Miami alumnus who rose to U.S. presidency parallels Biden’s term in office

When President Joe Biden retires from the highest office in the nation on Jan. 20, he will become just the second one-term president in U.S. history to serve between two nonconsecutive terms of the same president.

That’s a distinction he’ll share with a Miami University alumnus.

In 1888, Republican Benjamin Harrison, a Miami graduate, was elected president over incumbent candidate Grover Cleveland, a Democrat. Cleveland had previously won the 1884 election by almost 40 electoral votes, though in the popular vote he eeked out a slim majority of less than 25,000 votes.

Harrison would go on to beat Cleveland by more than 60 electoral votes but lose the popular vote by 100,000. When Cleveland ran again in 1892, six new states had been added to the map. Like Donald Trump in 2024, Cleveland won his most resounding victory in his third and final campaign, walking away with a wide majority of electoral votes and a wide popular vote victory, ending Harrison’s political career.

Local history

When Benjamin Harrison came to Miami University, it wasn’t just for an education: it was to follow a woman.

Harrison initially attended Farmer’s College, but he transferred to Miami University after two years to follow Caroline Scott Harrison, his eventual wife. She was an Oxford native who met Benjamin Harrison while her father was teaching at Farmer’s College in Mt. Healthy. When the Scotts moved back to Oxford, Harrison came, too.

The couple got married at 131 W. High St. in Oxford on Oct. 20, 1853, and had their first son in 1854 while in town. The family soon relocated to Indianapolis, and Harrison went on to run for Indiana governor in 1876 and became one of the state’s senators in 1881.

“We used to get calls at the Smith Library asking what buildings were still here connected with the President or the First Lady … Unfortunately, Oxford’s two main sites — the birthplace of the First Lady and the wedding site of the president — were both torn down.”

While the site of their marriage and Caroline Scott Harrison’s birthplace were demolished in the mid-1900s, some historic buildings remain. The Oxford Community Arts Center is in what used to be the Oxford Female Institute, where Caroline Scott Harrison graduated in 1852. A statue of her was added to the property in 2018.

Benjamin Harrison is also likely to have taken his meals at 101 W. Church St., a building which is still standing today. While at Miami, he roomed on the third floor of Elliott Hall, one of the oldest buildings still standing on campus. He also roomed at 18 Church St. for a time, though the building has been torn down now. Harrison also took meals at Mrs. Hughs’ Boarding House at 100 S. Campus Ave., and that building is still standing today.

Harrison’s family legacy also lives on in Oxford. His great-great grandfather, John Cleves Symmes, purchased land in 1788 which helped lead to the establishment of Miami University.

“Preserving the past, at least the built environment, to remind people what happened in any location is what makes communities different from one another,” Elliott said. “It’s the different past, the history and the different architecture that make places unique. If all the historic buildings are gone and everything is built to look like everyplace else, the sense of place is lost.”

A consensus candidate

Benjamin Harrison was first floated as a potential presidential candidate in 1884, though he ultimately backed Maine Senator James G. Blaine in his bid against Cleveland. At the Republican convention in 1888, however, Blaine lost support and backed Harrison instead.

According to the Miller Center at the University of Virginia, Harrison was initially “everyone’s second choice in a field of seven candidates,” but he eventually secured the party nomination on the eighth round of ballots at the convention. At the time, parties did not hold the drawn-out primary process that we know today.

The general election campaign in 1888 featured few appearances from Cleveland or Harrison, neither of whom personally campaigned. The parties, however, still held lively campaigns with speeches, rallies, parades and more, according to the Miller Center.

Campaign appearances in 2020 were similarly limited as the COVID-19 pandemic halted mass gatherings for months. Like Harrison, Biden was not an obvious frontrunner early in the candidate selection process.

The Democratic field featured at one time more than two dozen candidates, and Biden came in a distant fourth after the Iowa Caucuses, trailing Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Biden only picked up steam against Sanders after the last remaining moderate candidates dropped out and endorsed him ahead of Super Tuesday. 

Regulating monopolies

In 1890, Harrison signed the Sherman Antitrust act into law, the “first Federal act that outlawed monopolistic business practices” according to the National Archives.

For his part, Biden and his administration have targeted a number of tech and pharmaceutical giants in the past four years, bringing major cases against the largest companies in the U.S. for monopolistic practices. During his first year in office, Biden signed an executive order calling for a “whole-of-government response to curb “excessive market concentration” which threatened competition.

Both Harrison and Biden served during times of major . Google’s search market share has held at roughly 90% for the past decade, the same market share of American oil refineries that Standard Oil held during Harrison’s presidency in the late 1800s. Five major tobacco companies also merged to form American Tobacco during Harrison’s term, while Biden’s administration spent considerable energy fighting mergers in industries from airlines to artificial intelligence.

One southwest Ohio company has also been the target of antitrust discussions under Biden. Cincinnati-based grocery company Kroger attempted to merge with its competitor Albertsons in 2022. The Federal Trade Commission argued against the merger, saying it would decrease competition and lead to higher prices for consumers. The deal fell through at the end of 2024.

While Congress didn’t pass any major antitrust legislation during Biden’s term, practicing attorney and Miami University business professor Karen Meyers said Biden’s executive order led to extensive actions across government departments. 

“They looked at from hospitals to grocery stores as to where competition needed to improve,” she said. 

The Sherman Antitrust Act passed with near-unanimous approval during Harrison’s presidency — only one senator voted against it. While Meyers sees strong parallels between the oil and steel companies of the late 1800s and the tech companies of today, she said that type of consensus against monopolistic companies may be hard to achieve under any president now. 

“We have two opposites in the extreme, and once you have two opposites in the extreme, you rarely have almost a total agreement on an issue. And I think that we have those, they exist. The challenge for our leaders to try to manage, and so it’s unlikely the Harrison victory would be repeated now.”

Economic difficulties and ultimate defeat

The University of Virginia’s Miller Center writes that Harrison “seemed insensitive and unaware of the massive industrial changes that had overtaken America; of the poverty … [and] of the depths of economic hardship affecting the nation’s farmers as they fell down the economic ladder to tenancy.”

As Biden sought reelection before dropping out of the race, he was likewise criticized for his ineffective messaging on the economy. Inflation surged during the post-pandemic recovery phase of Biden’s presidency, raising the cost of goods across industries. While inflation did slow down later in his term, Americans didn’t feel relief.

Politico reported in May 2024 that Biden had hoped for a strong economic outlook to campaign on but was instead forced to “focus more on smaller, individual improvements aimed at easing costs.” As Biden tried to walk the balance of defending his economic policy performance with winning reelection, he may have alienated voters. Gallup found that, as in previous elections, the economy was the single most important factor for Americans at the polls.

Biden was not ultimately his party’s nominee, and Harrison’s renomination wasn’t a given, either. The Miller Center writes about the 1892 election that a major wing of the Republican party sought to nominate someone else, particularly Harrison’s own secretary of state James Blaine and Ohio Representative William McKinley, who would go on to win the presidency in the 1896 election.

During his first term, Harrison chose Levi P. Morton as his vice president. When he ran in 1892, though, he chose fellow Miami alumnus Whitelaw Reid — the only time in history a presidential ticket included two alumni of the same university.

According to the Miller Center, Harrison’s ultimate defeat tied back to his support for a high tariff during his presidency, as well as discontent among farmers in the south and labor strikes across the nation. As Grover Cleveland reassumed the office of the presidency at the start of 1893, his party controlled the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, as well.