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Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was born Februrary 12, 1809. Lincoln was president during the Civil War and issued the Emancipation Proclamation. The Emancipation Proclamation freed all slaves from the Confederacy. Lincoln married Mary Todd and had four sons but only one made it to maturity. Lincoln was assassinated April 14, 1865 at Ford's Theatre by John Wilkes Booth. -
Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant was born in 1822 and was son of an Ohio tanner. Grant was elected president because he was a symbol of a Union victory during the Civil War. Jay Gould and James Fisk planned to corner the gold market while Grant was in office. Grant authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to sell enough gold to ruin their plans. -
Rutherford B. Hayes
Rutherford B. Hayes was born in Ohio in 1822. Hayes brought to the Executive Mansion dignity, honesty, and moderate reform. To the delight of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union his wife banned wines and liquors from the White House. -
James A. Garfield
James A. Garfield was born in Cuyahoga County, Ohio in 1831. Garfield was the last of the log cabin Presidents and attacked political corruption. Garfield strengthened Federal authority over the New York Customs House, stronghold of Senator Roscoe Conkling, who was leader of the Stalwart Republicans and dispenser of patronage in New York. -
Grover Cleveland
Grover Cleveland was born in New Jersey in 1837. Cleveland was the first Democrat elected president after the Civil War. Grover is the only president in history to get married in the White House. Cleveland vetoed many private pension bills to Civil War veterans whose claims were fraudulent. -
William McKinley
William McKinley was born in Niles, Ohio in 1843. When McKinley became President, the depression of 1893 had almost run its course and with it the extreme agitation over silver. During his term the United States annexed the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico.He was shot twice in September in 1901 by a deranged anarchist and died eight days later. -
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt was born in New York City in 1858 into a wealthy family but he struggled against ill health. As President, he held the ideal that the Government should be the great arbiter of the conflicting economic forces in the Nation, especially between capital and labor, guaranteeing justice to each and dispensing favors to none. Aware of the strategic need for a shortcut between the Atlantic and Pacific, Roosevelt ensured the construction of the Panama Canal. -
William Howard Taft
William Howard Taft was born in 1857 and was the son of a distinguished judge. President Roosevelt made him Secretary of War, and by 1907 had decided that Taft should be his successor. Taft was a distinguished jurist, effective administrator, but poor politician, therefore he spent four uncomfortable years in the White House. Taft alienated many liberal Republicans who later formed the Progressive Party, by defending the Payne-Aldrich Act which unexpectedly continued high tariff rates. -
Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson was born in Virginia in 1856 and was the son of a Presbyterian minister. Wilson developed a program of progressive reform and asserted international leadership in building a new world order. After the election Wilson concluded that America could not remain neutral in the World War and on April 2,1917 he asked Congress for a declaration of war on Germany. Wilson was a member of the "Big Three" signing the Treaty of Versailles. -
Calvin Coolidge
Calvin Coolidge born in Plymouth, Vermont, on July 4, 1872 he was the son of a village storekeeper. At 2:30 on the morning of August 3, 1923, while visiting in Vermont, Calvin Coolidge received word that he was President. As President, Coolidge demonstrated his determination to preserve the old moral and economic precepts amid the material prosperity which many Americans were enjoying. But no President was kinder in permitting himself to be photographed in Indian war bonnets or cowboy dress.
