitter, Houston won by an overwhelming margin. Houston renewed efforts for annexation to the United States in 1843, though it would not be successful until 1845, one year after Houston left office.
Houston was elected to the U.S. Senate in February 1846 and was elected to a full-term in December 1847. Houston was determined to preserve the Union. He voted for organizing the Oregon Territory with a prohibition on slavery and voted for all parts of the Compromise of 1850. Houston was elected to a third term in January 1853, but his vote against the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which permitted settlers to vote on whether to allow slavery, injured Houston’s political career. Viewing Houston’s vote against the Act as anti-Southern, the Texas legislature officially condemned his decision.
Houston announced his plan to run for Governor as an independent in 1857, though he retained his seat in the Senate. Houston suffered the only defeat of his political career to Hardin R. Runnels, a staunch supporter of Southern views.
When Houston’s Senate term ended in 1859, he ran for Governor against Runnels for a second time. With Unionism in the forefront, Houston won the election and took office in December 1859. Houston strongly fought against secession and war, but despite his efforts, the Texas legislature voted to secede from the Union. Houston’s refusal to take an oath of loyalty to the Confederacy led to his removal as governor in March 1861. The Houston family moved to their summer home east of Beach City, Texas. By fall 1862, it became clear that the North would invade Galveston, so Houston took his family back to Huntsville, where they remained until his death in 1863.
The portrait was done in 1875. Thurston (Thuse) Donnellan (1845-1908) was popular artist in Houston in the latter part of the 19th century. As a teenager, Donnellan enlisted in the 2nd Texas Infantry during the Civil War and served as the regiment’s drummer. Because of his age, Donnellan was not permitted to cross the Mississippi River with the regiment and was reassigned for duty in Texas. Donnellan studied art in New Orleans and Chicago. He painted portraits of several Confederate generals, including Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, but Donnellan is best known for his portraits of Sam Houston.
Printed handkerchiefs became popular in Britain during the mid-seventeenth century. Printed in part to hide snuff stains, designs included city maps and London cab fees as well as notable figures and commemorative events.
Although the British ban on exportation of textile manufacturing and printing machinery made printed handkerchiefs difficult to produce in the United States, presidential depictions appeared very early in the country’s history. A depiction of George Washington on horseback, commissioned by his wife, Martha, and printed by a colonial printer, John Hewson, dates to 1776.
Handkerchiefs and bandanas were used throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as campaign propaganda and textiles from three different campaigns are included in the Hyder Collection.
James G. Blaine and John A. Logan
1884
Images of James G. Blaine and his running mate, John A. Logan, are printed onto a red handkerchief with a detailed border of flags. The basic design is replicated in Harrison and Morton’s 1888 campaign 
handkerchief.
Blaine, former U.S. Senator and Speaker of the House, and Senator John A. Logan of Illinois formed the 1884 Republican ticket for president and vice president against Democrats Grover Cleveland and Thomas A. Hendricks. The 1884 election also marked the first time a woman ran a full campaign for office, with Belva Ann Lockwood running as the candidate for the Equal Rights Party. The Prohibition Party nominated John St. John for their presidential candidate.
The campaign was highly influenced by the character of the nominees. Blaine had lost the Republican nomination in the two previous elections because of the “Mulligan letters.” James Mulligan, an employee of Warren Fisher, Jr., had found a series of letters written by Blaine to Fisher indicating Blaine had sold his influence as Speaker of the House.
Cleveland, known as “Grover the Good,” was popular for cleaning up graft associated with Tammany Hall as governor of New York. His campaign was not without scandal, however, when it was discovered that the unmarried governor had fathered a child. In spite of this, Cleveland was able to gain the support of many Republican reformers who became known as “Mugwumps.”
In the final week of the campaign, Blaine attended a Republican meeting. A group of New York preachers with Reverend Samuel Burchard as their spokesperson, chastised the Mugwumps and citing as the precursor to the Democratic party “rum, Romanism, and rebellion.” The anti-Catholic slur was highly publicized by Cleveland’s campaign and strengthened the Irish and Catholic vote in New York City against Blaine. Though the margin of victory was narrow, Blaine lost to Cleveland.
Benjamin Harrison and Levi P. Morton
1888
This handkerchief depicts Benjamin Harrison and his running mate, Levi Morton on a blue background with a border of flags. The basic design is the 
same as that of Blaine and Logan’s 1884 handkerchief. The slogan, “Protection [of] Home Industries” reflects a primary issue of the campaign, that of tariffs. Republicans saw high protective tariffs as a means for shielding American goods from foreign competition and guaranteeing high wages, profits, and economic growth for the country.
Harrison and Morton were the Republican candidates for president and vice president in the 1888 election. James G. Blaine, the 1884 unsuccessful Republican presidential candidate, was the initial favorite. It was not until the eighth ballot at the convention that the Blaine supporters shifted to Harrison and he secured the nomination.
Harrison ran a front-porch campaign, during which the candidate stays close to home to make speeches and appearances to supporters, and campaigned heavily on the issue of maintaining protective tariffs, which appealed to industrialists and factory workers. Cleveland adhered to the tradition of presidential candidates not campaigning. Though Harrison received fewer popular votes than his opponent Grover Cleveland, he carried the Electoral College and became president.
