A Note on My Harding Research

The information I posted during 2020 mostly covered Warren Harding's front-porch campaign from his home on Mt. Vernon Avenue in Marion, Ohio. The campaign officially started on July 31, 1920, and ended on September 25. The plan was to post daily on events that occurred exactly 100 years ago that day, but I shared other information as well. You'll have to read bottom-to-top if you want to follow the campaign from Day 1.

I used the open web for some of my research but also information accessible by using my library card or my subscription to www.newspapers.com. The most useful resource was the Marion Star, which was owned by the Hardings at the time of the campaign. I also browsed online copies of other newspapers like the New York Times, the Washington Star, and the Dayton Daily News, which, in 1920, was owned by Harding's Democratic opponent, Governor James M. Cox. I also posted information from other newspapers that covered Harding's trips away from Marion during the campaign.

Another great resource I used was Dale E. Cottrill's The Conciliator, a 1969 biography of the president that expanded an earlier bibliography of Harding's speeches. An online version is available at the Internet Archive, but I used a hard copy borrowed from the State Library of Ohio.

Readers should not construe anything posted here as a political statement on my part. I just like Harding as a historical topic.

8/06/2020

Harding as Washington's Double

Political kitsch at its finest:


From the Perry County Advocate on August 6, 1920:
The above photographs showing the remarkable likenesses of Senator Warren G. Harding...and George Washington...were published in a recent issue of the Boston Evening Transcript. The large picture in the oval and the smaller picture of Senator Harding on the right were made from the same photograph. The face has not ben touched up in any way but merely framed in the Washington headgear and dress. The Boston Evening Transcript reproduced these pictures after receiving a number of letters calling attention to the similarity between the first president and Senator Harding.
But then again, on July 15, 1920, Senator Harding did receive a letter from "a great-great-great grandson of Mary Ball Washington, the mother of George Washington," who said he saw a resemblance. I just see Harding in a Washington wig.

And for good measure, this reprint from the Hartford Post is from the August 7th edition of the Dearborn Independent:

Sources:
  • "First Voters with Harding." Marion Star. 15 July 1920.
  • "Harding as Washington's Double." Perry County Advocate. 6 August 1920.

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