Calvin Coolidge

John Calvin Coolidge was born on July 4, 1872, in Plymouth Notch, VermontVermontVermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States; its capital is Montpelier and its largest city is Burlington. It joined the Union on March 4, 1791, as the 14th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 643,077.Open the full entry, in a house behind a store; from the age of four he lived in the family homestead across the road. His father, John Calvin Coolidge Sr., was a storekeeper and farmer who held public offices, including six years in the Vermont House; his mother was Victoria Josephine Moor Coolidge.⁠[1][2][3]

Coolidge started school in September 1877. His mother, Victoria Moor Coolidge, died on March 14, 1885, at 39, and his sister, Abigail, on March 6, 1890, at 14. On May 23, 1890, he graduated from Black River Academy in Ludlow, Vermont, and in 1891 he prepared at the St. Johnsbury preparatory school.⁠[1]

Coolidge entered Amherst College in Massachusetts on September 17, 1891, and graduated cum laude on June 26, 1895.⁠[1][3]

From September 23, 1895, Coolidge read law at a firm in Northampton, Massachusetts, and he was admitted to the bar there on July 2, 1897.⁠[1][3]

On December 6, 1898, Coolidge became a Northampton city councilman for Ward 2. The city council elected him city solicitor on January 18, 1900, and reelected him on January 17, 1901; he was defeated for the post on January 16, 1902. On June 4, 1903, he was appointed clerk of courts for Hampshire County; in 1904 he became chairman of the local Republican Party, and in 1905 he lost a race for the Northampton School Board, which the Miller Center describes as his only electoral defeat.⁠[1][3]

On October 4, 1905, Coolidge married Grace Anna Goodhue, a teacher at the Clarke Institute for the Deaf, in Burlington, Vermont. Their sons, John Coolidge and Calvin Coolidge Jr., were born on September 7, 1906, and April 13, 1908.⁠[1][4][3]

On November 6, 1906, Coolidge was elected to the Massachusetts General Court (House of Representatives) and was reelected in November 1907. He was elected mayor of Northampton on December 7, 1909, and reelected on December 6, 1910.⁠[1]

On November 7, 1911, Coolidge was elected to the Massachusetts Senate and was reelected in 1912, 1913 and 1914; during this period his fellow senators elected him president of the Massachusetts Senate.⁠[1][3]

On November 2, 1915, Coolidge was elected lieutenant governor of Massachusetts and was reelected in 1916 and 1917, serving from 1916 to 1918.⁠[1][3]

On November 5, 1918, Coolidge narrowly defeated the Democrat Richard H. Long to win election as governor of Massachusetts; he gave his first inaugural address on January 2, 1919, and was reelected on November 4, 1919.⁠[1][3]

The Boston police went on strike from September 9 to 11, 1919. Coolidge called out the state guard to break the strike and refused to reinstate officers dismissed for striking. To Samuel Gompers, leader of the American Federation of Labor, he declared, “There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, anytime.” His stand brought him national attention.⁠[1][4][3]

At the 1920 Republican National Convention in Chicago Coolidge sought the presidential nomination and received 34 votes on the first ballot; on June 12 rebellious delegates secured his nomination for vice president as Warren G. Harding’s running mate. The ticket was elected on November 2, 1920, and Coolidge was inaugurated as vice president on March 4, 1921.⁠[3][1]

Warren G. Harding died in San Francisco at 7:30 p.m. on August 2, 1923. When the news arrived Coolidge was at the family homestead in Plymouth Notch, Vermont; at 2:47 a.m. on August 3 his father, a notary public, administered the presidential oath by the light of a kerosene lamp, after which Coolidge went back to bed.⁠[1][4][5]

On August 24, 1923, Coolidge appointed a commission headed by Gifford Pinchot to investigate an impending coal strike; the anthracite strike in PennsylvaniaPennsylvaniaPennsylvania (officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania) is a Middle Atlantic state of the United States; its capital is Harrisburg, and Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are its two great metropolitan areas. One of the original 13 states, it ratified the U.S. Constitution on December 12, 1787, the second state to do so. Its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 13,002,700.Open the full entry began on September 1, and the miners returned to work on September 18. On August 31 the United States recognized the Obregón government of Mexico. On October 25 Coolidge proclaimed the Carlsbad Cave National Monument.⁠[6]

