Elections Through the Eyes of Harper's Weekly

The Civil War was not without political wrangling and electioneering. 1860-1865 saw two presidential elections, a number of congressional elections, and a great many local elections. Politics carried on, despite the war. The press is a great resource for viewing the politics of the era. Certainly not sources for cool, fact-based analysis and commentary, Civil War era press outlets were unabashedly partisan and sought at every turn to advance the platform of their particular parties. While partisanship is readily experienced in the writing of the time, editorial cartoons provide some of the more striking examples. Harper’s Weekly, a popular illustrated news weekly of the last half of the 19th century, provided a wealth of these cartoons to its readership. These cartoons can be revisited today through a new online database and website. HarpWeek is a digital collection of all Harper’s Weekly materials, but also includes biographies, glossaries, images, and even advertisements of the era. Although the database is only available through subscription, HarpWeek’s website includes a number of free feature webpages that are fine, free sources for biographies, overviews, and most importantly, editorial cartoons.HarpWeek’s Elections Homepage is a most useful source for political cartoons from the national elections of 1860 to 1912.