Category: Politics
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How Woman Goes to Vote
When women could first vote in 1920, the resulting atmospheric changes at polling locations included no more fights, profanity, or smoking. “And no trouble, never no trouble any more,” the Veteran regretted. “In the old days we could always run in a couple of guys, there was always rows. There’s nothing doing any more. Since […]
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Changing Fashions in Presidential Campaigns
At some point, the presidential “campaign biography” gave way to the “campaign autobiography.” 1920 fell between those two eras, with this contemporary article noting the demise of the former though the latter hadn’t yet become the norm. From 1920: At least four of these campaign biographies were written by authors of standing. No less a […]
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The Anonymous Roosevelt
As an ex-president, Theodore Roosevelt wrote an anonymous monthly column for one of America’s biggest magazines, Ladies’ Home Journal, under the recurring column title “Men.” His authorship wasn’t revealed until 1920, after Roosevelt’s death, by the 30-year editor of Ladies’ Home Journal Edward Bok in his autobiography The Americanization of Edward Bok: The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty […]
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Party Allegiance as Good Citizenship
In 1920, Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Robert von Moschzisker argued that America had become too big to govern effectively without political parties. To my mind, the maintenance of the present system and the development of party fealty are matters of prime importance at this time in America. How, with our vast electorate, scattered over a […]
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The First Woman President
Weeks after women gained the right to vote, a satirical column predicted a future female president since “Millions of us men will be compelled to vote for her with the threat of losing our home-brewed meals if we don’t.” In 1920, the country was still 12 years away from its first elected female senator, Hattie Wyatt Caraway of […]
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Harding, Baseball Fan
Future President Warren Harding’s “front porch campaign” of 1920 rendered him unable to attend a Major League Baseball game, as he usually did each summer. So on September 2, they brought a game to him. The Chicago Cubs came to Harding’s hometown of Marion, Ohio to play an exhibition game against a semi-pro local team, […]
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Campaigning from Porch and Stump
1920 Republican presidential candidate Warren Harding was accused of holding few true political beliefs: When one speaks of Harding, of course, one means the unincorporated syndicate that goes by that name, headed by Senator Lodge and consisting of perhaps a dozen members of the Senate, including the one from Ohio, Mr. Harding… When Harding speaks […]
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The Party of Discontent
Would a third party candidate spoil the 1920 presidential election? At least three presidential elections in the past three decades alone were very likely altered by third-party candidates: 1992: Independent candidate Ross Perot earned 19.7 million votes, mostly from Republican George H.W. Bush, likely tipping the election to Democrat Bill Clinton. 2000: Green Party candidate […]
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Harding and the Front Porch Plot
In 1920, Warren Harding ran the last true “front porch campaign,” a major party presidential candidate campaigning primarily from home… until Joe Biden for several months in 2020. This 1920 New York Times article explains the rationale for Harding, the Republican nominee, in trying to replicate the successful 1896 front porch campaign of fellow Ohio Republican […]
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The Vice Presidency Comes to the Fore
“The two parties in 1920… have both nominated men of Presidential stature for Vice President,” a New York Times article that summer read. Those two men were FDR and Calvin Coolidge, who would both become president. In fact, 1920 is the only year in American history when both major-party vice presidential nominees later became president. […]
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