On December 6, 1923, Coolidge delivered his first annual message to Congress, the first presidential address to be broadcast; it backed Harding’s policies on the World Court, spending cuts and Prohibition and called for isolation in foreign policy, tax cuts, economy and limited aid to farmers. On December 24 he lit the first “National Christmas Tree” on the Ellipse.⁠[6][7]

On October 23, 1923, the Senate Committee on Public Lands began hearings on the Teapot Dome scandal. On January 29, 1924, Coolidge announced two special counsel to investigate; on February 8 he signed a joint resolution charging the former secretaries of the interior and the navy with fraud and corruption in the 1922 oil leases, and on February 12, addressing the National Republican Club in New York City, he pledged to pursue officials guilty of fraud or corruption.⁠[6]

On January 17, 1927, in McGrain v. Daugherty, the Supreme Court held that congressional investigations are presumed to serve a legislative purpose; on October 10 that year, in Mammoth Oil v. United States, it ruled that former Interior Secretary Albert Fall’s contracts with Mammoth Oil had been procured through fraud.⁠[6]

On February 3, 1924, Coolidge issued a proclamation announcing the death of former President Woodrow WilsonWoodrow WilsonWoodrow Wilson (1856–1924) was an American scholar and politician who served as president of Princeton University and governor of New Jersey and was the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921, leading the country through World War I and proposing the League of Nations.Open the full entry. On February 22 he gave a radio address for Washington’s Birthday, the first live radio broadcast from the White House.⁠[6]

On May 15, 1924, Coolidge vetoed the “Bonus Bill” providing twenty-year annuities to World War I veterans as too costly; the House overrode the veto on May 17 and the Senate on May 19. On May 26 he signed the Immigration Act of 1924 (the Johnson-Reed Act), which set highly restrictive quotas and barred aliens ineligible for citizenship by race or nationality.⁠[6]

On June 2, 1924, Coolidge signed the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, granting citizenship to all Native Americans, and the Revenue Act of 1924, which cut income taxes by roughly 25 percent. The Miller Center’s essay notes that Coolidge and Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon secured lower rates for wealthy Americans and that critics called Mellon’s approach “trickle-down” economics.⁠[6][8]

On June 12, 1924, the Republicans nominated Coolidge for president, with the slogan “Keep Cool With Coolidge”; on July 10 the Democrats nominated John W. Davis on the 104th ballot. On August 11 Coolidge read an excerpt from his acceptance speech in the first audiovisual recording of a U.S. president, and on August 14 he delivered the address accepting the nomination.⁠[6][8]

On November 4, 1924, Coolidge and his running mate, Charles G. Dawes, won 382 electoral votes (71.9%) and 15,724,310 popular votes (54.0%); the Democrats John W. Davis and Charles W. Bryan won 136 electoral votes and 8,386,532 votes (28.8%); and the Progressives Robert M. La Follette and Burton K. Wheeler won 13 electoral votes and 4,827,184 votes (16.6%).⁠[9][6]

On December 15, 1923, Coolidge appointed Charles G. Dawes, H. M. Robinson and Owen D. Young to a committee on Germany’s finances; the resulting Dawes Plan was presented to the Reparations Commission on April 9, 1924, and Germany agreed to its terms on August 16. On September 18, 1924, after a “constitutional president” had been installed, American occupation forces left the Dominican Republic.⁠[6]

On February 2, 1925, Coolidge signed the Air Mail Act, the first major aviation legislation, which let the postmaster general contract with air mail carriers and set rates. On February 26, 1926, he signed the Revenue Act of 1926, again reducing federal income taxes; on May 20 he signed the Air Commerce Act, assigning the Commerce Department to regulate commercial aviation; on May 25 the Public Buildings Act, funding federal buildings including the Federal Triangle in Washington; and on July 2 the act creating the U.S. Army Air Corps.⁠[6]

Coolidge was inaugurated for his full term on March 4, 1925; in his inaugural address he said that “The fundamental precept of liberty is toleration” and that the country had reached “a state of contentment seldom before seen.” On March 10 the Senate rejected his nomination of Charles Warren as attorney general, the first rejection of a cabinet nominee in nearly 60 years.⁠[6][5][7]

