One of the most popular campaign posters in the 1872 presidential election, “The Workingman’s Banner” pictured the Republican candidates as workingmen. Ulysses S. Grant was “The Galena Tanner,” and his vice president, Henry Wilson, was the “The Natick Shoemaker.” Grant had been a tanner, or rather, when he could not avoid it, he worked for his father, who had a tannery; Wilson had been a shoemaker, although he more accurately was the owner of a shoe factory. But these were white lies, since the line between skilled workmen and the owners of shops and small factories was still quite permeable.
