Calvin Coolidge - The Man from Vermont


Book Description

CALVIN COOLIDGE- The man from Vermont By CLAUDE M. FUESS. Originally published by 1939. Introduction: WHEN, in the summer of 1932, I had an informal conversation with Mr. Coolidge at Plymouth, Vermont, regarding his possible biography, he finally said drily, Better wait till I'm dead, and changed the subject to the much pleasanter one of Amherst College. Within a few months he was in his grave, and I was un expectedly at work on this book. The preparation of the manuscript has been delayed by matters beyond my own control, particularly by the fact that new material was constantly being found. It seems unlikely, however, that many more of Coolidge's private letters will be brought to light or will greatly alter verdicts already formed. Mrs. Coolidge has generously permitted me to examine a large number of letters written by Coolidge to his father and stepmother from his schoolboy days until Colonel Coolidge's death in 1926 letters which the latter had carefully preserved in a large mahogany cigar humidor. Furthermore she has enabled me to have access to some other important documents and has answered many questions. It must be emphasized, however, that this is, in no sense, an official biography, and that Mrs. Coolidge is not a sponsor for it or for the views expressed herein. Mr. Frank W. Stearns, before his death on March 6, 1939, had opened up all his personal files and allowed me to quote as I pleased from his correspondence. I have had the advantage of long talks with him and his intimate associate, Mr. Benjamin F. Felt, who has advised me on various details. To Mrs. Coolidge, Mr. Stearns, and Mr. Felt, I am deeply indebted.




Calvin Coolidge - The Man from Vermont


Book Description

This vintage book contains a detailed biography of Calvin Coolidge. John Calvin Coolidge Jr. (1872–1933) served as the President of the United States between 1923 and 1929. Originally a Republican lawyer from Vermont, he worked his way up the political ladder before becoming the governor of Massachusetts. He was elected as the vice president of the United States after his decisive response to the Boston Police Strike of 1919, and succeeded president Warren G. Harding upon his death in 1923. Contents include: “Yankee Ancestry and Vermont Environment”, “Birth and Boyhood”, “Preparing for College”, “Early Days in Northampton”, “The Horizon Widens”, “Up The Political Ladder”, “A Friend Appears”, “Lieutenant Governor”, “Governor of Massachusetts”, “The Boston Police Strike of 1919”, “In National Politics”, etc. Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in an affordable, high-quality edition complete with a specially commissioned new introduction. “Calvin Coolidge - The Man From Vermont” was first published in 1939.




Calvin Coolidge


Book Description




The Presidency of Calvin Coolidge


Book Description

The first book-length assessment of Coolidge's presidency in thirty years draws on the recently opened papers of his White House physician for hitherto unknown personal information. Ferrell (history, Indiana U.) exonerates Coolidge for the failures of his party's foreign policy, but holds him accountable for having had insufficient economic savvy to warn Wall Street against the overspeculation that caused the Depression. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR




The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge


Book Description

"It was my hope to produce a book that would not only have some historical interest, but would be useful for those in public life, in educational work, in preparation for citizen­ship, and would be especially a book that parents would wish their children to read." —President Calvin Coolidge on his autobiography Today Americans of all backgrounds are on the hunt for a different politi­cal model. In fact, such a model awaits them, if only they turn their eyes to their own past . . . to America's thirtieth president, Calvin Coolidge. Coolidge's masterful autobiography offers urgent lessons for our age of exploding debt, increasingly centralized power, and fierce partisan division. This expanded and annotated volume, edited by Coolidge biographer Amity Shlaes and authorized by the Coolidge family, is the definitive edition of the text that presidential historian Craig Fehrman calls "the forgotten classic of presidential writing." To read this volume is to understand the tragic extent to which historians underrate President Coolidge. The Coolidge who emerges in these pages is a model of character, principle, and humility—rare qualities in Washington, then as now. A man of great faith, Coolidge told Americans: "Men do not make laws. They do but discover them." Although he emphasized economics, Coolidge insisted on the importance of "things of the spirit." At the height of his popularity, he chose not to run again when his reelection was all but assured. In this autobiography, Coolidge explains his mindset: "It is a great advantage to a President, and a major source of safety to the country, for him to know that he is not a great man." For all his modesty, Coolidge left an expansive legacy—one we would do well to study today. Shlaes and ­coeditor ­Matthew Denhart draw out the lessons from Coolidge's life and career in an enlightening introduction and annotations to Coolidge's text. To aid Coolidge scholars young and old, the editors have also assembled nearly three dozen photographs, several of Coolidge's greatest speeches, a timeline of Coolidge's life, and afterwords by former Vermont governor James H. Douglas and two of Coolidge's great-grandchildren, Jennifer Coolidge Harville and Christopher Coolidge Jeter. This autobiography combats the myths about one of our most misunderstood presidents. It also shows us how much we still have to learn from Calvin Coolidge.




