Truman Itinerary
date: label: associated date
content: 1948 09 27 - 1948 10 11
name: label: associated person
content: Truman, Harry S.
notes: label: Description
content: In 1948, on a train called the Presidential Special, Harry Truman took to the rails to salvage a campaign many people thought he could not win. Undeterred, Truman told his staff, “I’m going to fight hard. I’m going to give them hell.”
label: Description
content: For 35 days in September and October, Truman traveled over 31,000 miles delivering 356 speeches to perhaps 15 million people. This is just one page from his dizzying whistle-stop schedule. Refusing to be “coached,” Truman declined to use “gimmicks” preferring to be “simple and straightforward.” He insisted on having material specific to each town where the train stopped and he never gave the same remarks twice in a single day—even days on which he gave more than a dozen speeches. His speechwriters noted Truman was “rousingly successful” in these off-the-cuff speeches because he got “his heart” into them.
label: Description
content: Even though his team sometimes had to pass the hat to raise money to get the train to the next stop, Truman believed the tour would pay off. He knew he was working his staff “almost to death” but, in the end, “My one-man crusade took effect. The people responded with increasing enthusiasm as the day of the election neared. I never doubted that they would vote for me.” And they did. Truman pulled off one of the most famous upsets in presidential election history, defeating the Republican nominee Thomas Dewey and the third-party candidates Strom Thurmond, Henry Wallace, and Norman Thomas.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Political History: Political History, Campaign Collection
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: The Ralph E Becker Collection of Political Americana
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: PL.227739.1948.K63
label: catalog number
content: 227739.1948.K63
objectType: label: Object Name
content: News Release
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 14 in x 8 1/2 in; 35.56 cm x 21.59 cm