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Bio
Gerald R. Ford
When Gerald R. Ford took the oath of office on August 9, 1974, he declared, “I assume the Presidency under extraordinary circumstances.... This is an hour of history that troubles our minds and hurts our hearts.” He told Americans, “Our long national nightmare is over.” Ford was the first vice president chosen under the Twenty-fifth Amendment. In the aftermath of the Watergate scandal,
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Bio
Frances Cleveland
Frances Folsom was born on July 21, 1864 in Buffalo, New York, only surviving child of Emma C. Harmon and Oscar Folsom—who became a law partner of Cleveland’s. As a devoted family friend Cleveland bought “Frank” her first baby carriage. As administrator of the Folsom estate after his partner’s death, though never her legal guardian, he guided her education with sound
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Bio
Elizabeth Truman
Elizabeth Wallace, better known as Bess, was born to David and Madge Wallace on February 13, 1885, in Independence, Missouri.1 Bess was a bright young woman who excelled in sports. After graduating from Independence High School, she attended finishing school at the Barstow School in Kansas City.2 At the age of five, she met Harry S. Truman at Sunday school at the
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Bio
Harry S. Truman
During his few weeks as vice president, Harry S. Truman scarcely saw President Roosevelt, and received no briefing on the development of the atomic bomb or the unfolding difficulties with Soviet Russia. Suddenly these and a host of other wartime problems became Truman’s when, on April 12, 1945, he became president when Roosevelt died. He told reporters, “I felt like the moon
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Bio
Lou Hoover
Lou Henry was born in Waterloo, Iowa, on March 29, 1874, to parents Charles and Florence Weed Henry.1 Lou and her family moved around before eventually settling in Monterey, California.2 As a young girl, Lou spent a lot of time in the wilderness with her father and developed a love for the outdoors. After high school she attended the Los Angeles Normal
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Bio
Lucretia Garfield
Lucretia Rudolph was born on April 19, 1832 to Arabella Mason and Zebulon Rudolph. She acquired her love of learning from her father, and was well educated for a woman of her day who enjoyed translating Greek and Latin. She first met "Jim" Garfield when both attended Geauga Seminary, and they renewed their friendship in 1851 as students at the Western Reserve Eclectic
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Bio
James A. Garfield
As the last of the log cabin presidents, James A. Garfield attacked political corruption and won back for the presidency a measure of prestige it had lost during the Reconstruction period. He was born in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, on November 19, 1831. Fatherless at two, he later drove canal boat teams, somehow earning enough money for an education. He graduated from Williams
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Bio
Harriet Lane
Unique among first ladies, Harriet Lane acted as hostess for the only president who never married: James Buchanan, her favorite uncle and guardian after she was orphaned at the age of 11. And of all the ladies of the White House, few achieved such great success in deeply troubled times as this polished young woman in her twenties. She was born
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Bio
James Buchanan
Tall, stiffly formal in the high stock he wore around his jowls, James Buchanan was the only president who never married. Presiding over a rapidly dividing nation, Buchanan did not quite grasp the political realities of the time. Relying on constitutional doctrines to close the widening rift over slavery, he failed to understand that the North would not accept constitutional
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Bio
Sarah Polk
Sarah Childress was born to Joel and Elizabeth Childress on September 4, 1803, in Tennessee.1 Her father was a wealthy plantation owner, which led to a privileged upbringing for Sarah and her siblings. She was well educated, studying at Abercrombie’s Boarding School in Nashville and the Moravian Female Academy in Salem, North Carolina.2 Sarah’s father was involved in Tennessee politics and
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Bio
Dolley Madison
Dolley Payne was born on May 20, 1768, the third of Mary Coles and John Payne Jr.’s nine children.1 Dolley was born in Guilford County, North Carolina, where her parents briefly moved to establish a Quaker community before returning to Virginia. Although John Payne owned enslaved people during Dolley’s early childhood, he freed them in 1783. It is unknown where Dolley was
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Bio
Elizabeth Monroe
Elizabeth Kortright was born in New York on June 30, 1768, daughter of an old New York family. Her father, Lawrence, served the Crown privateering during the French and Indian War and made a fortune. He took no active part in the War of Independence; and James Monroe wrote to his friend Thomas Jefferson in Paris in 1786 that he had married the