PRESIDENTS

Box 3-9

(912 items)
Music has been written honoring every president of this country as well as many of the unsuccessful candidates. When in 1789 George Washington traveled from Mount Vernon to New York on horseback to assume the first Presidency, a "Washington's March" was composed and played for him en route. Eventually words were set to this air. They were introduced in Philadelphia in 1798 and became the famous "Hail Columbia", the only patriotic song for many years whose words and music were both the work of Americans. The only known music played at Washington's funeral in 1799 is the "The Funeral Dirge Adapted for and play'd by the Alexandrian Band...", a unique item.

Adams, Jefferson, Madison and succeeding presidents received musical tributes. It was not until 1840, when William Henry Harrison was the successful candidate, that his Whig party introduced campaign songs to spur his followers. "The Hard Cider Quick Step" shows a double page scene of Harrison's log cabin with the logs serving as staves, a soldier with a gun representing the treble clef, and a hogshead of cider the bass. Campaign songs became a traditional procedure for presidential candidates. Although many were clever, such as those for Henry Clay, John C. Fremont and William Jennings Bryan, they did not assure successful results. As mechanical sound supplanted the use of the human voice, the campaign song lost the great popularity it had during the eras of Lincoln and Grant.

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