Warren G. Harding

Warren G. Harding
Portrait c. 1920
29th President of the United States
In office
March 4, 1921 – August 2, 1923
Vice PresidentCalvin Coolidge
Preceded byWoodrow Wilson
Succeeded byCalvin Coolidge
United States Senator
from Ohio
In office
March 4, 1915 – January 13, 1921
Preceded byTheodore E. Burton
Succeeded byFrank B. Willis
28th Lieutenant Governor of Ohio
In office
January 11, 1904 – January 8, 1906
GovernorMyron T. Herrick
Preceded byHarry L. Gordon
Succeeded byAndrew L. Harris
Member of the Ohio Senate
from the 13th district
In office
January 1, 1900 – January 4, 1904
Preceded byHenry May
Succeeded bySamuel H. West
Personal details
Born
Warren Gamaliel Harding

(1865-11-02)November 2, 1865
Blooming Grove, Ohio, U.S.
DiedAugust 2, 1923(1923-08-02) (aged 57)
San Francisco, California, U.S.
Resting placeHarding Tomb
Political partyRepublican
Spouse
(m. 1891)
ChildrenElizabeth (with Nan Britton)
Parent
EducationOhio Central College (BA)
Occupation
  • Journalist
  • politician
SignatureCursive signature in ink

Warren Gamaliel Harding (November 2, 1865 – August 2, 1923) was an American politician who served as the 29th president of the United States from 1921 until his death in 1923. A member of the Republican Party, he was one of the most popular sitting U.S. presidents. After his death, a number of scandals were exposed, including Teapot Dome, as well as an extramarital affair with Nan Britton, which tarnished his reputation.

Harding lived in rural Ohio all his life, except when political service took him elsewhere. As a young man, he bought The Marion Star and built it into a successful newspaper. Harding served in the Ohio State Senate from 1900 to 1904, and was lieutenant governor for two years. He was defeated for governor in 1910, but was elected to the United States Senate in 1914—the state's first direct election for that office. Harding ran for the Republican nomination for president in 1920, but was considered a long shot before the convention. When the leading candidates could not garner a majority, and the convention deadlocked, support for Harding increased, and he was nominated on the tenth ballot. He conducted a front porch campaign, remaining mostly in Marion, and allowed the people to come to him. He promised a return to normalcy of the pre–World War I period, and won in a landslide over Democrat James M. Cox, to become the first sitting senator elected president.

Harding appointed a number of respected figures to his cabinet, including Andrew Mellon at Treasury, Herbert Hoover at Commerce, and Charles Evans Hughes at the State Department. A major foreign policy achievement came with the Washington Naval Conference of 1921–1922, in which the world's major naval powers agreed on a naval limitations program that lasted a decade. Harding released political prisoners who had been arrested for their opposition to World War I. In 1923, Harding died of a heart attack in San Francisco while on a western tour, and was succeeded by Vice President Calvin Coolidge.

Harding died as one of the most popular presidents in history, but the subsequent exposure of scandals eroded his popular regard, as did revelations of extramarital affairs. Harding's interior secretary, Albert B. Fall, and his attorney general, Harry Daugherty, were each later tried for corruption in office. Fall was convicted though Daugherty was not. These trials greatly damaged Harding's posthumous reputation. In historical rankings of the U.S. presidents during the decades after his term in office, Harding was often rated among the worst. However, in recent decades, many historians have begun to fundamentally reassess the conventional views of Harding's historical record in office.