Warren G. Harding was born on November 2, 1865 near Corsica (now Blooming Grove), Ohio. His father was George Tyron Harding and his mother was Phoebe Elizabeth Dickerson Harding. He graduated from Ohio Central College in 1882 and for a short time was a schoolteacher. He served as our nation’s 29th President from March 4, 1921 to August 2, 1923.

     Mr. Harding was a newspaper editor and publisher. He served as a Member of the Ohio State Senate and as Lieutenant-Governor of Ohio. Later, he was elected to serve in the United States Senate. Both of his parents were medical doctors. One of his sisters was a member of the Police Department in Washington, D.C. Warren G. Harding was the first President to own a radio and the first whose voice was actually broadcast over the radio airwaves. Several members of the Harding Administration were found to be corrupt, including his Secretary of the Interior, who accepted a huge bribe to transfer the Naval Oil Reserves in Teapot Dome, Wyoming into private hands. Just as these many scandals were beginning to erupt around him, President Harding, on his way back from a visit to Alaska, suffered a fatal heart attack.

     Mr. Harding married Florence Kling De Wolfe in 1891. They produced no children. She died in 1924.

     President Warren Gamaliel Harding died on August 2, 1923 in San Francisco, California. He was 57 years of age.

            

Biographical Sketch © 2002 Damon Leigh (ASCAP)

Presidential Portrait © 2002 Chas Fagan