Country Vacations & Resorts

Time in Office: November 1963 to January 1969
Terms: One +
Birthday: August 27, 1908
Birth Place: Stonewall, Texas
Date of Death: January 22, 1973
Place of Death: At his ranch – Stonewall, Texas
Buried: Family cemetery – Lyndon B. Johnson National Park, Stonewall, Texas.

Notes:

~ Edited his high school’s paper
~ First candidate to campaign by helicopter
~ Had a first, severe heart attack at age 47
~ Guided the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957
~ Liked to get drunk and drive vehicles around his ranch

Quote: “I have learned that only two things are necessary to keep one’s wife happy. First, let her think she’s having her own way. And second, let her have it.”

America’s 36th President, Lyndon Baines Johnson may have been born to humble beginnings, but this energetic and ambitious young man would become one of only four people ever to hold office as a Representative, a Senator, a Vice President, and as President of the United States.

“LBJ” as he was known, was born in 1908 in a small farmhouse on the Perdanales River near Johnson City, Texas – named for one of his forebearers. Holding his first elected office as President of his Junior Class in high school, Johnson graduated in 1924 having taken part in debate, public speaking and America’s favorite pastime – baseball. Graduating from Southwest Texas Teacher’s College in 1930, Johnson honed his public speaking skills and was a informed and persuasive speaker – even conducting a class on the subject at Sam Houston High School. With his background in speaking and debate, and a father who had held 5 terms as a Texas legislator, Johnson entered politics as a congressional aide. In 1935 he was appointed head of the Texas National Youth Administration and from 1937 to 1941 he was the elected representative of Texas’ 10th Congressional district.

LBJ married Claudia Alta Taylor in 1934. With his marriage to Miss Taylor, conveniently and already nicknamed “Lady Bird” – Lyndon would begin his “LBJ” naming convention with his daughters Lynda Bird Johnson – born in 1944, and Lucy Baines Johnson – born in 1947. Even one of Johnson’s dogs was given the name “Little Beagle Johnson!”

When America entered World War II in 1941, Johnson became a commissioned officer in the Naval Reserve. He worked stateside until the Spring of 1942 when he spent a short time in the Southwest Pacific to survey military conditions and readiness to be reported back to President Roosevelt. LBJ was awarded a Silver Star though there is much controversy over how an “observer” could have done anything to warrant such a high honor.

Johnson won a Senate seat in 1948, was chosen as Senate Majority Whip in 1951, and Minority Leader in 1953. Johnson visited his various districts during his campaigning via his rented helicopter known as the “Johnson City Windmill.” A savvy, well-informed, and well-connected politician, Johnson was selected (with some controversy still remaining) as John F. Kennedy’s VP candidate in the 1960 Presidential Election.

LBJ – Travel as President

Within hours after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963, Lyndon Baines Johnson became the 36th President of the United States – taking the Oath of Office aboard Air Force One at Love Field Airport in Dallas. Johnson would fly some 523,000 miles on Air Force One during his 5 years as President. He took trips to Vietnam and Asia – and one long, unplanned trip across the US and to Australia, Thailand, South Vietnam, Pakistan, and Italy. You get the feeling that Johnson’s “inquiring mind” might have thought he was missing something, somewhere…

Johnson was elected President in 1964. Due in large part to unresolved civil rights issues and the Vietnam War, Johnson decided not to run for re-election in 1968. His health was also beginning to fail.

Johnson returned to his ranch in Stonewall, Texas January 1969. He published his memoirs, and later that year the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum opened near the University of Texas – Austin. Johnson died at his ranch January 22, 1973, (one day before the ceasefire in Vietnam was signed) and willed his ranch to the public. The ranch formed the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park with Johnson’s wish that the ranch continue to be a “working” ranch – not just a museum of days gone by. Johnson is buried at the park – just a short walk from the house in which he was born.

Links:

LBJ Library and Museum
Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center
Austin, Texas – Convention & Visitor’s Bureau
More on the life of LBJ
More on LBJ Presidential Travel

Prior: John F. Kennedy
Next: Richard M. Nixon

The Traveling with the Presidents Series.