Silent Cal's Almanack


Book Description

A treasury of the wit and wisdom of Calvin Coolidge, America's surprisingly eloquent 30th President. Silent Cal's Almanack includes: The ultimate distillation of Calvin Coolidge political wisdom, a selection of Silent Cal's key speeches, a thought-provoking original biographical essay, a fascinating and unique 50-page portfolio of Coolidge photos, editorial cartoons and campaign memorabilia, a Coolidge timeline. a Coolidge bibliography. "He wrote simply, innocently, artlessly," H. L. Mencken once noted regarding Coolidge's prose, "He forgot all the literary affectations and set down his ideas exactly as they came into his head. The result was a bald, but strangely appealing piece of writing-a composition of almost Lincolnian austerity and beauty. The true Vermonter was in every line of it."




Calvin Coolidge


Book Description

The austere president who presided over the Roaring Twenties and whose conservatism masked an innovative approach to national leadership He was known as "Silent Cal." Buttoned up and tight-lipped, Calvin Coolidge seemed out of place as the leader of a nation plunging headlong into the modern era. His six years in office were a time of flappers, speakeasies, and a stock market boom, but his focus was on cutting taxes, balancing the federal budget, and promoting corporate productivity. "The chief business of the American people is business," he famously said. But there is more to Coolidge than the stern capitalist scold. He was the progenitor of a conservatism that would flourish later in the century and a true innovator in the use of public relations and media. Coolidge worked with the top PR men of his day and seized on the rising technologies of newsreels and radio to bring the presidency into the lives of ordinary Americans—a path that led directly to FDR's "fireside chats" and the expert use of television by Kennedy and Reagan. At a time of great upheaval, Coolidge embodied the ambivalence that many of his countrymen felt. America kept "cool with Coolidge," and he returned the favor.




Coolidge


Book Description

In the first full-scale biography of Calvin Coolidge in a generation, Robert Sobel shatters the caricature of our thirtieth president as a silent, do-nothing leader. Sobel instead exposes the real Coolidge, whose legacy as the most Jeffersonian of all twentieth century presidents still reverberates today.




Why Coolidge Matters


Book Description

Coolidge is one of the nation's most underrated presidents. Coolidge's thought on topics like public sector unions, education, race, governance, immigration, and foreign policy requires restoration if the constitutional, industrial republic is to be preserved in the modern age.




Coolidge


Book Description

Amity Shlaes, author of The Forgotten Man, delivers a brilliant and provocative reexamination of America’s thirtieth president, Calvin Coolidge, and the decade of unparalleled growth that the nation enjoyed under his leadership. In this riveting biography, Shlaes traces Coolidge’s improbable rise from a tiny town in New England to a youth so unpopular he was shut out of college fraternities at Amherst College up through Massachusetts politics. After a divisive period of government excess and corruption, Coolidge restored national trust in Washington and achieved what few other peacetime presidents have: He left office with a federal budget smaller than the one he inherited. A man of calm discipline, he lived by example, renting half of a two-family house for his entire political career rather than compromise his political work by taking on debt. Renowned as a throwback, Coolidge was in fact strikingly modern—an advocate of women’s suffrage and a radio pioneer. At once a revision of man and economics, Coolidge gestures to the country we once were and reminds us of qualities we had forgotten and can use today.