On July 2, 1925, Black, Catholic and Jewish groups asked Coolidge to halt a Ku Klux Klan march planned for August in Washington; on August 8 up to 40,000 Klan members marched in regalia along Pennsylvania Avenue.⁠[6]

On July 10, 1925, the Scopes trial opened in Dayton, TennesseeTennesseeTennessee is a U.S. state in the southeast-central United States, with its capital at Nashville. It was admitted to the Union on June 1, 1796, as the 16th state, and the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted 6,910,840 residents.Open the full entry, with William Jennings Bryan for the prosecution and Clarence Darrow for the defense; John Scopes was convicted and fined $100.⁠[6]

On August 27, 1926, the United States warned that it would take necessary measures to protect American lives and property, and the next day U.S. Marines landed at Bluefields, Nicaragua; on September 15 Coolidge proclaimed arms and munitions exports to Nicaragua unlawful. On January 10, 1927, he sent Congress a message arguing that intervention in Nicaragua was justified to protect American business and counter a hostile, Mexican-backed regime.⁠[6]

In the midterm elections of November 2, 1926, Republicans lost nine House seats and six Senate seats but kept majorities in both chambers.⁠[6]

On February 18, 1927, the United States recognized Canada as an independent state with autonomous control of its foreign relations. On February 23 Coolidge signed the Radio Control Act establishing the Federal Radio Commission, and on February 25 the National Bank Consolidation Act allowing national banks to open branches.⁠[6]

Coolidge vetoed the McNary-Haugen bill, intended to aid the depressed farm sector, in 1927 and again in 1928, and opposed other farm-relief legislation; he also blocked a plan for cheap federal electric power on the Tennessee River.⁠[4][8][7]

Heavy rains began in the lower Mississippi valley on March 7, 1927; on April 15 more than 15 inches of rain fell on New Orleans in 18 hours, levees were dynamited, and the “Great Mississippi Flood of 1927” followed. On April 22 Commerce Secretary Herbert HooverHerbert HooverHerbert Hoover (1874–1964) was an American mining engineer, humanitarian and politician who led food relief for Europe during and after World War I, served as U.S. secretary of commerce from 1921 to 1928 and was the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933, a term dominated by the Great Depression.Open the full entry was appointed to head a special presidential cabinet committee on the flooding; on October 3 Coolidge addressed the annual meeting of the American Red Cross, which the American Presidency Project lists as one of his few public remarks on the flood and the government’s response. On May 15, 1928, he signed the Flood Control Act authorizing Army Corps of Engineers flood projects on the Mississippi.⁠[6]

On May 21, 1927, Charles Lindbergh completed the first solo nonstop flight from New York to Paris, and Coolidge commented at a news conference on May 24. From June 13 to September 11 the Coolidges vacationed in the Black Hills of South Dakota; on August 2, at Rapid City, South DakotaSouth DakotaSouth Dakota is a U.S. state bordered by North Dakota to the north, Minnesota and Iowa to the east, Nebraska to the south, and Wyoming and Montana to the west. Its capital is Pierre and its largest city is Sioux Falls. It was admitted to the Union on November 2, 1889, as the 40th state, and the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted 886,667 residents.Open the full entry, Coolidge announced that he would not seek another term, saying “I do not choose to run for President in 1928.” On August 10 he spoke at the start of work on Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills.⁠[6][1][7]

The Miller Center’s essay attributes his decision not to run again to his regard for the unwritten two-term precedent.⁠[8]

On January 16, 1928, Coolidge gave the opening address at the Pan-American Conference in Havana, Cuba. On May 4 he nominated Genevieve R. Cline, the first woman in the federal judiciary, to the U.S. Customs Court. On May 29 he signed the Revenue Act of 1928, reducing federal income taxes to a maximum rate of 12%.⁠[6]

