The 1920s didn't just roar. They screamed. We’re talking about a decade defined by jazz, illegal gin, and the sudden realization that America was the richest kid on the block. But who was actually running the show? If you look at the presidents of the 1920s in order, you don't see a line of flashy celebrities. You see three very different men trying to figure out what a "modern" superpower was even supposed to look like.
Honestly, history books usually treat these guys like the boring intermission between the drama of World War I and the tragedy of the Great Depression. That’s a mistake. Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover shaped the world we live in now, for better or worse.
Warren G. Harding: The Man Who Wanted to be Liked
Warren G. Harding won the 1920 election by a landslide because people were exhausted. Imagine coming out of a global pandemic (the Spanish Flu) and a world war, only to have a president like Woodrow Wilson trying to micromanage the globe. Harding promised a "return to normalcy." It’s a word he basically made up, or at least popularized, and it worked.
He was a newspaper man from Ohio. Tall. Handsome. He looked like a president from central casting. But beneath the surface, Harding was arguably one of the most overwhelmed men to ever sit in the Oval Office. He once famously told a friend that he wasn't fit for the office and should never have been there.
The Teapot Dome and the "Ohio Gang"
Harding’s biggest problem wasn't his policy; it was his friends. He brought a group of buddies from Ohio to Washington, and they treated the federal government like a private piggy bank. The Teapot Dome Scandal is the one everyone remembers. Interior Secretary Albert Fall took bribes to lease Navy oil reserves to private companies. It was the first time a Cabinet member went to prison.
Harding didn't live to see the full fallout. He died of a heart attack in a San Francisco hotel in 1923. Some people at the time even whispered his wife poisoned him, though that's just a conspiracy theory. The guy was stressed. He was playing poker and drinking whiskey in the White House during Prohibition while his administration crumbled around him.
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Why Calvin Coolidge Was the Weirdest President We’ve Had
When Harding died, his Vice President, Calvin Coolidge, was at his family home in Vermont. His dad, a notary public, swore him in by the light of a kerosene lamp at 2:47 in the morning. If that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about "Silent Cal," nothing will.
Coolidge was the polar opposite of Harding. He was frugal, quiet, and deeply suspicious of government overreach. He believed the "business of America is business." He wasn't joking. He spent his presidency cutting taxes and vetoing spending bills.
Silence as a Superpower
There’s a famous, possibly apocryphal story about a woman at a dinner party who bet Coolidge she could get more than two words out of him. He looked at her and said, "You lose."
He presided over the peak of the Roaring Twenties. Under Coolidge, the middle class exploded. People were buying cars on credit. Radios were in every living room. The stock market was a vertical line. Because things were going so well, Coolidge decided he’d had enough. In 1928, he handed a slip of paper to reporters that said, "I do not choose to run for President in nineteen twenty-eight." He walked away at the height of his popularity.
Herbert Hoover and the End of the Party
If you look at the presidents of the 1920s in order, Herbert Hoover is the tragic finale. On paper, he was the most qualified person to ever hold the job. He was a self-made millionaire, an engineer, and a humanitarian who saved millions from starvation in Europe after WWI.
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Hoover was a technocrat. He believed you could solve any problem with data and efficiency. But he took office in March 1929, and by October, the floor fell out.
The Great Crash of '29
Hoover wasn't a "do-nothing" president. That’s a myth. He actually did a lot, but he did it with the wrong philosophy. He believed in "rugged individualism." He thought the government shouldn't give direct hand-outs to people because it would ruin their character. Instead, he tried to help banks and businesses, hoping it would trickle down.
It didn't.
By the end of his term, "Hoovervilles" (shanty towns of homeless people) were popping up in every city. He went from being a hero to one of the most hated men in America in less than four years. He was the bridge between the wild prosperity of the 20s and the grim reality of the 30s.
The Legacy of the 1920s Trio
When we rank the presidents of the 1920s in order, we see a trajectory of American thought.
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- Harding: Nostalgia and corruption.
- Coolidge: Hands-off prosperity.
- Hoover: The failure of old-school individualism in a modern crisis.
These men weren't just placeholders. They oversaw the transition of the United States from an agrarian society to an industrial, consumer-driven powerhouse. They grappled with the same things we do today: trade wars, immigration quotas (the 1924 Act was massive), and how much the government should interfere in the stock market.
People often blame them for the Depression. Economists like Milton Friedman argued that the Federal Reserve had more to do with the crash than Hoover's specific policies, but the president always gets the credit—and the blame.
Next Steps for History Buffs
To truly understand how these three men influenced the world, your next move should be to look beyond the White House.
- Read "The Perils of Prosperity" by William Leuchtenburg. It’s the definitive text on how 1920s culture clashed with its politics.
- Visit the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library. If you're ever in West Branch, Iowa, it’s a fascinating look at a man who was much more than just a "failed" president.
- Analyze the Revenue Act of 1924. Look at the tax brackets under Coolidge versus today; the difference in philosophy is staggering and explains why the 20s "roared" as hard as they did.
Understanding the 1920s is about understanding the DNA of modern American capitalism. It started with a "return to normalcy" and ended in a bread line.