About the Man

William Henry Harrison served the shortest term in the Presidency’s history, and it’s highly likely that he will always have done so for he died just 32 days after taking office. Until Reagan was elected in 1980, Harrison was the oldest President elected, but he died not from old age and natural causes.

While on the campaign trail, his supporters (yes, supporters) painted Harrison as a backwoodsman who drank a lot but was tough and militarily adept. After victory, however, Harrison wanted to paint a different image of himself. The Whig party had a smashingly successful election, not only with the President but in both houses of Congress but Harrison was never given enough time to shake one of the best nicknames in Presidential history, Old Tippecanoe.

During his inaugural address, Harrison gave a very longwinded speech in an attempt to prove his worthiness, not as a tough military general, but as a refined Virginian in the line of Washington and Madison. In his vigor, he chose to wear no hat and no overcoat, and thus exposed himself to a cold, which led to fatal pneumonia.

Ironically, after his death, since he was the first President to die in office, many questions that went unanswered in the Constitution about the succession process were answered, and his Vice President John Tyler became the 10th President of the United States.

Harrison was the first President to be photographed while in office. The quote I used is rather fitting for today’s political climate – “all the measures of the government are directed to the purpose of making the rich richer and the poor poorer.” How far have we come?

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