On August 27, 1928, the United States and other nations signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact renouncing war as an instrument of national policy; Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg received the 1929 Nobel PrizeNobel PrizeThe Nobel Prize is an international award established under the will of Alfred Nobel, comprising five prizes in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace, awarded since 1901; its funds are managed by the Nobel Foundation, whose Board is based in Stockholm. The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, established in 1968, is not a Nobel Prize.Open the full entry for peace for his role in negotiating it. The Miller Center’s essay calls it “a largely symbolic pact” that nonetheless became an important precedent for international law.⁠[6][4][8]

On December 21, 1928, Coolidge signed the Swing-Johnson bill authorizing the Boulder Canyon Project dam on the Colorado River after nearly seven years of congressional consideration.⁠[6]

On February 22, 1929, Coolidge gave his final public address as president at the George WashingtonGeorge WashingtonGeorge Washington (1732–1799) was the first president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. Earlier he commanded the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War and presided over the Constitutional Convention of 1787.Open the full entry University commencement. On March 4, after Herbert Hoover’s inauguration, he left office and returned to Northampton, Massachusetts.⁠[6][1]

The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge was published in May 1929. In retirement in Northampton Coolidge wrote a syndicated newspaper column and magazine articles; before his death he confided to an old friend that he no longer fit in with the times.⁠[1][4][7]

Coolidge died of a coronary thrombosis at his home in Northampton on January 5, 1933, at the age of 60. He is buried in the Notch Cemetery at Plymouth Notch beside his wife, his son and four generations of his forebears.⁠[1][4][2]

Coolidge and Grace Anna Goodhue (1879–1957) had two sons, John (1906–2000) and Calvin Jr. (1908–1924). On July 7, 1924, Calvin Jr., aged 16, died at Walter Reed Hospital of a blood infection that began with a blister on his foot, the first child of a sitting president to die since Abraham LincolnAbraham LincolnAbraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States (1861–1865). Born to a frontier farming family in Kentucky, he had less than a year of formal schooling, taught himself law, and served in the Illinois legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives before winning the presidency as the Republican candidate in 1860. During the Civil War he preserved the Union, issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and pushed the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery through Congress. He was shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theatre in Washington on April 14, 1865, and died the next day.Open the full entry’s son; the Miller Center’s essay judges that the loss took much of the joy out of Coolidge’s work.⁠[5][6][1][8]

Coolidge was a Congregationalist and was nicknamed “Silent Cal.”⁠[5]

The President Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site at Plymouth Notch is owned by the State of Vermont and operated by the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation; covering more than 200 acres, it includes Coolidge’s birthplace, the family homestead, the hillside cemetery, the Union Christian Church and the President Calvin Coolidge Museum and Education Center. In 1967 Lady Bird Johnson presented a plaque designating the Coolidge Homestead a National Historic Landmark.⁠[10][11]

In 1960 John Coolidge and a group of Vermont leaders, led by Deane C. Davis, later governor of Vermont, formed the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation, now the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation, which has its offices in the museum and education center; the expanded facility was renamed the President Calvin Coolidge Museum and Education Center on August 7, 2010.⁠[11][10]

The Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library & Museum at Forbes Library in Northampton began in 1920, when Coolidge, then governor of Massachusetts and vice president-elect, started giving documents and memorabilia to the library; in 1956, at the request of Grace Coolidge and the library’s trustees, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts funded a “Calvin Coolidge Memorial Room.” Forbes Library describes itself as the only public library in the United States holding a presidential collection.⁠[12]

The Miller Center’s essay notes that many contemporaries credited Coolidge and Mellon with the “Coolidge Prosperity” of his seven years in office, while later critics faulted him for failing to curb the stock-market speculation that contributed to the 1929 crash and Depression-era opinion often linked the collapse to his policies; most modern historians view his presidency skeptically while acknowledging his personal integrity. In the 1980s Ronald Reagan, who hung Coolidge’s portrait in the White House, helped revive interest in Coolidge.⁠[8]

Alfred E. Smith described Coolidge as “distinguished for character more than for heroic achievement,” and in 1926 Walter Lippmann characterized his political skill as “active inactivity.”⁠[7]

Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation: Official website: https://coolidgefoundation.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[13]

Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library & Museum (Forbes Library): Official website: https://forbeslibrary.org/coolidge/about-the-ccplm/ (opens in a new window).⁠[12]