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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
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
Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter promised a government “as competent, as compassionate, as good” as the American people. His achievements were notable, but in an era of rising energy costs, mounting inflation, and increasing world crises, he found it difficult to meet Americans’ high expectations.James Earl Carter Jr. was born October 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia. Peanut farming, talk of politics, and the Baptist
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Bio
John F. Kennedy
On November 22, 1963, when he was hardly past his first thousand days in office, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot to death as his motorcade wound through Dallas, Texas. Kennedy was the youngest man elected president; he was the youngest to die. Of Irish descent, he was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, son of financier Joseph Kennedy and his wife Rose, on May 29, 1917. Grad
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Bio
Louisa Adams
The first first lady born outside the United States, Louisa Catherine Adams did not come to the United States until four years after she had married John Quincy Adams. Louisa Catherine Johnson was born in London on February 12, 1775, to an English mother, Catherine Nuth Johnson, and an American father—Joshua Johnson, of Maryland—who served as United States consul after 1790. A ca
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Bio
Julia Tyler
Julia Gardiner was born in 1820 to Juliana MacLachlan and David Gardiner, descendent of prominent and wealthy New York families.1 Julia was trained from childhood for a life in society; she made her debut at 15. A European tour with her family gave her new glimpses of social splendors. Late in 1842 the Gardiners went to Washington for the winter social season, and
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Bio
Claudia Johnson
Claudia Alta Taylor was born in Karnack, Texas, on December 22, 1912. She was the daughter of Thomas Jefferson Taylor and Minnie Lee Pattillo Taylor. Her nickname, “Lady Bird,” came from Alice Tittle, a nursemaid who remarked that she was “as purty as a lady bird.”1 After graduating high school, Lady Bird attended St. Mary’s Episcopal School for Girls, a junior college in
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Bio
Abigail Powers Fillmore
Abigail Powers was born in Saratoga County, New York, on March 13, 1798, while it was still a frontier out-post. Her father, a locally prominent Baptist preacher named Lemuel Powers, died shortly thereafter. Courageously, her mother, Abigail, moved on westward, thinking her scanty funds would go further in a less settled region, and ably educated her small son and daughter beyond the
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Bio
Millard Fillmore
Millard Fillmore became president upon the death of Zachary Taylor in July 1850. Born in upstate Cayuga County, New York on January 7, 1800, Fillmore as a youth endured the privations of frontier life. He worked on his father’s farm, and at 15 was apprenticed to a cloth maker. He attended a local school where he met Abigail Powers, who was 19 years old at
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Bio
Patricia Nixon
Thelma Catherine Ryan was born on March 16, 1912, in Ely, Nevada, to Katherine and William Ryan Sr. Born on the eve of St. Patrick’s Day, her father nicknamed her his “St. Patrick’s Babe.” The moniker “Pat” stuck with her for the rest of her life.1 After graduating from high school, Pat attended Fullerton Junior College and the University of Southern Cal