Benjamin Harrison: President at the Crossroads

A President at the Crossroads

He was a man living in two worlds.  He was a witness to both the extremes of wealth and poverty in the Gilded Age and the unbridled promise of the Modern Era.   He saw the rise of prairie populism and a country’s transformation from rural isolationism to international power. He dreamed of a world where men shared the same civil rights regardless of color, but was challenged at every pass. Above all else, Benjamin Harrison was America’s Hoosier President, raising a family in the country’s heartland in Indianapolis.

Who was this 23rd president of the United States?

A war hero and champion of veterans. Cold in conversation but a brilliant lawyer and orator. In conservation, he was visionary; in foreign affairs, foresighted; in personal affairs, unconventional. He was an early architect of a social safety net. He signed landmark anti-trust legislation still on the books today.  

You’ll discover the politics and the power, the personality and the private life, of a man at the crossroads between the past and the now. 

But always, a President with boundless faith in people: “An American could not be a good citizen who did not have hope in his heart.”

Made possible by a grant from Visit Indiana.