Political battles are a near-ubiquitous part of our history. White Plains was the site of numerous political dramas in the late 19th- and early 20th-century. As the seat of the county and the home of many individuals who fancied themselves powerful and important, what happened in White Plains was news throughout the state. Rather than have you read two blog posts, I will direct you to a highly informative article written by local history expert Cliff Blau. The political cartoons in his article are by John Rosch, and can be seen in Rosch's scrapbooks or in Historic White Plains. The picture of Samuel Hopper is from the Manual of Westchester County: Past and Present, Civil List To Date, published in 1898. Click here to read Cliff's article!

The clippings in this post come from John Rosch's “Politics” scrapbook. Rosch constructed many scrapbooks, and the library has almost fifty of them in our collection. While the historical information in some of them is erroneous or outdated, even the most anachronistic scrapbooks are fascinating as pieces of folk art.