Woodrow Wilson left the White House in 1921 as a broken man. Literally. He had suffered a massive stroke, his dreams for the League of Nations were in tatters, and the American public was utterly exhausted by the moral crusades of the Progressive Era. People didn't want a "savior" anymore. They wanted a nap. Or, at the very least, they wanted to be able to buy a drink and get back to making money without the government breathing down their necks.
Enter the man who would become the president after Wilson: Warren G. Harding.
Harding is often the punchline of presidential history. If you look at those academic rankings where historians sit around and rate leaders, he’s usually hovering near the bottom, right next to James Buchanan. But that’s a bit of a lazy take. While his administration was undeniably rocked by the Teapot Dome scandal, Harding was actually exactly what the country was screaming for in 1920. He won by a landslide. It wasn't even close. He snagged 60% of the popular vote because he promised something he called "normalcy."
It wasn't even a real word back then. Grammarians hated it. But the American people? They loved it.
The Shocking Shift From Wilsonian Idealism
To understand Harding, you have to realize just how intense the Wilson years were. Wilson was an academic, a high-minded Virginian who saw the world in black and white. He led the U.S. into World War I and then tried to rewrite the rules of global diplomacy. By 1920, the vibe in America was basically a collective "enough already."
Harding was the polar opposite. He was a silver-haired, booming-voiced newspaper man from Marion, Ohio. He liked poker. He liked bourbon (even during Prohibition). He liked people. Most importantly, he wasn't trying to change your soul.
When we talk about the president after Wilson, we’re talking about the guy who hit the "reset" button on the entire American project. He moved the country away from the heavy-handed government intervention of the war years and toward the hands-off, pro-business climate that defined the Roaring Twenties.
The 1920 Election: A Turning Point
The election wasn't just a choice between two guys named Warren and James (Cox). It was a referendum on the future of the American presidency. Do we want a leader who is a world figure, or do we want a "front porch" candidate? Harding literally stayed home for much of the campaign. He sat on his porch in Ohio and let the people come to him.
It worked.
📖 Related: The Natascha Kampusch Case: What Really Happened in the Girl in the Cellar True Story
The American public was tired of the "Red Scare" raids led by Wilson’s Attorney General, A. Mitchell Palmer. They were tired of the Spanish Flu leftovers. They were tired of the high taxes required to pay for the Great War. Harding offered a path back to a simpler time—or at least the illusion of one.
The Economy: Making the Twenties Roar
Honestly, Harding doesn't get enough credit for the economic boom of the 1920s. We usually give that credit to Calvin Coolidge or the "Jazz Age" in general, but Harding set the stage.
When he took office, the country was actually in a nasty post-war recession. Unemployment was spiking. Harding’s solution was simple: cut spending and cut taxes. He appointed Andrew Mellon as Secretary of the Treasury, a man who believed that if you taxed the rich too much, they’d just stop investing.
- They slashed the top income tax rate from 73% down to 25% over a few years.
- They created the Bureau of the Budget (now the OMB) to actually track where money was going.
- Federal spending was cut in half.
The result? The "Depression of 1920-21" vanished almost overnight. By 1922, the economy was humming. Factories were churning out Model Ts, and the "roaring" part of the decade had officially begun. This shift in policy from Wilson's regulatory approach to Harding's "laissez-faire" stance is arguably the most significant legacy of the president after Wilson.
Civil Rights and the Forgotten Harding
Here’s something most history books gloss over: Harding was actually way ahead of his time on civil rights. Especially compared to Wilson, who was—let's be blunt—an ardent segregationist who re-segregated federal offices in D.C.
In 1921, Harding traveled to Birmingham, Alabama. Keep in mind, this was the height of the Jim Crow era and the KKK was seeing a massive resurgence. Harding stood in front of a segregated crowd and told them that the "race problem" wouldn't be solved until Black Americans had equal economic and educational opportunities.
"Whether you like it or not, our democracy is a lie unless we give the Negro citizen his full rights under the Constitution."
That was a massive thing for a sitting president to say in the deep South in 1921. He pushed for anti-lynching legislation, though it was blocked by Southern Democrats in the Senate. If you're looking for a reason to view Harding as more than a "failed" president, his stance on racial justice is a good place to start.