Time in Office: January 1961 to November 1963
Terms: Less than one – assassinated
Birthday: May 29, 1917
Birth Place: Brookline, Massachusetts
Date of Death: November 22, 1963
Place of Death: Dallas, Texas
Buried: Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia

Notes:
~ First Boy Scout to become President
~ Was so ill, he once received “last rites”
~ Appeared with Nixon on the first televised Presidential debate
~ Youngest man elected President
~ Created the Peace Corp
~ Kennedy and Taft – Only 2 Presidents buried at Arlington
~ First of 6 Presidents to have served in the US Navy

What hasn’t already been written or said about America’s 35th President, John Fitzgerald Kennedy?

That he was a rather sickly child? That he lived in the shadow of a near paragon of an older brother? No matter what has been said about JFK – he was certainly never boring!

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born in Massachusetts but raised mainly in New York. His prominent, wealthy, and politically active family provided a private school education and vacation homes in Hyannisport, Massachusetts and Palm Beach, Florida. He attended first Canterbury School in Milford, Connecticut and then the Choate School in Wallingford where he graduated high school in 1935.

Kennedy made his first trip abroad in September 1935 – to London with his family. It was planned for him to attend school there, but by October he was back in the US instead and enrolling late at Princeton University. He spent only 6 weeks there until becoming ill. He recuperated at his family’s home in Palm Beach and then spent the Spring of 1936 working on a ranch in Benson, Arizona. In September 1936 he enrolled at Harvard.

“Jack” as he was called, led an envious college existence in between extended trips abroad – to France and Europe in 1937, to London with his father and to Cannes in 1938, and to the Soviet Union, the Balkans, the Middle East, and Czechoslovakia and Germany – heading back to London – all before September 1939. After starting as a somewhat indifferent college student, Kennedy made the Dean’s List at Harvard in his junior year, and by 1940, his thesis had been published as “Why England Slept.” In 1941 he spent some time auditing classes at Stanford University and later in the year, traveled to South America. This is a lot of travel for someone still under the age of 25. Kennedy was published again in 1955. His second book, “Profiles in Courage” won a Pulitzer Prize.

Joining the Navy in 1941, Kennedy served with distinction and honor in Panama, the Pacific Theater, and the Solomons Islands. On August 12, 1944, Kennedy’s older brother Joe was killed in action flying a mission over England. The family’s political expectations for Joe now fell on JFK. He was elected US Representative in 1946 and in 1951, as a Massachusetts congressman, Kennedy, his brother Robert, and his sister Patricia traveled for seven weeks in India, Japan, Vietnam, and Israel. Elected Senator in 1952, Kennedy married Jacqueline Bouvier in 1953, and was on the Democratic ticket for Vice President in 1956. He was nominated and then elected President, November 1960. Kennedy – along with his wife Jacqueline and other family members, traveled nearly non-stop across the US during these campaigning years.

Trips, accompanied by his wife Jackie, to Paris and Vienna in 1961 involved political issues surrounding Nikita Khrushchev which continued with the botched Cuba invasion, (Bay of Pigs) and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Also looming as an issue during Kennedy’s brief administration was the growing political unrest in Laos which, despite Kennedy’s calls for peace and after his assassination, developed into the Vietnam War.

Kennedy visited West Berlin in June 1963 where he gave this (now) famous speech at the Berlin Wall:

Kennedy's Berlin Speech

He also made a visit in 1963 to the home of his ancestors when he visited the Republic of Ireland. For a man who suffered chronic back pain, was diagnosed in with Addison’s disease in 1947, and who had other endocrine-related health issues, Kennedy refused to let pain control him.

Presidential Travels – John F. Kennedy

Anyone alive and old enough to remember November 22nd, 1963 can probably tell you where they were when they heard the news that President Kennedy had been shot while in Dallas, Texas. Thirty minutes later came the televised announcement that he had died.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy is buried at Arlington National Cemetery – his grave lit with an Eternal Flame. In only the first 3 years, an estimated 16 million people visited Kennedy’s grave. His two deceased minor children and later, his wife Jacqueline (May 1994), were buried there with him.

