QUICK FACTS

Nickname: Rud

Years in office: 1877–1881

Political party: Republican

Birthday: October 4, 1822

Official presidential portrait of Rutherford B. Hayes

by Daniel Huntington, 1884

Hayes/Wheeler Campaign Badge, 1876, (Image from the Smithsonian Museum of American History)

Check out this campaign badge from the Centennial Election of 1876. The election, taking place 100 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, was fraught with problems. In the end, a special commission awarded Hayes the necessary votes to win the election.

Between an economic depression and corruption in the Grant administration, the Republican party was struggling. Hayes ran against a popular New York governor, Samuel Tilden.  As the election results came in, Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina had no clear winner.  Both candidates claimed to have won those states.  A special election commission was assembled to determine the results of the election.

The commission awarded all three states to Hayes (possibly because of promises to remove remaining federal troops in the south).  Hayes won the election by one electoral vote, even though Tilden had roughly 250,000 more popular votes.

BIRTHPLACE

Delaware, OH

HOME

Spiegel Grove, Fremont, OH

PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY

Fremont, OH

GRAVESITE

Fremont, OH

BOOKS

Davis, Kenneth C., and Pedro Martin. Don’t Know Much about the Presidents. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2014.

DeGregorio, William A., and Aaron Jaffe. The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents. Fort Lee, NJ: Barricade Books, Inc., 2017.

Kane, Joseph Nathan, and Janet Podell. Facts about the Presidents: A Compilation of Biographical and Historical Information. New York: H.W. Wilson, 2009.

WEBSITES

Encyclopedia Britannica, britannica.com

Library of Congress, loc.gov

Miller Center, University of Virginia, millercenter.org/the-presidency

The White House, whitehouse.gov

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