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Mourning William Henry Harrison

This exhibit explores the power of black cloth as part of public and private displays of bereavement at the White House. Between 1841 and 1963, eight American presidents died while in office. By examining the fabrics used to decorate the White House for their funerals, as well as the mourning fashions of their spouses, one can track displays of grief through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and observe the mourning traditions that were either preserved or discarded to meet the needs of a growing, modernizing nation.

William Henry Harrison
Died on April 4, 1841

William Henry Harrison’s unexpected death sent the country into shock. The ninth president of the United States was the first to die in office, only a month after his Inauguration. His funeral was hastily arranged, and, with no precedent in place, organizers looked to royal funerals as a model. Certain aspects of the proceedings were adopted for subsequent presidential funerals, including the heavy draping of the White House in black, the president lying in repose in the East Room, and a funeral procession in which the coffin was carried on a funeral car or military wagon called a caisson. The caisson was draped in mourning colors and pulled by white horses wearing black cloth. Merchants Alexander Hunter and Darius Clagett decorated the Executive Mansion, the funeral car and its attendants, and supplied appropriate mourning accessories for invited guests and White House staff.

President Harrison’s wife, Anna, had not yet departed their home in North Bend, Ohio to take up residence in the White House. As a nineteenth-century widow, notions of respectability required she adhere to strict rituals around dress—a woman mourning a husband could expect to remain in black clothing for up to two and a half years following his death.

Gallery

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    Death of Harrison

    Date: 1841
    Creator: Henry R. Robinson
    Medium: Lithograph

    This 1841 hand-colored lithograph shows President Harrison on his deathbed, surrounded by physicians, political allies, and family members. His wife, Anna Harrison, who had not arrived in Washington, is not pictured.

    National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

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    Anna Tuthill Symmes Harrison

    Date: ca. 1820
    Creator: Unknown
    Medium: Painting

    In this portrait, Anna Harrison wears a black mourning dress and shawl. The painting was created before the death of William Henry Harrison, but Anna Harrison spent a good portion of her life wearing mourning clothing—she outlived all but one of her ten children, and also laid to rest ten grandchildren. She would have again worn black mourning dress after the passing of her husband.

    White House Collection/White House Historical Association

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    Mourning Dress, American

    Date: ca. 1840
    Creator: Unknown
    Medium: Silk

    Anna Harrison was a devout Presbyterian who “took no pleasure in contemplating the pomp and circumstance of a life at the Executive Mansion.” She may have selected a simple mourning gown such as this one, with little trimming or extra embellishment, to wear as a widow. One biography noted that “at no period of her life had she any taste for the gayeties [sic] of fashion…”
    Gift of Beatrice de Mauriac, etc., 1976/The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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    Marine Band in Procession During William Henry Harrison’s Funeral

    Date: 1841
    Creator: Unknown
    Medium: Engraving

    This engraving of the United States Marine Band performing during the presidential funeral of William Henry Harrison captures the White House and funeral car in the background. The artist neglected to depict the black drapery that festooned the façade of the Executive Mansion during the funeral.
    Kiplinger Research Library, DC History Center

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    Funeral Expenses of William Henry Harrison, Late President of the United States.

    Date: August 16, 1841
    Creator: Unknown

    This bill from draper Darius Clagett referred to the United States Congressional Committee of Ways and Means itemized the fabric and sundries used to decorate the White House for the presidential funeral of William Henry Harrison. He used black and white crape (also spelled crepe or crêpe) to drape the north side of the White House. Crape is a transparent, crimped silk gauze and was an ideal mourning fabric—in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, cloth that reflected light was avoided for mourning; dull, solemn fabrics were ideal. Mirrors and chandeliers in the East Room and parlors were covered with crape to dull their shine. Gloves in appropriate mourning colors were distributed to White House staff and principal guests. The total cost to the government for funeral decorations was $928.25 - about $33,454 today.
    Library of Congress

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    To the Memory of William H. Harrison

    Date: Unknown
    Creator: Unknown
    Medium: Print

    In this print, a mourner stands at the graveside of William Henry Harrison, his hat decorated with a band of black mourning crape. Sepulchral art—art depicting themes of death and mourning—was popularized in the mid-nineteenth century, when the sentimentality of bereavement became a major theme of the Romantic movement. Mourning was thought to demonstrate a person’s Christian piety, gentility, and sensitivity. The weeping willow was a popular motif, its branches mimicking the drooping posture of a mourner, and the vast amount of water needed to keep it alive signified the tears of the bereaved. The urn and the mourning doves nesting in the bush at the base of the tree were also common symbols of loss.
    Everett Collection Historical/Alamy Stock Photo

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