Links:
Kennedy Space Center
Kennedy International Airport
Visitor info – Arlington National Cemetery

Next, The 36th President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson

America’s 34th President, Dwight D. Eisenhower

Traveling with American Presidents Series

More on US Presidents, their homes, and their Presidential Libraries:

The Ideals Guide to Presidential Homes and Libraries

Time in Office: April 1945- January 1953
Terms: Less than 2 – assumed office after Roosevelt’s death
Birthday: May 8, 1884
Birth Place: Lamar, Missouri
Date of Death: December 26, 1972
Place of Death: Kansas City, Missouri
Buried: Truman Library – Independence, Missouri

Notes:
~ Middle initial “S” but no middle name
~ Was legally blind in one eye
~ A member of the Freemasons
~ Had several business failures
~ Inaguration was the first televised nationally
~ Only President who served after 1897 without a college degree
~ “Time” magazine’s “Man of the Year” – 1945 and 1948
~ Created and organized the Department of Defense
~ Approved the Berlin Airlift
~ Received the first ever Medicare card

Photo Credit: Young Harry S. Truman
Trumanlibrary.org

Born into a farming family, Harry S. Truman, America’s 33rd President, spent most of his formative years in Independence, Missouri. Harry didn’t attend a traditional school until the age of 8 but he loved to read – having been taught by his college-educated mother, and he loved both history and music.

Harry would get up at 5am to practice piano for two hours each morning before heading off to school. A somewhat quiet and bookish young man, Harry served as a page at the 1900 Democratic National Convention in Kansas City, graduated from Independence High School in 1901, and began looking for ways to earn a living – working various clerical positions in the Independence and Kansas City areas. In 1906, his father called him home to help work the farm which Harry did without complaint.

In 1905-1911 Harry was also a member of the Missouri Army National Guard. His eyesight was so poor in one eye that Harry passed the physical exam only by memorizing the eye chart in advance. In 1911 Harry also made his first proposal to Elizabeth “Bess” Wallace – a girl he had loved since he’d first met her at Sunday School at the age of 5. She rejected him and in Harry’s practical mind, she should have since he was, according to himself, a rather useless farm boy!

Prior to leaving for the war Harry was sent to Camp Doniphan in Oklahoma and then on to France. Rising to the rank of Colonel, Harry first exhibited leadership qualities and his successful war record would, in future, help him politically. At war’s end, Harry was in a bit of a hurry to get back to Missouri. His second proposal to Bess had been accepted and in June 1919 they married.

After a haberdashery business failure Truman, with the aide of a wealthy but shady local political bigwig, was elected county commisioner for Jackson County, Missouri. He became popular due to his diligence and willingness to work hard for the good of the county and it’s citizens but the connection to his benefactor who had connections to organized crime, constantly plagued him. Backed by the same benefactor, (Thomas Pendergast) in a run for the Senate in 1934, Truman would win the election, but arrive in Washington with a reputation as having bought or stolen his election. Truman would spend the next several years earning the respect of his senatorial peers.

Harry moved his wife Bess and his daughter Margaret to a rented apartment in Washington, but Bess was not pleased to be there. Having spent her entire adult life living – even after marriage – with her mother in what was her mother’s home, Bess returned to Independence, Missouri though she and Harry communicated by letter almost daily. Harry took his job as Senator very seriously and began the committee that exposed fraud and waste in military contracting during World War II.

Presidential Travel – Harry S. Truman

His honesty and willingness to dig for the details brought him to national notice and when the party was looking for an acceptable Vice Presidential nominee to Franklin’s Presidential election in 1944 – Harry was selected. Party members knew that Roosevelt’s health was deteriorating and Truman’s eventual win as Roosevelt’s VP almost guaranteed he would one day be President.

After only 82 days as Vice President, Truman learned that Roosevelt had died. His panic and feelings of being unprepared and unworthy to serve as President were summed up in his quote,”…I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me.” (More quotes from Harry)

With no time to waste Harry immediately learned about underway plans for an atomic bomb, and was soon attending the Potsdam Conference in Europe. By august, with the Japanese unwilling to surrender, Truman authorized use of the atomic bomb:

In 1950 he would approve development of the hydrogen bomb – 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic version.