👉 See also: The Lawrence Mancuso Brighton NY Tragedy: What Really Happened
The "Best Minds" and the Teapot Dome Mess
Harding famously said he wanted to surround himself with the "best minds." He partially succeeded. He had Herbert Hoover at Commerce and Charles Evans Hughes at State. These were heavyweights.
But he also brought his buddies from Ohio—the "Ohio Gang."
This is where the wheels fell off. Harding wasn't necessarily corrupt himself, but he was a terrible judge of character. He stayed up late playing cards with men like Albert Fall and Harry Daugherty. While Harding was trying to run the country, Fall was busy leasing out Navy oil reserves at Teapot Dome, Wyoming, to private companies in exchange for massive bribes.
The Teapot Dome scandal became the biggest political mess in U.S. history until Watergate. Harding didn't live to see the full fallout, but the stress of knowing his friends were betraying him likely contributed to his early death.
The Tragic End in San Francisco
Harding’s presidency was cut short. In the summer of 1923, he went on a "Voyage of Understanding" to the West Coast and Alaska. He was exhausted. He looked grey. On the way back, he fell ill in San Francisco.
On August 2, 1923, while his wife Florence was reading him a magazine article in their hotel room, he suffered a sudden heart attack and died.
The nation went into a state of genuine shock. Millions of people lined the tracks as his funeral train crossed the country. At the time, he was one of the most popular presidents to ever hold the office. It was only after his death, when the depths of the Teapot Dome scandal and his extramarital affairs (with Nan Britton and Carrie Fulton Phillips) came to light, that his reputation plummeted.
Why We Still Think About Him
So, why does the president after Wilson matter today?
✨ Don't miss: The Fatal Accident on I-90 Yesterday: What We Know and Why This Stretch Stays Dangerous
Because Harding represents the first "modern" celebrity president. He was the first to have his voice recorded and broadcast. He was the first to really understand the power of a photo op. He moved us from the 19th-century style of leadership—austere, intellectual, distant—into something more relatable.
He also reminds us that "normalcy" is a powerful political drug. Whenever the country feels overwhelmed by global conflict or social upheaval, a candidate who promises to just "calm things down" is going to be incredibly attractive to the average voter.
Practical Insights for History Buffs and Students
If you're researching this era, don't just stick to the "corrupt" narrative. To get a full picture of the post-Wilson transition, you should look at these specific areas:
- The Washington Naval Conference: This was Harding’s biggest foreign policy win. He actually got world powers to agree to scrap warships and limit the size of their navies. It was a massive attempt at world peace that didn't involve Wilson’s League of Nations.
- The Pardon of Eugene V. Debs: Wilson had thrown the socialist leader in jail for speaking out against the war. Harding, despite being a conservative, released him on Christmas Day 1921 because he thought it was the "decent" thing to do.
- The Rise of Radio: Harding was the first president to use the radio. This changed how presidents communicated forever.
The transition from Wilson to Harding was more than just a change in parties; it was a total pivot in the American psyche. We went from trying to "make the world safe for democracy" to trying to make America safe for the middle class. Whether that was a good trade depends on who you ask, but there's no denying that the man who followed Wilson changed the trajectory of the 20th century.
To truly understand the era, compare the text of Wilson's "Fourteen Points" with Harding's "Return to Normalcy" speech. You'll see two completely different visions for what the United States was supposed to be. One saw a global leader; the other saw a prosperous, quiet neighbor. Most of our modern political debates still live in the space between those two ideas.
Next time you hear someone mention the "worst" presidents, remember that the guy who followed Wilson managed to end a depression, advocate for civil rights in the South, and host the first successful international arms limitation talks in history—all while his "friends" were busy stealing the oil. It’s a complicated legacy, but it’s a human one.
To explore this transition further, you can visit the Warren G. Harding Presidential Sites in Marion, Ohio, which recently underwent a massive restoration. Examining the digitized archives of the Library of Congress regarding the 1920 election also provides a fascinating look at the "front porch" campaign materials that won over a weary nation.