Stories for the Public, 1830–1860

William Sidney Mount (American, 1807–1868)
Cider Making, 1840–41
Oil on canvas; 27 x 34 1/8 in. (68.6 x 86.7 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, Bequest of Charles Allen Munn, by exchange, 1966 (66.126)
Photograph © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Mount recorded a familiar activity that occurred in his hometown of Setauket, Long Island, yet savvy viewers would have seen through the painting's idyllic message of rural work to its clues about the political maneuvering surrounding the hard-fought presidential election of 1840. The down-home simplicity embodied by the cider makers was evoked by the Whig candidate, William Henry Harrison. With his running mate, John Tyler ("Tippecanoe and Tyler too!"), Harrison campaigned as a common man who preferred a log cabin and hard cider to the alleged excesses of the incumbent, President Martin Van Buren. Mount punctuated his scene with suggestive details such as the prominent date on the barrel.