Truman’s re-election would prove an arduous and seemingly impossible task. The US transition from war-time to peace-time had not gone smoothly and Truman was held responsbile. His efforts to win re-election took him over 21,000 miles across the United States in 1948. While supportive crowds continued to grow as news of Truman’s “Whistlestop” train tour spread, political pollsters predicted Truman would lose the election to his rival, Republican Thomas Dewey. Truman won the election – photographed proudly waving newspapers with headlines predicting his loss.

Not long after his inauguration, the Truman family was moved to Blair House in Washington, DC while extensive renovations were done at the White House. On November 1, 1950 an assassination attempt was made against Truman while he was still living there. Although it would have been allowed, despite the new 22nd amendment against third-term Presidents, by 1952, Truman decided not to run for re-election.

In 1956 Truman traveled to Europe and, after accepting an offer to give a speech in Philadelphia, drove himself and his wife, turning down “official” transport. In 1972 Truman was admitted to a Kansas City hospital suffering from pnuemonia. On December 26, 1972, at the age of 88, he died. He was buried at the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri. His wife Bess joined him there in 1982.

Links:
Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum
Harry S. Truman National Historic Site

Former President, #32 – Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Up next, America’s 34th President, Dwight D. Eisenhower

Series: “Traveling with American Presidents“

Time in Office: March 1933 – April 1945
Terms: 4 (died in office – fourth term)
Birthday: January 30, 1882
Birth Place: Hyde Park New York
Date of Death: April 12, 1945
Place of Death: Warm Springs, Georgia, The “Little White House.”
Buried: Springwood Estate, Roosevelt’s family home in Hyde Park, NY

Notes:
~ Only American President elected to more than two terms
~ Only physically disabled US President
~ Was an avid sailor
~ Roosevelt’s dog “Fala” was the most photographed dog in the world
~ Won his third election with a 55% popular vote
~ Honorary President of the Boy Scouts of America

Although America’s 32nd President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt had a privileged and somehat isolated start in life, he would be known as an advocate for the “common man” and one of the most politically savvy of all the US Presidents.

Born in 1882 to a wealthy and socially prominent family in Hyde Park, New York, young Franklin had, before he reached the age of 10, had traveled with his parents to Europe several times. His father taught him to sail, he could converse in German and French, but when it came time to board at the exclusive Groton School in Massachusetts, Franklin’s social skills with boys his own age was lacking.

Roosevelt graduated Harvard in 1903. While he was there, his fifth cousin, Theodore, became President of the United States. It was at a White House reception he attended in 1902 where Franklin became reacquainted with the niece of Theodore Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, also a distant relation of Franklin.

March 17, 1905, during the time Franklin was working on Wall Street, he and Eleanor married and moved into Springwood. Many summers were spent swimming and sailing from their house at Campobello, Canada. By 1916, the couple had six children but a marriage that was less than perfect – Franklin being social and outgoing while Eleanor was more quiet and introspective.

Two terms in the Senate led to his appointment as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1913. Taking an active role during World War I, Franklin visited Britain and France in 1918 where he first met Winston Churchill. Nominated as the Democratic Vice-President in 1920, but defeated by Republicans, Roosevelt returned to his New York law practice.

In August 1921 at the age of 39 and while vacationing at Campobello, Roosevelt became ill – leaving him partially paralyzed. Polio was the diagnosis although later opinions suggest Guillian-Barr Syndrome.

Never believing his paralysis was permanent, Roosevelt bought a boat and for most of the next seven years, was at least physically absent from politics – instead spending his time fishing and sailing in south Florida and the Caribbean. It was during this time frame that Franklin first visited Warm Springs, Georgia – believing the thermal pools there would benefit his physical condition.

Eleanor was instrumental in keeping FDR’s name in the political forum during this time and by the 1928 election, Franklin was Governor of New York. By March 4, 1933, he was inaugurated President of the United States. In the midst of the Great Depression, Franklin worked tirelessly to re-start the economy and develop systems to create jobs for the high number of unemployed and economically devastated Americans. He was re-elected in 1936 and again in 1940 – facing continuing if lessening economic issues, and the growing threat of war in Europe, and US involvement.

Presidential Travel Map – FDR

As expected in over a decade in office, Franklin Roosevelt traveled extensively: a secret meeting with Churchill aboard the HMS Prince of Wales in the North Atlantic in 1942, the Casablanca Conference in early 1943, in Cairo at another conference in December 1943, and the Yalta Conference in 1945.