Voter fraud was common in the 1888 election. States allowed ballots to be printed and distributed by each party, making ballots easily identifiable and secrecy impossible. Vote-buyers could simply watch to guarantee that a purchased vote was dropped into the ballot box. In Indiana, Harrison’s home state, the treasurer of the Republican National Committee, William W. Dudley, sent a letter to the Indiana county chairmen with instructions on how to give Harrison a 10,000 vote plurality. Although much of his advice was legal and the methods he described had been in use for many years, Dudley told chairmen to divide the “floaters,” those persons who went between the parties to sell their vote to the highest bidder, into “blocks of five” and appoint someone to watch them to make sure that all of the voters voted the Republican ticket. The letter was highly publicized when it was obtained by the Democratic press. However, it did not cost Harrison the election and may have helped the Republican Party, as it raised the floater’s fees from $2-$10 to $15-$20, a price that the Republicans, with their greater financial resources, could still afford. The corruption of the 1888 election did lead to voting reform. By the 1892 election, 38 states had adopted secret ballots.
Roosevelt’s 1912 Progressive Battle Flag
One of a number of designs produced by the Progressive Party for Roosevelt’s 1912 campaign, 
this handkerchief features an image of Roosevelt on a red background with white graphics.
Unable to seize the Republican nomination for president from incumbent William Howard Taft, Roosevelt created the Progressive Party, also known as the Bull Moose Party. During his campaign, Roosevelt was shot in the chest in an assassination attempt by John Schrank. He proceeded to give his scheduled speech before seeking medical attention. Roosevelt was unsuccessful in his bid for the Presidency, though he became the only third-party candidate take second place, beating Taft but losing to Woodrow Wilson.
Abraham Lincoln Carving
late 19th century
Revered in American history for his vital contributions to the nation, Lincoln is a popular subject of folk art. Though the provenance of our “Lil’ Lincoln” is unknown, the item was likely carved in the 19th century. He stands 52 inches high and rests on an 11 inch base.
Abraham Lincoln was elected the sixteenth president of the United States in November 6, 
1860. A member of the Illinois and U.S. House of Representatives, Lincoln practiced law in Springfield, Illinois prior to his nomination. Lincoln’s opposition to the expansion of slavery was well-known and though he won the election, no ballots were cast for him in ten of the fifteen Southern slave states.
South Carolina was the first state to adopt an ordinance of secession in December 1860. By February 1861, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas had followed. President Buchanan and President-elect Lincoln refused to recognize the secession. Lincoln rejected the December 1860 Crittenden Compromise, which would have extended the Missouri Compromise line dividing territories into slave and free, but Lincoln supported the Corwin Amendment, which would have protected slavery in those states where it already existed.
On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces fired on Union troops at Fort Sumpter, beginning the war. Lincoln studiously focused on both military and political dimensions of the war and invoked unprecedented war powers, including the suspension of habeas corpus. Lincoln proposed compensated emancipation, though only in the District of Columbia was it enacted, with the government paying an average of $300 per slave. Lincoln rejected geographically limited emancipation in August 1861 and May 1862 and fighting continued.
Though Lincoln was adamant that his goal was preservation of the Union, he concluded that the war could not be won without freeing the slaves. After the Union victory at the Battle of Antietam in September 1862, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22 and effective on January 1, 1863. Slaves were freed in the ten states not under Union control, with exemptions in Tennessee, Virginia, and Louisiana, which were mostly under Federal control. As Union armies advanced south, more slaves were freed in the Confederate territory.
During the dedication of Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Lincoln gave his Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863, four months after the Union victory at the Battle of Gettysburg. One of the best-known speeches in U.S. history, Lincoln’s 272-word speech ensured listeners of the endurance of the nation.
Though the lack of military success made Lincoln fearful of re-election prospects, he carried all but three states in the 1864 election. On April 9, 1865, General Lee surrendered to General Grant at Appomattox, effectively ending the war.
Even during the course of the war Lincoln had considered reconstitution. Determined to reunite the nation and not alienate the South, Lincoln led moderate Republicans in Reconstruction efforts. Lincoln pressured Congress to outlaw slavery throughout the entire nation. A first attempt in June 1864 failed in the House of Representatives, but a second attempt in January 1865 passed and was sent to the states for ratification.
John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Confederate spy from Maryland, attended a speech by Lincoln on April 11, 1865 in which Lincoln endorsed voting rights for blacks. Learning that the President would be attending Ford’s Theatre, Booth devised a plan to assassinate him. Booth fired at point-blank range, mortally wounded the President, who died the morning of April 15, 1865.
Pennsylvania Dutch Chest
1812
The Pennsylvania Dutch settlers arrived from southwestern Germany to Pennsylvania in the 17th and 18th centuries. The use of the word “Dutch” stems from “deutsch” or “deitsch” meaning “German” and Pennsylvania Dutch is used synonymously with Pennsylvania German. Of varying religious traditions, including Lutheran, German Reformed, Mennonite, and Amish, the emigrants cleared land for farming and families were largely self-sustaining. Isolated from cities, many Pennsylvania Dutch immigrants maintained the language and customs of the homeland.
Pennsylvania Dutch furniture was sturdy with clean, simple lines, but many items were embellished with painted motifs to add color to otherwise barren rooms. Designs ranged from simple geometric hearts and 
stars to more detailed images of unicorns or birds. Floral motifs were a popular design and often included tulips. Brought to Germany from the Near East in 1559 by a Swiss botanist, tulips provided simple lines and bold colors for decoration. A symbol of faith, the tulip is thought to represent the Trinity.
The history of this particular chest is unknown. Painted with the initials R.P. and dated 1812, it may have been a dower chest. Dower chests, called Ausschteier Kischt, were often given to girls around their eighth or tenth birthday. The chest held blankets, linens, needlework, and household items that the girl made or was given in anticipation of her future marriage. Decorated with traditional symbols, the chest often included the girl’s name or initials and the year the chest was presented to her. Chests were decorated on three sides as well as the lid and after the marriage, placed at the foot of the couple’s bed or in the parlor with the family Bible on top.