Born: 1860
Died: 1924

Florence Kling took after her father, a rich and iron-willed Ohio entrepreneur. He taught her business and sent her to music school, but at 19 she eloped with ne’er-do-well Henry DeWolfe and bore her only child. Divorced at 25, Florence was teaching piano when she fell in love with the glib and handsome, but hopelessly malleable Warren Harding. Five years her junior, he published the local newspaper, the Marion Star. With their marriage in 1891 Florence could at last put her business acumen to use. As circulation and advertising manager she boosted the Star’s revenues and its profile until it was one of the most influential dailies in the state. Then she turned her energies to Warren’s political career, promoting his 20-year rise to the White House.

First Lady at 61, Florence had her work cut out for her. Warren was woefully unsuited for the Presidency and both Hardings suffered from illness and stress. Moreover, a fortune teller had given Florence the unsettling advice that her husband would die in office. But “the Duchess,” as Warren called his wife, forged ahead, ignoring her husband’s infidelities, his drinking parties (it was Prohibition), his cronyism, and focused on work, helping veterans, meeting the public, and cultivating the press. She was with the President when he died on a trip out West, just as the scandals of his Administration were coming to light.

Twenty-Ninth President
Warren G. Harding

Born: 1865, Marion, OH
Died: 1923

Warren Harding gained popularity and political savvy as the publisher of an Ohio newspaper. In 1914, after serving as a State Senator and Lieutenant Governor, he was elected to the U.S. Senate. A deadlocked Republican nominating convention finally settled on the likeable and attractive Harding as its Presidential candidate in 1920. He promised a “return to normalcy” in the aftermath of World War I, and his champion, Harry Daugherty, proclaimed that indeed the candidate “looked like a President.” He won 60 percent of the popular vote.

President Harding followed the Congressional Republicans’ lead, approving bills that cut taxes, raised tariffs, ended wartime controls and restricted immigration. In the two years following his election, America seemed to be on the road to prosperity. Then, in 1923, during a campaign visit to San Francisco, Harding died suddenly of a heart attack and the nation was stunned by revelations of widespread corruption in his Administration. Several Harding appointees had been taking bribes and stealing millions in public funds. It was now all too evident that the President had been in earnest when he remarked that his enemies were no bother, but his friends kept him awake at night.

Twenty-Ninth President
Republican