The 1876 Election Starts Here!

This blog has taken on a lot of topics including time travel to the future, today we are headed back to the past. 

I think every state has one, but in Iowa, the live action re-enactment museum is Living History Farms.  A place that recalls the state’s early history. 

I would argue at this point, Living History Farms (and on site restaurant Machine Shed) is now a big part of Iowa history itself. 

For example when Sarah Palin stopped for a Saturday dinner there six months before the 2012 caucus. 

Then, of course Rick Santorum joining in on a game of 19th Century Baseball. Living History Farms isn’t the only place in the country that plays 19th Century rules baseball, but I suspect places that play it are a small list and it’s worth watching, at least once. 

These are highlights on a long list of moments that occurred at Living History Farms and they   include nearly every major candidate of the last 20 years- Huckabee, Perry, Carson, Walker, and Christie, to name a few.  Obama had a rally here in 2012 (with a concert by Chris Cornell and the National) which drew ten thousand.  Fox News held a live Town Hall in April 2019- one of the first steps into this current Presidential Election cycle. 

Living History Farms is about historical education too, which is why it is cool when it’s an election year, they do mock elections. This year, they focused on the year 1876 and held a mock mayoral election to feature the issue of women’s suffrage. Since this is the 100th anniversary of Women’s Suffrage, this was a great learning opportunity to pair with the PBS documentary The Vote. 

Of course, if you watched that documentary, you know the issue wasn’t always clear cut. Indeed, Ellen Keane Flynn, one of the first prominent Iowan ladies (and whose Flynn Mansion and Farm is the basis of Living History Farms) was active in anti-suffrage leagues. She would speak against suffrage for women in front of the Iowa legislature in 1898. 

Less than 20 years later, in 1916 (after the death of her husband and spending time in California and Wyoming) she had changed her views and became a voice for the pro-Suffrage movement. At age 77, she would see Iowa become the 10th state of the needed 36 to pass the 19th amendment. 

Iowa was home for a time to Amelia Bloomer, an early feminist who was at the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848. Bloomer spent her later years living in Iowa and fighting for suffrage in Iowa and Nebraska.

Carrie Chapman Catt is another Iowan important to the Suffrage story. Educated at Iowa State, she was Susan B Anthony’s hand picked successor of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. She would be a major leader in passing the 19th amendment and one of the most famous women of her time. 

The 1876 Election is pretty sexy right now with both The Guardian and the New Yorker writing about it this weekend. The Hayes v Tilden election stands out as one of the most bitter in our history and is a story of voter suppression, back room deals and an extremely polarized nation. Not to mention charges leveled against Tilden that he was a drunk, had syphilis and took bribes. Hayes was a teetotaler but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be accused of shooting his mom in a drunken rage. Now, there’s an episode of Crossfire we would like to see. 

In 1876, like 2016, the candidate with the most popular votes did not win the White House. The discussion comes up when third parties get involved of what happens if a simple majority of electoral votes is not procured. You may know that a contingent election is held in the US House of Representatives. This last happened at a Presidential level in 1825 (following the 1824 election). Of note, only candidates who received electoral votes are eligible for this election.  

So if you are picturing some scenario where neither Trump nor Biden get Fifty percent of the electoral vote, and you are thinking that we may just decide to let Keanu Reeves live in the White House, it doesn’t work like that. 

But maybe if Jo Jorgensen or Kanye West are able to win a single state, then maybe their future is in play. 

In a past election cycle, Living History Farms focused on the 1900 election and noted Texas had 15 electoral votes and California only had 9 that year, while Iowa had 13. What will the future bring?