By 1944 at the age of 62, Franklin was in declining health and returned frequently to his ‘Little White House” Warm Springs, Georgia to rest.

On April 12, 1945, just 82 days into his 4th Presidential term and one month prior to the end of World War II, Roosevelt collapsed at Warm Springs and died.

His body was placed onboard the Presidential train headed for a White House funeral on April 14th and then his final journey to his burial at his boyhood home in Hyde Park, New York.

Thousands of people lined the train’s route to pay tribute to FDR, the People’s President.

Links:

Roosevelt Memorial
Roosevelt Campobello International Park
Home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site

Former President #31, Herbert Hoover.

Next President #33, Harry S. Truman

Time in Office: 1929 – 1933
Terms: One
Birthday: August 10, 1874
Birth Place: West Branch, Iowa
Date of Death: October 20, 1964
Place of Death: New York City
Buried: Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum, West Branch, Iowa

Notes:
~ Orphaned by the age of nine
~ First President born west of the Mississippi River
~ Only President from Iowa
~ Secretary of Commerce, 1921- 1928
~ Last cabinet secretary directly elected President
~ Had the first Native-American Vice President
~ Loved to drive and loved to fish

Due to the death of both his father and mother by the time he was only nine years old, America’s 31st President, Herbert Clark Hoover spent until age 11 living with relatives near his hometown of West Branch, Iowa, and then moved to Oregon to stay with his uncle.

After taking classes in typing, math, and bookkeeping, he entered the inaugural class at Stanford University, California in 1891. He graduated in 1895, with a degree in geology.

In 1897 Hoover left for Australia as an employee of a London-based mining company. In 1899 he married his college sweetheart, Lou Henry, also a graduate of Stanford, and the couple left for China where he worked as his company’s lead engineer. Trapped in Tianjin, China by the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, Hoover assisted US Marines due to his extensive knowledge of the local area.

Hoover was an excellent geologist and developed a zinc mining process that led to the formation of the “Zinc Corporation,” the origins of which form the current-day Rio Tinto Corporation. By 1908, Herbert was working as an independent mining consultant – traveling the world giving lectures and talks at US universities such as Columbia and Stanford.

Still living in London at the start of the First World War, Hoover was instrumental in not only getting US citizens out of Europe, but also in working with the Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB). Hoover crossed the North Sea some 40 times to work for this effort of supplying food to war-torn Europe. He was appointed head of the US Food Administration by Woodrow Wilson in 1917 after the US had entered the war and by 1921, he was the US Secretary of Commerce.

Hoover Square – Poland

Hoover’s successes as Commerce Secretary brought him national acclaim and his (Republican) Presidential election in 1928 was a landslide win with over 58% of the vote. As President-Elect in November 1928, Hoover went on a seven-nation Latin America tour to establish goodwill. But in 1929, along came the stock market crash and the Great Depression.

Unemployment approaching 25%, drought across the heartland, and an investigation of the New York Stock exchange kept Hoover busy during this time in office. World War I veterans also suffered since the US was, by 1931, unable to pay promised bonuses to returning soldiers. His bid for re-election during the 1932 campaign was not successful. Hoover’s train and motorcade were pelted during his campaign travels – Americans taking out their Depression-based frustrations on Hoover.

Hoover and his family left Washington in March 1933 – staying in a New York hotel for a period and then returning to their home in Palo Alto, California. Not one to ease into retirement, he loved to take long automobile drives, to go fishing – often in the Caribbean, and to write in his spare time while remaining passively involved in politics.

By 1946 America was involved in World War II and President Harry Truman selected Hoover to tour Germany and study food shortages as result of the devastating war. His school meals program delivered over 40,000 tons of American food to Germany serving over 3.5 million children. He also worked on building the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and was a vocal and active fundraiser for his favorite charity, Boy’s Club of America.

Aged 90, Hoover died while in New York City in 1964, having had the longest Presidential retirement in history. His reputation as President, damaged as it was by the Great Depression, has somewhat been restored thanks to historians and scholars.

