The Presidency of Calvin Coolidge

by Robert H. Ferrell

Perhaps no American president has seemed less suited to his office or his times than Calvin Coolidge. The taciturn New Englander became a vice presidential candidate by chance, then with the death of Warren G. Harding was thrust into the White House to preside dourly over the Roaring Twenties.

Robert Ferrell, one of America's most distinguished historians, offers the first book-length account of the Coolidge presidency in thirty years, drawing on the recently opened papers of White House physician Joel T. Boone to provide a more personal appraisal of the thirtieth president than has previously been possible. Ferrell shows Coolidge to have been a hard-working, sensitive individual who was a canny politician and an astute judge of people. He reveals how after being dubbed the "odd little man from Vermont" by the press, Coolidge cultivated that image in order to win the 1924 election.

Ferrell's analysis of the Coolidge years shows how the president represented the essence of 1920s Republicanism. A believer in laissez-faire economics and the separation of powers, he was committed to small government, and he and his predecessors reduced the national debt by a third. More a manager than a leader, he coped successfully with the Teapot Dome scandal and crises in Mexico, Nicaragua, and China, but ignored an overheating economy. Ferrell makes a persuasive case for not blaming Coolidge for the failures of his party's foreign policy; he does maintain that the president should have warned Wall Street about the dangers of over speculating but lacked sufficient knowledge of economics to do so.

Drawing on the most recent literature on the Coolidge era, Ferrell has constructed a meticulous and highly readable account of the president's domestic and foreign policy. His book illuminates this pre-Depression administration for historians and reveals to general readers a president who was stern in temperament and dedicated to public service.

Genres: Biography, Presidents, Nonfiction, History

260 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1998

About the author

Robert Hugh Ferrell was an American historian and author of several books on Harry S. Truman and the diplomatic history of the United States. He served in the U.S. Army Air Forces during the Second World War and was an intelligence analyst in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War. He received a B.S. in Education from Bowling Green State University in 1946 and a PhD from Yale University in 1951, where he worked under the direction of Samuel Flagg Bemis and his dissertation won the John Addison Porter Prize. He went on to win the 1952 Beer Prize for his first book, Peace In Their Time, a study of the making of the Kellogg-Briand Pact.

He taught for many years at Indiana University in Bloomington, starting as an Assistant Professor in 1953 and rising to Distinguished Professor of History in 1974. He has held several notable visiting professorships, including Yale University in 1955 and the Naval War College in 1974.

Reviews

[Don Incognito · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first biography I read of President Coolidge. It is very dry and academic in style, but I didn't mind.
I now believe that if any twentieth-century American president could be called a good man, it must have been Calvin Coolidge. He had possibly the most outwardly uninteresting and unappealing personality of any president, but who cares? because I believe he was more committed to leaving the American people alone, to not intruding in their everyday lives, than any president outside the Founding Fathers' generation. He was also probably the president most committed to fiscal discipline: every year of his one term saw the budget balanced; taxes were repeatedly cut, and Coolidge once made a speech about reducing pencil expenditures!
About his laconic and unsociable personality, there is a plausible theory in another bio I plan to read. Calvin Coolidge's younger son, Calvin Jr., died in 1924--the same year Coolidge was elected for his own term after replacing the deceased president Harding. Robert E. Gilbert believes that because of Calvin Jr.'s death, Calvin Sr. suffered from clinical depression throughout his term, which would explain his quiet, passive and often socially inept behavior.
I also plan to read Coolidge's autobiography, which he wrote not long after leaving office.

[Alex Miller · Rating 2 out of 5]

Turgid, dry, policy-focused history of the Coolidge presidency.

[Glenn Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Basically, a dull president. This makes it hard for any biographer from doing a great job. President Coolidge embraced dullness and the New England work ethic to full maximum achievement. He lowered the government debt while at the same time lowering taxes. Many can argue that the Great Depression had its roots in his administration. The Crash of 29 certainly did. One can also argue that WWII had its roots in his administration, with the naval buildup of small boats, isolationist policies and more. If we are to learn anything, it is that by not doing anything, everything else is working hard that might just not be in the interest of the US. We can ignore changes overseas, but those changes will be brought to our shores, just as Japan and Germany showed in WWII.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, kind of slow, but I liked what he said about Coolidge and his presidency.

[Adam Cadre · Rating 2 out of 5]

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