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Calvin Coolidge

            Calvin Coolidge was our 30^th president of the US. Calvin was born in Plymouth, Vermont, on July 4, 1872. Plymouth was a community of farmers who were very self-sufficient. Plymouth was small and simple, Calvin thought of it as a clean place to live. He was the son of a village storekeeper/farmer. Being the son of a farmer, Calvin quickly learned how to do outdoor chores to help keep the farm up and running. Coolidge valued what school time he received. He graduated Amherst College with full honors. He entered politics and law in Northampton, Massachusetts, and as many other politicians he began to move up the official ladder, starting as a councilman then moved up to governor of Massachusetts. Calvin was known as a man of his word, an honest man with good morals. When he attended the Black River Academy at the age of 13, he had to walk miles home every day after class was over. He was most popular in 1924; his campaign was known as “Coolidge prosperity”.

 He went from the Black River Academy to Amherst College, then to move to Massachusetts to become the governor. Calvin had a lot of coaching by his father on how to become successful in life. Calvin was a member of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity and the Republican club. In 1905 Calvin met and married a woman by the name of Grace Anna Goodhue who was a teacher at the Clarke School for the Deaf. They were married on October 4, 1905, in Grace’s parents’ house in Burlington, Vermont. They had two sons together, John who was born in 1906 and Calvin Jr. in 1908. As Coolidge wrote in one of his Autobiographies “I thought we were made for each other”. While Calvin was the governor of Massachusetts, he faced a strike by the police of the city of Boston. He stood firm and said that you would never have the right to strike against public safety for any reason. Around 1897 he then opened a law office and began participating in local republican politics in Northampton.

Calvin soon became the governor of Massachusetts; it was a narrow victory over democrat Richard H. Long. He quickly won the attention of the nation when he called upon the National Guard to break a strike by Boston city police. He supported a cost-of-living pay increase for public employees, Limited the workweek for women and children to 48 hours, and placed outdoor advertisement limits. Many think that his most important feat was reconstructing and consolidating the state government. On his way to the white house, he went to the Republican National Convention in Chicago, Illinois but he only got 34 votes on the first ballot. When Coolidge’s name was entered into nomination, a flood of delegates put him right on the ticket.

Although many people liked Calvin, the great depression that started in 1929 damaged his reputation and how he appeared in the public spotlight. Most of the public linked the economic downfall of the U.S. to policies made by Calvin. Coolidge’s foreign policy was also up for questioning, because it became clear that his signature achievements were the Dawes plan and the Kellogg-Briand Pact.