 A towering figure in the Republican party of his day , Blaine fell into obscurity fairly soon after his death . A 1905 biography by his wife 's cousin , Edward Stanwood , was written when the question was still in doubt , but by the time David Saville Muzzey published his biography of Blaine in 1934 , the subtitle " A Political Idol of Other Days " already spoke to its subject 's fading place in the popular mind , perhaps because of the nine men the Republican Party nominated for the Presidency from 1860 to 1912 , Blaine is the only one who never became President . In 1947 , the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission installed a historical marker in West Brownsville , noting Blaine 's historic importance . Although several authors studied Blaine 's foreign policy career , including Edward P. Crapol 's 2000 work , Muzzey 's was the last full @-@ scale biography of the man until Neil Rolde 's 2006 book . Historian R. Hal Williams was working on a new biography of Blaine , tentatively titled James G. Blaine : A Life in Politics , until his death in 2016 . 
