 |
| Gansevoort Melville The New York Public Library Digital Collections |
Before and after the 1844 presidential election, some political opponents of Gansevoort Melville (Herman's older lawyer-brother) called him a Broadway exquisite or dandy, mocking his supposedly over-the-top devotion to fashionable clothing and personal appearance. Gansevoort's success as a popular democratic orator eventually won him a respectable diplomatic post in London. Down in Hinds County, Mississippi, editor George W. Harper, age 21, could not resist the chance to depict the newly appointed Secretary of Legation as "a whiskered, powdered and dandyfied stump speaker."
"REWARDED.-- Gansevoort Melville, of New York--a whiskered, powdered and dandyfied stump speaker for Mr. Polk, in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York, last summer--is going out to London, as secretary of legation, with Mr. McLain." -- Raymond Gazette, August 8, 1845.
- Gansevoort Melville as Broadway exquisite
https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2017/02/gansevoort-melville-as-broadway.html
- Tall, very tall Gansevoort Melville
https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2016/02/glimpse-of-tall-very-tall-gansevoort.html
No comments:
Post a Comment