The Monday After: McKinley Museum gets up close and personal with president

Dec. 03--A piece of history that was discovered in the summer, then purchased by donors within weeks, now is on display at Wm. McKinley Presidential Library & Museum.

An application for life insurance by William McKinley Jr., signed by the man who was to be elected president only a few months after the application was filled out in 1896, will be exhibited outside the McKinley Gallery at the museum through the rest of 2018.

"We think people will be interested in seeing it," said Kimberly Kenney, assistant director and curator at McKinley museum, who noted the artifact is paper and ink and thus museum official need to take care in exposing the application to potential light damage. Light damage is irreversible, she noted, and "if the ink fades, information would be lost."

Still, McKinley museum was able to obtain the relic of a president's personal life only because of donations from friends of the museum and supporters of its mission to preserve as much as possible the history that surrounds the 25th president of the United States. So, it seemed appropriate to allow the public to visit the museum and see the application for a short and safe period.

Online fundraising

A crowdsourcing campaign began in July, not long after museum officials found out about the application. The document is dated July 30, 1896, when McKinley was the new Republican presidential nominee.

The two-page "application for insurance to the New York Life Insurance Company" was being sold online by Signaturist-Ink, which specializes in "Historical and Presidential Autograph Displays," according to its website.

Operators of the company agreed to pull the McKinley item, which had been framed with a plaque and picture of the president, from public sale for a period long enough for museum officials to raise money to purchase the unique artifact.

The private nonprofit museum, which operates formally as Stark County Historical Society, does not have a budget for purchasing artifacts. But museum officials have, at least on one other recent occasion, raised money through crowdsourcing to purchase first lady Ida McKinley's tiara. Kenney, who at the time of fund-raising called the money needed "not an astronomical amount," went forward with setting up a Go Fund Me page online with the singular purpose of obtaining the McKinley insurance application. Over a period of only a few weeks, more than 40 donors offered the $4,750 needed to purchase the McKinley insurance application.

A substantial portion of the money raised came from Kathleen Hillibish, a volunteer in the museum's Ramsayer Research Library, who provided a grant from the Fernandez Hillibish History Fund, through Stark Community Foundation. Other museum volunteers and members also were among those who donated toward purchasing the artifact.

Private viewing

After the application was shipped to the museum, a private showing of the artifact to donors was held in October.

"They were really excited to be able to see it in person," Kenney said. "We pointed out some of the personal information on the application and they spent a lot of time inspecting it. They all said they were so happy that they were able to help us get it so people in the community would be able to see it."

The application now is displayed near one of the two entrances to the second-floor McKinley Gallery. The original document is exhibited with a small number of other artifacts in a display case beneath a picture of President McKinley.

Near the case, beneath a sign identifying it as a "New Acquisition" is a laminated copy of the actual artifact, which visitors to the museum can use to more closely inspect the contents of the application.

"It was an oral evaluation by a doctor and the doctor wrote the answers to questions posed to McKinley, then McKinley signed it," explained Kenney. "It says right on the form that it is to be filled out by a doctor."

Questions include queries about parts of McKinley's lifestyle -- smoking and drinking alcohol "to excess" are among them -- that might influence the president's health. McKinley answered no to both questions, although Kenney noted that he was known to smoke cigars.

Kenney said that museum officials are unsure of the complete history of the "application for insurance to the New York Life Insurance Company," which in light of McKinley's ultimate assassination raises significant questions.

"We're going to try to track down if the applications ever was submitted," said Kenney, "and if the policy was cashed in on at the time of McKinley's death. We don't yet know that side of the story."

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