It takes a great photographer to capture the spirit of a political event and there’s no place better to shuffle through early photos than the Portsmouth Athenaeum online cata;pg. This image comes from a series of almost four dozen crisp black and white shots of New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller in 1964. For you youngsters, back in the day, photographers used rolls of film in large mechanical cameras with flashbulbs. Pictures were developed on paper in darkrooms with smelly chemicals. It was a lengthy process.
The series begins with “Rocky” pressing the flesh with Portsmouth Gov. Wholey, smiling wide, and meeting local dignitaries. We see him signing an autograph for a woman in horn rimmed glasses in a wood-paneled room, maybe the Rockingham Hotel. Later the Guv appears to be dining with men in short hair and dark suits at Wentworth by the Sea at a long table festooned with flowers. Rocky wears a band-aid behind his left ear.
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Later, the candidate waves as he approaches a podium with a dozen large metal microphones. This speech, the candidate’s first since the assassination of John F. Kennedy appears to be in the auditorium at Portsmouth High School. A shot at the back of the room shows a cluster of young people, a few with slightly longer hair, standing by the exit sign. One has a sign that reads “No Loeb Blows,” clearly a reference to William Loeb, the controversial gun-toting publisher of the Manchester Union Leader. (Loeb had labelled Rockefeller a “wife-swapper” in a front page editorial.)
After Rockefeller’s speech, seen here, he is surrounded by admirers, including three women in dark dresses wearing shiny sashes that read “Young Republicans” flanked by “Rocky for President” signs. The photographer captured Rockefeller campaigning outdoors in chilly weather, holding hands with a cute little girl, and bellying up to the counter at a soda fountain as he listens intently to a man in a crewcut.
Rockefeller lost his bid to defeat Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater for the nomination. Rocky was booed at the Republican National Convention when, given only five minutes to speak, he argued that his party was heading in the wrong direction. But his words were drowned out by beating drums, loud horns, bells, and delegates shouting “We want Barry! We want Barry!” Ten years later Nelson Rockefeller became Vice President under President Gerald Ford following the resignation of Richard Nixon.
© J. Dennis Robinson.
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