INDUSTRIALIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS 157
presidency, Gannett relegated the electoral map to
an inset in order to feature a larger map of county-
level returns that he knew would captivate his
readers. Gannett’s map was particularly innovative in
going beyond the statewide outcome to assess local
returns. He also used a scale of shade to assess the
strength of parties at the county or parish level: the
darker the color, the wider the margin of victory, with
the lightest shade indicating the barest majority.
This shading revealed a political landscape that
was far more complicated than that shown by the
statewide results of the electoral college. While the
former slave states leaned toward the Democrats,
they also included significant pockets of Republican
strength: for instance, the blue areas of eastern
Tennessee hearkened back to the strong anti-
Confederate sentiment during the Civil War that
evolved into Republican loyalty thereafter. Similarly,
broad swaths of red through Pennsylvania showed
Republicans that their control over that state was
weak, especially in light of recent economic volatility
and labor unrest. Perhaps most revealing are the
isolated Republican majorities throughout the
Deep South, a sign of the freedmen’s allegiance to
the party of Lincoln. Tragically, those blue pockets
would disappear once white Southern Democrats
disenfranchised African American voters by the turn
of the century.
Gannett’s detailed profile of election returns
upended assumptions about party dominance in
several states. By the early twentieth century, tools
such as this had become ordinary instruments
of political strategy alongside disciplined parties
and research-driven campaigns. With his visual
innovations, Gannett would have been entirely at
home in our own world of data-driven cartography
and analysis. Significantly, his map revealed
dynamics that are concealed—and sometimes
suppressed—by the electoral college.