William Sydney Mount is known mostly for his scenes of rural American life, and Cider Making is that, and a lot more: it might even be a subtle political cartoon.

It isn’t a “cartoon," in the modern sense of course, although that term is also used to describe a large-scale preparatory drawing or painting in an art historical context. In the case of this painting, Mount was commissioned to create it in order to help with a political campaign. The reasoning behind the painting is pretty complex, what with a “bank war” led by Andrew Jackson, among other things. The short version, however, is that New York businessman and Whig party leader Charles Augustus Davis had Mount paint this (for $250!) either to commemorate the surprising victory of the Whigs over the Democrats, or simply to support the campaign of the Whigs.

This contentious race pitted William Henry Harrison (Whig) versus the incumbent President, Martin Van Buren (Democrat). Harrison was marketed as a “man of the people” who would rather drink hard cider and live in a log cabin instead of the White House, unlike his champagne-drinking opponent. Yes, this was a stretch even back then, though condemning your opponent as an out-of-touch rich person still happens in modern politics.

Davis had previously purchased Mount’s Catching Rabbits, painted in 1839, and was pleased with how popular the painting proved to be when exhibited. This is probably what motivated him to give Mount this commission. The theme for Harrison’s presidential campaign was actually called “Log Cabin and Hard Cider.” It also had one of the most famous slogans in history for a presidential campaign: “Tippecanoe and Tyler, too.” These were the lyrics to a popular song lauding Harrison as the "hero of Tippecanoe" and John Tyler, his running mate. To further the campaign, representatives would even hand out bottles of cider or whiskey shaped like a log cabin.

This campaign produced many other souvenir and propaganda items; not just your usual things like buttons and medals, but more unique items, such as a cane with a little cider barrel on top, an oil lamp, a songbook, mini cider barrel coin banks, and even ceramic creamers. There was a Philadelphia entrepreneur and whiskey-maker named E.G. Booz who happened to be a Whig/Harrison supporter who also sold his whiskey in log-cabin shaped bottles; this is where we get the slang for hard liquor: “booze.”

Looking at the painting itself, the cider mill Mount depicted was a real operating mill in Setauket, located in Suffolk County, New York, and stood until the early 20^th century. There are various meanings ascribed to some of the people and details in the painting, and also with those that are not shown. For example, Mount did not paint any Black people in the scene, though would almost certainly would have been the workers that actually operated the machinery used in the cider-making process. The sleeping pigs may represent the lazy Democrats, while the man in the right-side background could be Mount himself, literally sitting “on the fence,” unable to pick a side.

There are other figures that are supposedly identified, including Fanny Wright, the young woman at the cider barrel (dressed like a Madonna figure), who worked for women’s rights. The elderly squire in the back is Whig banker Nicholas Biddle, and even the dog, Trim, is supposed to represent Francis Preston Blair, a newspaper editor. These identities are likely speculative, but that’s how it is sometimes when interpreting a piece of art. There are also two dates in the picture: 1840 on the cider barrel in the foreground, and 1841 next to Mount’s signature; it’s thought that the 1840 date is in reference to the election.