Country Vacations & Resorts

Time in Office: 1923 – 1929
Terms: Succeeded plus one term
Birthday: July 4, 1872
Birth Place: Plymouth Notch, Windsor County, Vermont
Date of Death: January 5, 1933
Place of Death: At his home, “The Beeches,” Northampton, Massachusetts
Buried: Notch Cemetery, Plymouth Notch, Vermont – Calvin Coolidge Homestead District

Notes:
~ Only President born on Independence Day
~ His chronically ill mother died when he was twelve
~ First Vice President to attend Cabinet meetings
~ Reputation as “Silent Cal” – a quiet man
~ First Presidential speech to be broadcast via radio
~ Only sitting US President to visit Cuba
~ Custer State Park was his “Summer White House”

After graduating from Amherst College, America’s 30th President, Calvin Coolidge, moved from Vermont to Northampton, Massachusetts to apprentice at a law firm. In 1897 at the age of 25, he used his savings and a small inheritance to open his own law firm in Northampton. A rather serious and quiet man, Calvin met and married the vivacious Grace Anna Goodhue, a teacher at the Northampton’s Clarke School for the Deaf, in 1905.

Coolidge’s political career began in 1898 when he was elected to the City Council of Northampton. After serving in several other city posts he was elected to the House of Representatives in 1906 and began his new position in Boston in 1907. He returned to Northampton as Mayor in 1909, was elected State Senator in 1910 and was elected Massachusetts’ Lieutenant Governor in 1915.

As a full-time elected official, Calvin was no longer practing law and devoted himself to his political duties. By 1918 he was Governor of Massachusetts. Taking decisive action during the Boston Police Strike gained Calvin local respect and his first national exposure. He was easily re-elected Governor in 1919.

To his surprise, Coolidge found himself nominated for Vice President on what became the winning Warren G. Harding ticket of the 1920 Presidential election. He was suggested as a candidate for VP by the person the party had initially selected for the position. When President Harding died in August 1923, Coolidge received word while at his home in Vermont. Harding’s administration had been full of scandals but Calvin’s steadfast, no-nonsense approach improved the political environment enough that he was elected President in his own right in 1924.

Always quiet and reserved, Coolidge received significant support from his wife Grace while dealing with Washington’s society. Even through the tragedy of the death of her 16 year old son during the conventions of 1924, Grace retained her role as one of the most popular women in Washington.

Their elder son John died in 2000.

In 1928 Coolidge visited Havana, Cuba for the Pan American Conference, making him the only sitting President ever to visit the country. The Summer of 1927 found him at his favorite vacation spot – the Black Hills of South Dakota where he relaxed by fishing, attending rodeos, and horseback riding. This site became a popular tourist destination along with Custer State Park due to Calvin’s numerous and publicized visits. It was from a brief vacation at Wind Cave National Park that Coolidge announced he would not be running for re-election in 1928. He retired to his home in Massachusetts where he fished, wrote his autobiography (1929), and in 1932, turned down an party suggestion that he again run for President.

He died of a heart attack while at his home, June 5, 1933 – at the age of 60. During his life Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd and Floyd Bennett made the first successful flight over the North Pole (May 9, 1926), Charles A. Lindbergh completed the first transatlantic flight, traversing the distance from New York to Paris in his monoplane, and a year later, Amelia Earhart became the first woman to make the flight. In 1928, Richard E. Byrd made his first flight to the South Pole in Antarctica.

Many Americans now had cars, but many homes still had neither phones nor electricity. The stock market crash of 1929 dealt a temporary blow to the rapid growth of the automotive industry but the 1930s became known as the “Golden Age” of the classic car.

Next: America’s 31st President, Herbert Hoover.