| Description |
1 online resource (viii, 267 pages, 6 unnumbered pages of plates) : illustrations |
| Contents |
Questions asked -- The president's hometown -- Commemorating the tragedy of Warren Harding -- My damned biographers -- The shadow of William Estabrook Chancellor -- He-harlot -- Harding Alley -- Dead last |
| Summary |
Annotation If George Washington and Abraham Lincoln are the saints in Americarsquo;s civil religion, then the twenty-ninth president, Warren G. Harding, is our sinner. Prior to the Nixon administration, the Harding scandals were the most infamous of the twentieth century. Harding is consistently judged a failure, ranking dead last among his peers. By examining the public memory of Harding, Phillip G. Payne offers the first significant reinterpretation of his presidency in a generation. Rather than repeating the old stories, Payne examines the contexts and continued meaning of the Harding scandals for various constituencies. Payne explores such topics as Hardingrsquo;s importance as a midwestern small-town booster, his rumored black ancestry, the role of various biographers in shaping his early image, the tension between public memory and academic history, and, finally, his status as an icon of presidential failure in contemporary political debates. Harding was a popular president and was widely mourned when he died in office in 1923; but with his death began the construction of his public memory and his fall from political grace. In Dead Last, Payne explores how Hardingrsquo;s name became synonymous with corruption, cronyism, and incompetence and how it is used to this day as an example of what a president should not be |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 257-261) and index |
| Notes |
Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL |
|
English |
|
Print version record |
|
digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL |
| Subject |
Harding, Warren G. (Warren Gamaliel), 1865-1923 -- Ethics
|
|
Harding, Warren G. (Warren Gamaliel), 1865-1923 -- Historiography
|
|
Harding, Warren G. (Warren Gamaliel), 1865-1923
|
| SUBJECT |
Harding, Warren G. (Warren Gamaliel), 1865-1923. fast (OCoLC)fst00007514 |
|
Harding, Warren G. swd |
| Subject |
Political corruption -- United States -- History -- 20th century
|
|
Presidents -- United States -- Biography.
|
|
Ethics.
|
|
Historiography.
|
|
Political corruption.
|
|
Politics and government
|
|
Presidents.
|
| SUBJECT |
United States -- Politics and government -- 1921-1923. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85140461
|
| Subject |
United States.
|
| Genre/Form |
Biographies.
|
|
History.
|
| Form |
Electronic book
|
| LC no. |
2008043916 |
| ISBN |
0821418181 |
|
9780821418185 |
|
082141819X |
|
9780821418192 |
|
0821442899 |
|
9780821442890 |
|
