Telling Hoosier Stories The Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site and the Significance of Presidential Ceremony

Abstract

While historians recently ranked Benjamin Harrison in the bottom third of American presidents, an examination of his White House career suggests he was far more effective in office than scholars admit. Harrison understood the dual responsibilities of the president: head of an elected government and chief representative of the American nation-state. The Hoosier president sponsored significant legislation related to commerce, conservation, and veterans’ affairs; he also ably presided over commemorations, speaking tours, and other ceremonies of state. The Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site, whose officers Charles Hyde and Jennifer Capps the author interviewed for this article, holds documents and artifacts illustrating the twenty-third president’s ceremonial undertakings and how they intersected with policymaking. Events like the 1889–90 Conference of American States and Harrison’s public and private trips across the United States, along with the policies they helped generate, show President Harrison’s devotion to a balance between development and conservation, and between peace and regional American hegemony.