William McKinley's Gold Bug

 

Gold Bug Pin, 1896-1900. United States. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Gregory L. McKinley, 2019.006.10.

The Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library recently acquired a collection of nearly fifty campaign and memorial items related to President and Freemason William McKinley (1843-1901). These items add to the many objects already in the collection associated to McKinley’s involvement in Freemasonry, his campaigns, and his unexpected death. 

Several of these items will be displayed in our upcoming recent acquisitions exhibition, including this “gold bug” pin, pictured at left. The pin, a campaign item from McKinley’s first 1896 presidential campaign, signified McKinley’s support for the gold standard platform. Advocates for McKinley and the gold standard, sometimes referred to as “gold bugs,” believed that the country’s monetary system should be backed only by gold. McKinley’s presidential opponent, William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925), and his supporters, sometimes called “Silverites,”  advocated against the gold standard, and believed that currency should be redeemable in silver as well as gold. 

As debates about the gold standard consumed the election campaign, McKinley supporters began to wear “gold bug” pins, buttons, and ribbons. The pins were often in the shape of a large scarab beetle, sometimes made with wings. Bryant supporters wore similar silver bug pins to show support for their candidate. Ultimately, McKinley won the 1896 election with Garret Hobart (1844-1899) as his Vice President and signed the Gold Standard Act into law on March 14, 1900. The act established gold as the sole basis for redeeming paper currency.

The pin and other McKinley items will be on display at the Museum & Library beginning in October 2019. 

"In McKinley We Trust, In Bryan We Bust": Presidential Campaign Memorabilia from the Collection

It's election season! As political parties prepare for their respective conventions, we decided to spotlight a couple of the wonderful presidential campaign items in the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library collection.

Glassware, pins, canes, flags, and bobble heads are just some of the types of campaign materials made and sold over the past one-hundred and fifty years. Campaign memorabilia and ephemera present a graphic record of past political climates, personalities, societal concerns, and political slogans. Although the way in which candidates campaign has changed, the goal of rallying support and winning the highest seat in American politics is the same.  The memorabilia, some whimsical, some tongue-in-cheek, echoes some of the same concerns steeped in present day politics.

Grover Cleveland (1837-1908), who served as the 22^nd and 24^th President of the United States, is the only president to date who served two nonconsecutive terms. This 1884 whiskey bottle in the form of presidential candidate Grover Cleveland’s bust was one of the many political souvenirs from his 1884 bid for the white house against Republican James G. Blaine. The bottle was a souvenir from a political dinner in California during the campaign.

Political campaign canes, also referred to as walking sticks, were once popular campaign items and often used during political torchlight parades. In 1977, Henry S. Kuhn (1895-1984) donated a William McKinley political campaign cane to the Museum & Library. Family history relates that Samuel Kuhn (1866-1920), Henry’s father, received this cane during the aforementioned presidential stop in Cleveland, one day before McKinley’s assassination in Buffalo. The words “preferred choice” are inscribed on the cane. This phrase was one of the slogans for the 1899 McKinley/Roosevelt campaign. The cane was one of the many McKinley artifacts and campaign materials sold to supporters and visitors.

Want to learn more about our political campaign collections?  Or, which presidents were Freemasons? Visit our online exhibition “Who Would you Vote For? Campaigning for President” to explore the collection and learn more about past presidential campaigns. 

 

 

Captions:

Grover Cleveland Figural Whiskey Bottle, ca. 1884, unidentified maker, United States, Gift of Dr. Sanford Moses, 78.35.2. Photograph by David Bohl.

William McKinley Political Campaign Cane, 1890-1900, unidentified maker, United States, Gift of Mr. Henry S. Kuhn, 77.29.2. Photograph by David Bohl.

 

 

 

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