Cooper Zelnick
The election of 1796 was critical in the history of the United States. It was the first presidential election that was contested, and considering that the elected individual was to replace the iconic George Washington, there was a great deal at stake. Although the party system was a far cry from its present iteration, there was a clear ideological fissure between the Federalists- represented by John Adams – and the anti-Federalist Democratic-Republicans – represented by Thomas Jefferson. Moreover, while Adams and Jefferson kept mostly to themselves prior to the election, their supporters waged a decidedly partisan contest. The Federalists alleged that Jefferson was a Francophile anarchist who lacked patriotism, while the Democratic-Republicans decried Adams as an Anglophile who desired monarchy. Indeed, though hindsight grants the knowledge that the United States succeeded as a nation, things were much less certain in 1796, and the figures of Adams and Jefferson represented fundamentally different visions of government.
The Campaign Ad
Following the black title screen, I decided to begin my ad with a 1786 Mather Brown portrait of Thomas Jefferson that features a quote from the Marquis de Lafayette that I got from The Quotable Jefferson, which was a truly fantastic resource for designing a campaign ad due to its efficient organization and its abundance of succinct quotations from primary sources. While I was initially hesitant to include a quote from a Frenchmen given the political issues in the election, I decided that, given Lafayette’s status as a hero of the American Revolution along with his opposition to the French Revolution and subsequent imprisonment, it was a worthwhile addition. I followed the portrait with an image of the Declaration of Independence and a quote from John Adams that highlights Jefferson’s brilliance, and more importantly for the election of 1796, his patriotism; while it simultaneously belittles Adams’ own skills using his own words. The Declaration was even at the time considered a great achievement, and thus its addition to a pro-Jefferson campaign ad would have been symbolically powerful. I obtained the image through a simple Google images search.
I followed these initial images with another powerful painting: John Trumbull’s Declaration of Independence[1]. Aside from the chronological issue noted below, I think the image presented portrays Jefferson as a leader in a very important historical moment. This leadership is portrayed in how the individuals depicted are signing the Declaration that Jefferson authored while he also maintains a prominent position in the portrait. The next image is a political cartoon from the book A History of American Graphic Humor, and it depicts William Cobbett, an Englishman who wrote attacks on anti-Federalists, as the Federalist porcupine slinging his “quills.” I liked the imagery of the sinister-looking Federalist porcupine contrasted against the Democratic-Republican leaning on the pillar which reads “Independence declared, 4 July 1776.” Given Jefferson’s status as author of the Declaration, and thus his association with that essential date, I thought zooming in and focusing on the date was symbolic. While I considered leaving the cartoon still for longer so that it could be read, the time necessary to read everything would have been excessive due to the size and nature of the print. The next image is of the Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, of which Jefferson was also the primary author. I thought using the word “freedom” in conjunction with this image, particularly with the screen panning up to the title of the document, effectively linked Jefferson and freedom.[2] Once again, I got this from Google images.
The next image is a newspaper article from the Washington Spy from late 1796, though the paper got the passage from The New York Diary and the original publication date is unavailable on the database.[3] I decided for aesthetic reasons to use video effects in Imovie to make the article more opaque and then put the important phrases in the foreground rather than use Photoshop to highlight them. I found the article through narrowly defining my search in the Early American Newspapers Digital database. Following the newspaper article, I chose to conclude with two more portraits of Jefferson. I found both through the National Portrait Gallery website; but due to the nature of the site, I had to use a more specific Google search to get images I could use. The first is from 1791, and I picked it first because, while he looks less distinguished than he does in the final portrait, I think he looks more distinct. Given that the quote refers to him as “one of the choice ones of the Earth,” I thought this was appropriate. The Abigail Adams quote also came from The Quotable Jefferson, and I thought finishing with a complimentary quote from the opponent’s wife was extraordinarily fitting, albeit a little discourteous.
The final image is a portrait from 1796 that I think both shows Jefferson as he looked at the time of the election and in a flattering, dignified manner. The “Against Tyranny and Monarchy” is a reference to what Adams was purported to secretly desire according to anti-Federalists, and it is also representative of ideas that early Americans associated with Great Britain. Jefferson was the obvious choice if one wished to counter both of these fears. The music I used for the video is “Washington’s March,” from the album “Birth of Liberty – Music of the American Revolution.” The song itself is, to the best of my knowledge, from prior to 1796, and I though having a song associated with the iconic figure of Washington was a good public relations move. I got it from Youtube and converted it to mp3 format for audio use.
Citations:
Quote 1: Kaminski, John P, ed. The Quotable Jefferson: The Marquis de Lafayette to George Washington, January 1788. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006, 451.
Quote 2: Kaminski, John P, ed. The Quotable Jefferson: John Adams, Autobiography, 1776 (published 1802); and John Adams to Henry Knox, December 15, 1785. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006, 442 – 449.
Image 4: Murrell, William. A History of American Graphic Humor. Vol. 1. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1933, 41.
Image 5:
Image 6 and quote 3: The Washington Spy (Elizabethtown, MD). "Mr. Jefferson." Fall-Winter 1796, 330th edition. Accessed February 20, 2012. Early American Newspapers Digital.
Images 7 and 8, National Portrait Gallery website that directed me to them: http://npgportraits.si.edu/eMuseumNPG/code/emuseum.asp?collection=1127&collectionname=Portraits%20of%20the%20Presidents%20from%20the%20CAP&style=browse¤trecord=73&page=collection&profile=CAP&searchdesc=Portraits%20of%20the%20Presidents...&newvalues=1&newcurrentrecord=82
Image 7: http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en&biw=1440&bih=775&tbm=isch&tbnid=71JQifqdt2bzIM:&imgrefurl=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:T_Jefferson_by_Charles_Willson_Peale_1791_2.jpg&docid=oeGYyu8lSYyegM&imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/T_Jefferson_by_Charles_Willson_Peale_1791_2.jpg&w=360&h=506&ei=CfxGT9_kMcTm0QH95OCGDg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=410&vpy=117&dur=830&hovh=266&hovw=189&tx=107&ty=144&sig=101710581609904947543&page=1&tbnh=141&tbnw=99&start=0&ndsp=37&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0
Quote 4: Kaminski, John P, ed. The Quotable Jefferson: Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, May 8, 1785. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006, 447.
Image 8: http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1440&bih=775&tbm=isch&tbnid=4ZAV2bES_pG6yM:&imgrefurl=http://fineartamerica.com/featured/thomas-jefferson-james-sharples.html&docid=_WsQlHynZVH1CM&imgurl=http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large/thomas-jefferson-james-sharples.jpg&w=674&h=900&ei=xPtGT8bIOcOx0AHY55ixDg&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=491&sig=101710581609904947543&page=1&tbnh=137&tbnw=107&start=0&ndsp=40&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0&tx=35&ty=63
[1]I realize now that this image was not painted until 1817 – 1819, but it was labeled as The Second Continental Congress on the Google image search I used and I failed to realize it was mislabeled until the video was already posted. The image I intended to use – “Congress Voting Independence” – is very similar, with Jefferson in a prominent central position during the signing of the Declaration. His centrality to independence was what I wanted to convey.
[2] I attempted to link Jefferson with the ideological powerful concepts of independence, liberty, and freedom – concepts that were well known and accepted, and that Jefferson ardently supported.
[3] The Washington Spy article quotes the story from “the New York Diary,” which is not a newspaper that is included in the database.