Welcome to 1888! You are a citizen of the small hamlet of Clark's Hill, Indiana, population 191 by the 1870 Census. It's November, and you are going to exercise a particularly American right, one which Thomas Paine called, "the primary right by which other rights are protected." You are going to vote in the election for President of the United States. As a Midwesterner born and raised in Indiana, how will you approach the ballot box? Do you have certain bred-in-the-bone beliefs and ideals which will come to play? How does your understanding of history affect your ultimate decision? Are you, for that matter, even likely to vote? As you navigate this site, keep all of these factors in mind. Try to think outside of your own 21st Century context, and think of this election as a 19th Century Hoosier would! Keep in mind also that this society is one that revered the memory of Abraham Lincoln and was heavily supportive of the Republican party. As Sinclair Lewis has the Champ Perrys say in Main Street, "The Republican party, the Grand Old Party of Blaine and McKinley, is the agent of the Lord and of the Baptist Church in temporal affairs." This site is designed to relect that influence on your character's life, so if, while reading, the information presented seems heavily pro-Republican, it is only because your character would have viewed issues through the lens of a Republican environment. After weighing the issues, hearing campaign speeches, and taking part in the spectacle that was post-Civil War politics, you will get to cast your vote and see if your candidate won. So, best of luck, and God bless the Grand Old Republic!

Click on a daguerrotype below to choose your gender!