The President and Mrs. Hayes, 19th Century Size:18x24 one unbroken oath

one unbroken oath

all starched collar and inherited gravity

when the outcome of the wager was at last no longer in doubt

and wheat-belt skies stretched wide across every lithographed view

A nocturne for a future that never quite arrived

The President and Mrs. Hayes, 19th Century Size:18x24 one unbroken oathThe President and Mrs. Hayes, 19th Century a paired portrait of Rutherford and Lucy from the uneasy aftermath of the contested 1876 election, rendered with the parlor decorum of a White House trying to look respectable again. Lemonade Lucy at his side, the republic catching its breath. About the Source Bella Frye sources artifacts from the great American historical archive the Library of Congress, the National Archives, regional historical societies,