All The President's Moose

So, let's pretend you're running for President. It's 1912. You need to work on your public image, and you want to get something out there in the press which just screams 'future leader'. There won't be any such thing as televised Presidential campaigns for at least seventy years, and social media won't be an option for almost another century. So, what do you do?

If you're anything like President Theodore Roosevelt, you have the New York Tribune run a picture of you bravely crossing a flooded river on the back of your pet moose. It's not as bizarre as it sounds; the moose was the symbol of the Progressive Party, who Roosevelt stood for. The most amazing thing, though, is that it's fake. An expert from the firm Underwood and Underwood painstakingly cut around a picture of Roosevelt on horseback, stuck it onto a picture of a moose in a river, and reprinted the composite image. Everyone fell for it. It's not just the Millennials who use filters!

NEXT


Copyright © 2026 CultureHook