As we finally are able to see the end of the road for the current presidential primaries—and as we look ahead to the upcoming presidential election campaign, it is an appropriate time to look back at the ways in which previous presidential campaigns have been executed, and recorded through the types of media then available throughout modern American history.
Edison began recording sound in 1877 with the invention of the phonograph, so that means we might have sound records going as far back as Rutherford B. Hayes, who took office that year. Edison actually demonstrated his mechanical machine to President Hayes in 1878, but what is believed to be the oldest recording of a president is Benjamin Harrison speaking in 1889. It was recorded on an Edison wax cylinder, and you can hear it on Youtube!
There is a scratchy sound recording of an 1896 campaign speech by then presidential hopeful William McKinley, and you can find that on Youtube as well. In fact, Youtube holds a wealth of presidential campaign history. It takes patience and perseverance to sort through the muck and mire that folks have placed on this vast database, but it’s well worth the time.
While much of 19th and early 20th Century presidential campaign history is relegated to still photography and the written word, moving images and sound media enter with the first brief actuality films in the mid-1890s and the development of commercial newsreels around 1911. Granted, silent film footage of a man speaking on a platform isn’t the most exciting capture that any newsreel photographer ever made. In the mid-1920s, synchronized sound was added, although speeches were abbreviated for the newsreels.
In the late 1940s, television began to captivate the American psyche. Television news reported on presidential campaigns as candidates stumped from villages to towns to major cities, often speaking outdoors or in acoustically-poor spaces in town halls. Much of TV news back then was composed of silent 16mm film footage with a reporter’s added voice-over, since it was difficult at that time to record quality sound in natural settings. Bringing the candidate into the controlled environment of studio facilities was needed to properly record synchronized sound.
In 1960, cinema verite pioneers Robert Drew, Richard Leacock, D.A. Pennebaker, and Albert Maysles took to the road to film the Democratic primary contest in Wisconsin between John F. Kennedy and Hubert H. Humphrey. The result was a ground-breaking documentary called PRIMARY. This film is available for home viewing and is well worth seeing for its content as well as the style in which cameras and sound equipment captured the immediacy and intimacy of the campaign as it never before had been recorded. Another milestone documentary which captures the thrill of a presidential campaign is the Chris Hegedus-D.A. Pennebaker film THE WAR ROOM in 1993 about Bill Clinton’s bid for the presidency.
Today, with various cable TV and online news sources, we feel closer than ever before to the ever-developing, presumably always news-worthy election campaign. Detail after detail is recorded. We’ve come a long way from the snippets of speeches and posed photographs of candidates. At this rate, where will we go in the future?
Audrey Kupferberg is a film and video archivist and appraiser. She is lecturer emeritus and the former Director of Film Studies at the University at Albany and has co-authored several entertainment biographies with her husband and creative partner, Rob Edelman.
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