Turning to primary sources others have overlooked, Sibley challenges the cliches about Florence Harding's time in the national spotlight. She describes her support for racial equality, lobbying for better treatment for veterans and female prisoners and her lifelong interest in preventing animal cruelty.
Tells the story of Florence Harding's rise from young unwed mother to First Lady and reveals her influence behind Harding's ascent to America's most scandal-ridden presidency and her role in his death. The drama of her life is set against the stage of the White House in the Jazz Age, and involves exciting elements such as mistresses, blackmail, poisoning, and opium addicts. Includes bandw photos. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
"If love is the only right warrant for bringing children into the world then many children born in wedlock are illegitimate and many born out of wedlock are legitimate." So contends Nan Britton in this account of Elizabeth Ann, her daughter by Warren G. Harding.
A look at what really happened in the U.S. Veterans’ Bureau Scandal in the 1920s. In the early 1920s, as the nation recovered from World War I, President Warren G. Harding founded the U.S. Veterans Bureau, now known as the Department of Veterans Affairs, to treat disabled veterans. He appointed his friend, decorated veteran Colonel Charles R. Forbes, as founding director. Forbes lasted only eighteen months in the position before stepping down under a cloud of suspicion. In 1926—after being convicted of conspiracy to defraud the federal government by rigging government contracts—he was sent to Leavenworth Penitentiary. Although he was known in his day as a drunken womanizer, and as a corrupt toady of a weak president, the question persists: was Forbes a criminal or a scapegoat? Historian Rosemary Stevens tells Forbes’s story anew, drawing on previously untapped records to reveal his role in America’s commitment to veterans. She explores how Forbes’s rise and fall in Washington illuminates Harding’s efforts to bring business efficiency to government. She also examines the scandal in the context of class, professionalism, ethics, and etiquette in a rapidly changing world. Most significantly, Stevens proposes a revisionist view of both Forbes and Harding: They did not defraud the government of billions and do not deserve the reputation they have carried for a hundred years. Packed with conniving friends, FBI agents, and rival politicians as well as gamblers, revelers, and wronged wives, A Time of Scandal will appeal to anyone interested in political gossip, presidential politics, the “Ohio Gang,” and the 1920s.
Warren Harding fell in love with his beautiful neighbor, Carrie Phillips, in the summer of 1905, almost a decade before he was elected a United States Senator and fifteen years before he became the 29th President of the United States. When the two lovers started their long-term and torrid affair, neither of them could have foreseen that their relationship would play out against one of the greatest wars in world history--the First World War. Harding would become a Senator with the power to vote for war; Mrs. Phillips and her daughter would become German agents, spying on a U. S. training camp on Long Island in the hopes of gauging for the Germans the pace of mobilization of the U. S. Army for entry into the battlefields in France. Based on over 800 pages of correspondence discovered in the 1960s but under seal ever since in the Library of Congress, The Harding Affair will tell the unknown stories of Harding as a powerful Senator and his personal and political life, including his complicated romance with Mrs. Phillips. The book will also explore the reasons for the entry of the United States into the European conflict and explain why so many Americans at the time supported Germany, even after the U. S. became involved in the spring of 1917. James David Robenalt's comprehensive study of the letters is set in a narrative that weaves in a real-life spy story with the story of Harding's not accidental rise to the presidency.
The nation's leading expert on first ladies explores the fascinating life and times of one of the most unconventional and powerful women of the 20th century.
A moving account of the popular first lady's White House tenure, taking readers behind the scenes of her strained marriage to the famously taciturn president. An insightful look at the Coolidges, their relationship in the public eye, and her contributions to the historical legacy of presidential wives.
"American history buffs will savor this detailed yet accessible roundup of political imbroglios." —Publishers Weekly Political scandals have become an indelible feature of the American political system since the creation of the republic more than two centuries ago. In his previous book, Libertines: American Political Sex Scandals from Alexander Hamilton to Donald Trump, Michael Martinez explored why public figures sometimes take extraordinary risks, sullying their good names, humiliating their families, placing themselves in legal jeopardy, and potentially destroying their political careers as they seek to gratify their sexual desires. In Scoundrels, Martinez examines thirteen of the most famous (or infamous) and not-so-famous political scandals of other sorts in American history, including the Teapot Dome case from the 1920s, the Watergate break-in and cover-up in the 1970s, the Iran-Contra affair of the 1980s, and Russian interference in the 2016 elections. Combining riveting storytelling with insights into 200 years of American political corruption, Martinez has once again written a book that will enlighten all readers interested in human nature and political history.
President Nixon's former counsel illuminates another presidency marked by scandal Warren G. Harding may be best known as America's worst president. Scandals plagued him: the Teapot Dome affair, corruption in the Veterans Bureau and the Justice Department, and the posthumous revelation of an extramarital affair. Raised in Marion, Ohio, Harding took hold of the small town's newspaper and turned it into a success. Showing a talent for local politics, he rose quickly to the U.S. Senate. His presidential campaign slogan, "America's present need is not heroics but healing, not nostrums but normalcy," gave voice to a public exhausted by the intense politics following World War I. Once elected, he pushed for legislation limiting the number of immigrants; set high tariffs to relieve the farm crisis after the war; persuaded Congress to adopt unified federal budget creation; and reduced income taxes and the national debt, before dying unexpectedly in 1923. In this wise and compelling biography, John W. Dean—no stranger to controversy himself—recovers the truths and explodes the myths surrounding our twenty-ninth president's tarnished legacy.
Examines the parts played by the wives and other relatives who filled the role of first lady, and describes how they profoundly impacted each president's administration and political fate.