1920's Government and Politics | Harding, Warren Gamaliel 1865-1923

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, 1921-1923

A Lovable President.

A former journalist and senator from Ohio, Warren G. Harding ushered in a decade of Republican ascendancy with his landslide election to the presidency in 1920. Republican hegemony lasted until 1932, when Americans finally rejected the laissez-faire Republican policies that had thrust them into the Great Depression, Unlike his Democratic predecessor, Woodrow Wilson, Harding was popular, personable, approachable, and loved by the American people. His down-home image was familiar to millions. Harding's popularity persisted despite attempts to arouse racist sentiment against him with accusations that his great-grandmother Elizabeth Madison was black and that his great-grandfather had African American ancestors. While these claims were never definitively verified, they were widely accepted in the South.

Politics of Normalcy.

Harding's 1920...