Political Ephemera Through the Ages

Sometime when I was in grade school, I heard the phrase “Tippecanoe and Tyler, too.” Years would pass before I knew what it meant. I knew it was a presidential campaign slogan from way back, but did not learn until later that it was a phrase from an 1840 campaign song for William Henry Harrison (who led the troops who defeated Chief Tecumseh at the 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe in Indiana) and John Tyler. What’s remarkable is that the phrase has lived on, that its cadence has made it the sort of thing you’d unthinkingly mutter to yourself over and over again. The song was written by a Zanesville, Ohio, daguerreotypist, Alexander C. Ross, who set his words to a popular minstrel song. Ross was no professional political operative, yet his song is widely credited with helping Harrison, a Whig, to defeat the incumbent Democrat, Martin Van Buren. (Alas, Harrison died one month into his presidency.)