# Great Footrace for the Presidential Purse: Webster, Scott and Pierce run for it, 1852

A Nathaniel Currier lithograph of 1852 has Daniel Webster, Winfield Scott and Franklin Pierce racing on foot for a purse of "$100,000 and pickings" while the crowd talks in speech boxes. The archive reads it as mocking every runner in turn.

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      "Great footrace for the presidential purse ($100,000 and pickings) over the Union Course 1852" (Currier lithograph)

      Great Footrace for the Presidential Purse: Webster, Scott and Pierce run for it, 1852
      Currier's 1852 Great Footrace for the Presidential Purse: Webster, Scott and Pierce race on foot for "$100,000 and pickings," jeered by a crowd in dialect.

## Techniques named on the archive record

Name-calling
      Date1852Made byNathaniel Currier, New York (publisher; "For sale at No 2 Spruce St N.Y.")MediumPrintCountryUnited StatesRegimeFillmore AdministrationSourceIdentified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they areSourceLibrary of Congress , retrieved October 2, 2026SourcePublic domain: published 1852, US; LOC rights: "No known restrictions on publication." Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
      Object, image, and catalog record from the FRAME archive. Text on this page is CC BY 4.0. Image rights are as the archive records.

      Full record at propagandaarchive.org

  A Nathaniel Currier lithograph of 1852 has Daniel Webster, Winfield Scott and Franklin Pierce racing on foot for a purse of "$100,000 and pickings" while the crowd talks in speech boxes. The archive reads it as mocking every runner in turn.

Content note: some speech boxes render Irish and German immigrants' speech in caricatured dialect for comic effect. The archive shows the print as published, and the lines are quoted as printed.

## A race with no favorite

Three men run for the presidency on foot over "the Union Course." The archive names them as Daniel Webster, Winfield Scott in a plumed general's uniform, and Franklin Pierce. Around them, spectators comment in speech boxes, and the runners talk back. The prize in the title is a purse of "$100,000 and pickings."

[Speech box, from the plumed runner in uniform:] Confound Webster ! what does he want to get right in my way for ? if he dont give out, or Pierce dont faint I shall be beaten.

[Speech box, from the third runner:] No ! No ! old Fuss and Feathers, you dont catch this child fainting now. I'm going in to make good time ! whether I win or not, Legs ! do your duty.

[Speech box:] I'm fraid the Ex pounder is too old for such a severe race . -

[...]

GREAT FOOTRACE FOR THE PRESIDENTIAL PURSE ($100,000 AND PICKINGS) OVER THE UNION COURSE 1852.

For sale at N° 2 Spruce St. N.Y.

Transcription in the FRAME record, read from the image and not independently checked; punctuation spacing and dialect spellings are the printer's. Full record at propagandaarchive.org.

## Nicknames for arguments

The archive says the print takes no side and mocks each runner in turn. The uniformed runner worries that he will be beaten unless a rival gives out. The third runner calls him "old Fuss and Feathers." A spectator thinks "the Ex pounder is too old," and another answers that "it is the Blood that tells" and that he would back "old Dan against Lady Suffolk herself." Two boxes are written in heavy dialect, one Irish ("Arrah be Jabers") and one German ("I schal pack te man mitout te hat!").

The archive's tag is name-calling, and its tell is the nicknames: "old Fuss and Feathers" and the jibe "Ex pounder" stand where an argument might be. Nobody in the picture says what any of the three would do in office. The dialect boxes make a second, uglier joke, aimed at Irish and German immigrants rather than at the candidates, and the content note at the top of this page flags them.

## Publisher

Nathaniel Currier of New York published the print; its imprint reads "For sale at N° 2 Spruce St. N.Y." The same year produced a sharper print on this site, Position of the Democratic Party in 1852, an antislavery sheet that lays Pierce face-down on the Baltimore Platform. Currier's 1856 race print, The Great Presidential Sweepstakes, used the same sporting frame four years later. The campaign print hub covers the century from 1800.

## Sources

- FRAME object record, "Great footrace for the presidential purse ($100,000 and pickings) over the Union Course 1852" (Currier lithograph). Nathaniel Currier, New York.

- Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, catalog record, retrieved by the archive 2 October 2026. Rights as recorded: public domain, published 1852; LOC: "No known restrictions on publication."

Canonical: https://americanpropaganda.org/collection/great-footrace-presidential-purse-1852/