Date: November 1948
Photographer: American photographer William Eugene Smith – Photographer for Time and Life magazines.
Details: The story behind this iconic photograph dates back to the U.S. presidential election held on November 2, 1948. The election saw a fierce competition between two candidates: the incumbent President Harry Truman, representing the Democratic Party, who was seeking another term, and Thomas Dewey, the Governor of New York, representing the Republican Party. After the votes were cast and counting began, the “Chicago Tribune” faced a dilemma. Due to a strike in the printing press, the paper needed to go to print earlier than usual. As the deadline for the first edition approached, the editor-in-chief, Pat Maloney, had to decide on the headline that would announce the election’s winner.
Despite the ongoing vote count in the western states, Maloney relied heavily on the predictions of the Tribune’s veteran Washington correspondent and political analyst, Arthur Sears Henning. Henning had accurately predicted the winner in four of the last five presidential races over the past 20 years. Combined with the prevailing opinion polls, all of which indicated that Dewey’s victory was inevitable, Maloney decided to go with the headline, “Dewey Defeats Truman.” The first edition printed 150,000 copies with this headline. However, as the night progressed, the vote tally started to shift, casting doubt on Dewey’s win. The Tribune quickly changed its headline for the second edition to “Democrats Gain Control of State Offices,” but by the time the final results were in, Truman had won the election. Not only did he secure the presidency, but the Democrats also gained control of both the House and Senate.
Two days after the results were announced, President Harry Truman was traveling by train to Washington, D.C. During a stop in St. Louis, he stepped onto the rear platform of his presidential train car. Someone handed him a copy of the Tribune’s first edition with the erroneous headline. Thrilled by the newspaper’s blunder, Truman held up the paper for the assembled photographers, famously declaring, “This one is for the books.” The photo taken at that moment became one of the most iconic political images of all time, capturing a victorious Truman reveling in the Tribune’s major mistake, which led to widespread ridicule of the paper. Later, the newspaper’s publishers planned to give Truman a framed replica of the erroneous headline on the 25th anniversary of the 1948 election, but Truman passed away in 1972 before he could receive the gift.
