Election Collection: Quirkiest Memorabilia
This week Election Collection asks, what’s your Quirkiest Memorabilia? The answer for us is this chicken head worn by New York Times reporter and noted prankster Jim Naughton during President Ford’s 1976 presidential campaign.
You might be thinking, what the cluck? Well, the story begins in California on October 24, 1976, as the campaign entered the home stretch. Naugton and the rest of the White House press corps were covering a rally for President Ford at the Grossmont Shopping Center in La Mesa. As the rally begin a local radio mascot, the San Diego Chicken, appeared on stage with the President.
(White House photograph B2000-06A)
Naughton later recalled his amazement at the scene in his memoirs, writing, “I stood in slack-jawed awe and said, mostly to myself but aloud, ‘I’ve got to have that chicken head.‘” He managed to locate and purchase an extra one before continuing on to the trip’s next stops in Seattle, Washington, and Portland, Oregon.
The next day a new face popped up among the press corps at a question and answer session President Ford held with the press at Portland International Airport.
(Gif of White House photograph B2003-25)
Everyone had a good laugh, including President Ford.
(White House photograph B2003-31)
Jim Naughton kept the chicken head for many years before giving it to the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum while attending its dedication ceremony in 1981. Naugton’s prank was so memorable that 30 years later journalist Tom Brokaw mentioned it in his eulogy at President Ford’s funeral. He noted that “in the next news cycle, the chicken head was a bigger story than the president. And no one was more pleased than the man that we honor here today.”
Move over, Kenny G! This week’s #ElectionCollection theme is Pop Culture. Remember this musical moment from 1992, when Bill Clinton was running for President? He played “Heartbreak Hotel” on the saxophone on Arsenio Hall’s late night show. 6/2/92.
For this week’s #ElectionCollection challenge, share your favorite Presidential pop culture moments with us!
Footage from the William J. Clinton Presidential Library.
The Presidential Libraries of @usnatarchives and @americanexperiencepbs want to see the cool campaign swag that you’ve collected. Share your own historic memorabilia and tag #ElectionCollection!
Election Collection goes Pop Culture today!
What do you get when you combine support for President Ford with Arthur “Fonzie” Fonzarelli from the TV show Happy Days? This Fordzie poster from the 1976 campaign. Happy Days are Here Again!
Just when we think we have seen it all at the National Archives, the Ford Library proves us wrong!
@usnatarchives
The Anniversary of the Highway Beautification Act
On October 22, 1965, President Johnson signed the Highway Beautification Act in an East Room ceremony at the White House. The law was an unprecedented effort by the Johnson administration, with Lady Bird Johnson putting it at the top of her agenda, to limit the billboards, outdoor advertising, and junkyards that threatened to spoil the raw beauty of America and its interstate highways.
“Where flowers bloom so does hope.” - Lady Bird Johnson
SIGNING OF THE HIGHWAY BEAUTIFICATION ACT
President Lyndon B. Johnson hands a signing pen to Lady Bird Johnson as others look on. 10/22/65
HIGHWAY 1 DEDICATION AT BIXBY CREEK BRIDGE
Lady Bird Johnson with the California coast behind her. 9/21/66
Luci Baines Johnson with Congressman Sam Farr from yesterday’s rededication plaque ceremony at Bixby Creek Bridge’s scenic overlook in California. Lady Bird Johnson came to the very same spot to dedicate California’s first scenic highway “as the maintenance of a trust…for generations to follow" fifty years ago this month.
Photo by Brad Cole
-from the LBJ Library
This week’s Election Collection challenge: Caricatures and Candidate Likenesses!
Today we’re on a roll with “Rock” Jerry. Michael Manning spent over 36 hours crafting this caricature of President Ford from Pennsylvania river stones. The sculpture weighs 70 pounds.
Our collection also includes likenesses of other notable Republicans, including a Richard Nixon wax candle and a stuffed doll showing the two sides of Reaganomics that features a caricature of Ronald Reagan.
Images:
A hand-painted Bicentennial caricature of President Gerald Ford. The caricature contains Ford’s signature pipe in his left hand and a grey elephant in his right hand.
A wax candle head of President Richard Nixon.
A stuffed Reaganomics doll.
Former President Hoover at a 1936 World Series game - New York Yankees vs. New York Giants.
-from the Hoover Library
Source: facebook.com
Presidents Before They Became POTUS
In 1978, this newly married couple was campaigning from the back of a pickup truck for the Congressional race in West Texas. George W. Bush lost that race to Kent Hance, but in 1994, Bush once again ran for public office and was elected the 46th governor of Texas. He won re-election in 1998 with nearly 69% of the vote, becoming the first governor in Texas history to be elected to two consecutive four-year terms. Read more
For this week’s #ElectionCollection challenge, share your favorite picture of Presidents before they became POTUS!
The Presidential Libraries of @usnatarchives and @americanexperiencepbs want to see the cool campaign swag that you’ve collected. Share your own historic memorabilia and tag #ElectionCollection!
President Truman took a rather dim view of Daylight Saving Time.
In this October 2, 1947 letter to Bess, he wrote: “We’ve gone back to God’s time, thank him. The silliest thing I know of is daylight saving time. Why don’t they get up with me?”
-from the Truman Library
Source: facebook.com
“I came, I saw, and I was conquered…”
President Franklin Roosevelt at the Dedication of the Boulder Dam, September 30, 1935.
With initial site work beginning in June of 1930, construction of the Boulder dam was nearly complete by the time of the 1935 Dedication Ceremonies. Originally named the Hoover Dam, in honor of President Roosevelt’s predecessor, Herbert Hoover, numerous attempts were made to rename it the Boulder Dam, but this was never fully successful and in time it reverted to the original, better known name.
This Department of Interior film above captures Boulder Dam in the midst of its construction. See how the Colorado River flowed before, and after, the construction of what was then the world’s tallest dam.
BOULDER DAM, 1937
Series: Motion Picture Film Documentation of the Diverse Activities of the Department of the Interior, 1916 - 1976
Record Group 48: Records of the Office of the Secretary of the Interior, 1826 - 2009President Roosevelt can be seen at the Dedication Ceremony in the footage above at roughly 30:28. Or read his remarks below (additional pages in the National Archives Catalog):
Dedication Ceremonies-Boulder Dam, 9/30/1935
File Unit: First Carbon Files, 1933 - 1945. Series: Speeches of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933 - 1945. Collection: Papers as President, President’s Personal File, 1933 - 1945More facts on the Hoover Dam from the Bureau of Reclamation (usbr).
Franklin D. Roosevelt in Charlotte, North Carolina, 9/10/1936
Series: Franklin D. Roosevelt Library Public Domain Photographs, 1882 - 1962. Collection: Franklin D. Roosevelt Library Public Domain Photographs, 1882 - 1962 (Holdings of @fdrlibrary )
Be sure to follow @ourpresidents‘ #ElectionCollection series for more photos and memorabilia from the campaign trail!
Source: catalog.archives.gov