William McKinley Campaign Poster

This poster from 1900touted the accomplishments of President William McKinley. That year McKinley, a Republican, was running for reelection along with his running mate, New York governor Theodore Roosevelt. McKinley had been elected president in 1896, a time when the United States had a range of economic problems and faced a series of foreign policy challenges. The economy improved significantly during McKinley’s first term. In addition, the United States had fought a war with Spain to end Spanish colonialism in Cuba. However, not all Americans had enjoyed the rising prosperity of the first McKinley term, and many critics of the president asserted that Cuba had simply traded Spanish domination for American control.