Benjamin Harrison Home

This should really have been a post from St Louis, where I was supposed to have seen the Arch, the historical museum next to it and the Missouri western expansion museum. Well, the traffic jam of the century put a quick stop to that. Disgusted by the long lines and hardly having moved in the previous 20 minutes, I swung the car over to an exit, and got on the other side of the freeway and fucked off outta there.

Instead, I've found myself in the nice city of Indianapolis where I've had a most interesting visit to the home of one of America's least well known presidents, Benjamin Harrison. He was the grandson of another president, William Henry Harrison, who holds the record for the shortest presidency; a mere 30 days.

Harrison's one term is wedged in between the two separate terms of one of the greatest presidents ever, semi-libertarian Grover Cleveland. In addition, Harrison actually had fewer popular votes than Cleveland, but since he had a majority of the Electoral College, that didn't mean diddly squat, except to those few of us who believe in the old fashioned idea that in a democracy, even a constitutional one, the winner is the one with the most votes. But I digress.

Despite his single term and somewhat feeble electoral record (he also lost a run for the governorship of Indiana a few years before), Harrison is remembered as an honest man, and the campaign of 1888 is widely recognized as one of the more civilized in the 19th century. Harrison was a progressive man in many ways, strongly favoring education as a means of liberation and giving money to educational endowments for black students. He tried (but failed) to pass laws to protect the black vote in the south. He also let both his daughters go to college. In later years he had a falling out with his children from his first marriage, because after his wife died, he went ahead and married her niece, who was over thirty years his junior. The old scoundrel.

All pics here.

The house was built in 1876. Harrison was the first president to electrify the White House and also put electricity AND running water in his own house.


His grandfather's campaign had the slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler too", after the battle of Tippecanoe in 1811 where William H. beat an injun force. Benjamin tried to emulate granddaddy in his campaigns.


The kitchen had an icebox.


The cupboard to the right of the door is a small exercise studio, with portable weights.


The third floor had an exhibit with lots of political campaign material from Harrison and other Indiana politicos. I actually HAVE a Harrison button in my personal collection, but was still drooling over this.


There is also a small exhibit in the barn behind the house. There is a train model here to exemplify Benjamin's use of the train in campaigning. By a cruel twist of fate, the model uses the town of Deming, NM as an example. That's where I got my last speeding ticket. Thank you, Universe. Thank you very much.