In mid September 1901. The 25th President of the United States died from the effects of an assassins bullet. As soon as the funeral was into swing there were memorial books on the planning board. There would have been several hundred of these thin sales books printed. The book was still being formulated a week after the assassination but, it was in the works. So this book and books like it were brought door to door by hundreds of sales people, The final finished book was a big seller and of course this door to door campaign was quite successful.
One must remember it was dealing with an assassination of the president. But if you were over 42 years of age at this time you would have seen this as the third assassination of a president in just 36 years! For there had been two before McKinley and they were in a rather close time period. Lincoln in 1865, Garfield in 1881 and then McKinley in 1901.
So this book would be filled with not only a story about McKinley. But it was filled with Victorian styled grief and overkill. In one of the illustrations it has McKinley being brought into the "Hall of Martyrs" in Heaven. But this book would sell well as McKinley was so universally grieved for.It is odd that he is so little remembered today, considering his popularity then.
Of course it had instructions to sales agents
An example of the title page and a few chapters to give a certain gist to the book that was to be.
Showing who else had been shot and killed in the last 36 years.
The assassin
Lastly, the order form
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