Hoover Historic Points of Interest:

Hoover Dam
Rapidan Fishing Camp
Hoover Presidential Library and Museum, Iowa

Next: America’s 32nd President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

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.

Looks like there will be a “Animal House” at the White House for our next Presidential Post – Calvin Coolidge!

Time in Office: 1921-1923
Terms: Less than one – died in office
Birthday: November 2, 1865
Birth Place: Blooming Grove, Ohio
Date of Death: August 2, 1923
Place of Death: Palace Hotel, San Fransisco, California
Buried: Harding Memorial in Marion, Ohio.

Notes:
~ Eldest of eight children
~ His mother obtained her medical license
~ Was an accomplished cornet player
~ First sitting senator elected President
~ First sitting President to visit Canada
~ In 1922, had a radio installed in the White House
~ First President to visit Alaska

Warren Gamaliel Harding, the 29th President of the United States, began life in Blooming Grove, Ohio. His father, always looking for a better life for the family, moved them to Caledonia, Ohio where he bought and began managing a local newspaper. Before reaching his teens and while working for his father, Warren learned the business of journalism. Attending Iberia’s Ohio Central College, Warren continued learning the printing and publishing trade. By 1886, he was full owner of the Marion Daily Star newspaper which exposed him to his first politically-charged environment.

Warren was not particularly healthy in his youth and at the ripe old age of 24, spent time at the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan. He would return 5 times in the next 14 years to rest and rejuvenate. In 1891 Warren married Florence Kling DeWolfe. The daughter of a rival newspaper owner, Florence was intelligent and ambitious. Their marriage, though successful in some respects, was not based on love. Warren and Florence traveled the country as owners of one of Ohio’s largest newspapers, gaining him national exposure. This, combined with his exceptional public speaking skills and a lucky meeting with a powerful Republican party leader, gained Harding a Ohio State Senate seat in 1899.

A quick trip to Europe with his in-laws to repair strained relations in 1907, contrasted with two unsuccessful attempts to run for Governor of Ohio in 1903 and 1909. While Harding’s newspaper business and family life were doing well – his political career was not. However, Harding had made some powerful political friends and in 1914, he was Ohio’s first State Senator to win by popular vote. He still held this Senate seat when elected President in 1921.

The “Front Porch”

Harding’s Presidential campaign in 1920 was as one might expect from an individual with a journalism and publishing background. His “front porch campaign” was the first in America to use newsreels and “photo-ops” and applied the first public celebrity endorsements of candidates. Harding’s wife Florence worked closely with the press to promote her husband to the point of having a cottage built on their Marion, Ohio property just for “The Press.” Considering that the 1920 election was the first in which women could vote nationwide, and that Harding was considered “handsome,” this use of the press and publicity machine was a positive addition to Harding’s campaign. Rumors of Harding’s dalliances with other women, consumption of bootleg liquor, and poker parties later held in the White House, was kept out of the public eye before and after his election. But as Harding would soon discover, “Live by the press, die by the press.”

Harding’s administration and political appointees suffered constant charges of corruption and faced scandal – from beginning to end. Charges of paid-for shipping contracts, upheaval at the Veteran’s Bureau, corruption in the prison systems, and the infamous Teapot Dome scandal, shook Harding’s presidency and his health.

In July 1923, Harding boarded the USS Henderson for a 4-day trip to Alaska. Hoping to encourage US citizens to relocate here after the completion of the Alaska Railroad, Harding and his party visited many remote areas of Alaska – traveling by both railway and automobile. They then visited and toured Vancouver, British Columbia, eventually arriving in Seattle, Washington. Harding was not well – suffering from nausea, rapid heart beat, and abdominal pain, but gave a rousing speech in Seattle regarding his findings in Alaska. He then traveled by train to Portland, Oregon but the speech he was to give there was cancelled.

Harding’s health continued its decline as his train headed south to San Francisco. He died there while staying at the Palace Hotel. During a four-day journey from San Francisco, Harding’s train was met by thousands of mourners across the country. He was first entombed at the Marion Cemetery and then re-interred at the Harding Memorial in Marion, Ohio.

We’re finally into the “Roaring 20s” – and next up, America’s 30th President, Calvin Coolidge.

Traveling with American Presidents List

Additional photos of Warren G. Harding from History.com