Women could not vote in national elections when Augusta Browne Garrett participated in the 1876 presidential campaign.[1] Nevertheless, seventeen songs contributed by Browne Garrett and her younger brother, General William Henry Browne (1825–1900), appeared in the pocket-size Hayes & Wheeler Song Book as part of the 1876 election battle. Although Browne Garrett never advocated for women’s suffrage in her extensive published prose, her contributions to the 1876 presidential race heralded American women’s future political activity.
The Republican National Committee distributed the Hayes & Wheeler Song Bookfrom coast to coast during the contest between the Republican candidate, Governor Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio, and the Democrat, Governor Samuel Tilden of New York.[2] Victory for Hayes ultimately came down to a single electoral vote, making this contest the most disputed presidential election of the nineteenth century.