Presidents from 1900 to 1950


Our presidents have come from a wide selection of backgrounds. Many have been lawyers, others were soldiers, a few were teachers, and some were businessmen. Check out the presidents by clicking on the years you want:

Presidents from 1850-1900
Presidents from 1900-1950
Presidents from 1950-2000
Presidents from 2000-today




Theodore Roosevelt: 26th (1901-1909)
1.      He was born on October 27, 1858 in New York City.
2.      He was homeschooled because of his health as a child, but attended Harvard University in 1876.
3.      He graduated in 1880.
4.      He married Alice Hathaway Lee in 1880 but she passed away after giving birth to a daughter.
5.      He attended Columbia Law School but dropped out to become a New York Assemblyman in 1882.
6.      He lived on a ranch in the west for many years.
7.      He married Edith Kermit Carow and they had 5 children together.
8.      In 1895 he served as President of the Board of New York City Police Commissioners
9.      In 1897 he became Assistant Secretary of the Navy and he was in charge when the Maine was exploded in Havana.
10.   In 1898 when the war broke out, he resigned his commission and started the Rough Riders – a US Volunteer Cavalry Unit. He was promoted to colonel.
11.   He was elected Governor of New York in 1898.
12.   He was nominated for Vice President in the election of 1900.
13.   When President McKinley died, he took office to finish out his term.
14.   He was youngest man to hold the office at the age of 43.
15.   He was a strong advocate for conservation and signed the Newlands Reclamation Bill.
16.   He created 150 protected national forests, 5 national parks, 51 wildlife refuges, and 18 national monuments.
17.   The Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 was passed.
18.   The Hay-Bunau-Verilla Treaty of 1903 gave the US the right to control the Panama Canal.
19.   His famous line was “Speak softly, but carry a big stick”.
20.   He left office in 1909 after two terms.
21.   In 1912 he was shot while campaigning. The bullet remained in his chest for the rest of his life.
22.   He died on January 6, 1919 of a heart attack.

William Howard Taft: 27th (1909-1913)
1.      He was born on September 15, 1857.
2.      He attended Yale University and graduated in 1878.
3.      He worked for a newspaper while he attended law school.
4.      In 1882 he was appointed Collector of Internal Revenue.
5.      In 1890 he was appointed Solicitor General of the United States.
6.      He married Helen Herron in 1886.
7.      He served as the first Governor of the Philippines from 1901-1903.
8.      In 1904 he was appointed Secretary of War.
9.      He was nominated for president in 1908 and accepted.
10.   The 16th Amendment passed – granting the government the right to levy an income tax.
11.   The 17th Amendment passed – calling for direct election of US Senators.
12.   He won the nomination again in 1912, but Woodrow Wilson won the election when Taft and Roosevelt split the votes.
13.   He became a justice of the Supreme Court in 1921 and Chief Justice after White passed away. He served until 1930.
14.   On March 8, 1930, he died.

Thomas Woodrow Wilson: 28th (1913-1921)
1.      He was born on December 28, 1856 in Staunton, Virginia.
2.      During the Civil War, his father moved the family further south to support the Confederacy.
3.      He suffered from dyslexia but taught himself shorthand and his own way to read.
4.      He graduated from Princeton in 1879.
5.      He attended law school at the University of Virginia but withdrew because of his health so he studied from home.
6.      He attended Johns Hopkins University in 1883 and got a doctorate in 1886.
7.      He taught at Bryn Mawr and Wesleyan University.
8.      He married Ellen Louise Axson and had 3 daughters. When he was president, his wife died.  He married Edith Bolling in 1915.
9.      He taught at Princeton University and became its president in 1902. He served until 1910.
10.   In 1910 he ran for Governor of New Jersey and won. He established a state primary.
11.   He ran for president in 1912 and won. He was the only president at the time to have a PhD.
12.   During his administration the 17th, 18th, and 19th Amendments were passed.
13.   In 1913 the Federal Reserve Act was passed.
14.   In 1914 the Clayton Anti-Trust Act was passed.
15.   The department of labor was created in 1913.
16.   He centralized the federal government during World War I.
17.   He created the Committee on Public Information which sold the idea of war to the Americans – they used over 150,000 writers and artists to speak out.
18.   In May 1915, the Germans sank the Lusitania and 128 Americans died.
19.   On April 6, 1917, the US declared war on Germany.
20.   He presented his 14 points to Congress at the end of the war. The League of Nations was formed.
21.   He suffered a stroke while pushing for the League of Nations. The United States never joined.
22.   He left office in 1921 and retired to his home in Washington, DC.
23.   He died on February 3, 1924.

Warren G. Harding: 29th (1921-1923)
1.      He was born on November 2, 1865 in Ohio.
2.      He studied journalism at Ohio Central College and graduated in 1882.
3.      He worked many different jobs and studied law. He owned the Marion Daily Star in 1886.
4.      He married on July 8, 1891.
5.      He ran for governor of Ohio but lost, serving as lieutenant governor from 1904-1906.
6.      In 1914 he became a US Senator and served during WWI from 1915-1921.
7.      He was the first sitting Senator to be elected President in 1920.
8.      He created the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 that made a General Accounting Office.
9.      He also supported the creation of the Bureau of Veterans Affairs.
10.   In 1923 when he returned from a trip to San Francisco, he got sick. On August 2, he died.

John Calvin Coolidge, Jr.: 30th (1923-1929)
1.      He was born on July 4, 1872 in Plymouth, Vermont.
2.      He attended Amherst College and apprenticed at a law firm.
3.      He joined in bar in 1897 and opened his own practice.
4.      He became City Solicitor in 1900.
5.      He married Grace Anna Goodhue on October 4, 1905. They had two sons.
6.      He was elected to the state House of Representatives in 1906.
7.      He ran for Mayor of Northampton in 1909 and 1911.
8.      In 1920 he was asked to join the ballot as Vice President with Warren Harding.
9.      He was nicknamed “Silent Cal” because he was so quiet.
10.   When Harding died in office, he became the next president.
11.   He was re-elected in 1924.
12.   He signed the Immigration Act in 1923 that limited the number of immigrants allowed in the country.
13.   In 1924 he signed the Indian Citizenship Act to give citizenship to all Native Americans.
14.   He did not run for a second term and returned to Northampton, Massachusetts.
15.   He died on January 5, 1933.

Herbert Hoover: 31st (1929-1933)
1.      He was born in West Branch, Iowa on August 10, 1874.
2.      He was orphaned as a young boy and lived with relatives.
3.      He never attended high school but took classes on his own.
4.      He attended Stanford University in 1891 and graduated in 1895.
5.      He worked as a geologist and mining engineer in 1897.
6.      He married Lou Henry in 1899 and had two sons.
7.      He went to China where he learned Mandarin.
8.      In 1917 he was appointed head of the Food and Drug Administration.
9.      He was appointed the Secretary of Commerce with President Harding.
10.   He ran for president in 1928 and won by 58% of the popular vote.
11.   He passed the Boulder Canyon Project Act – which became the Hoover Dam.
12.   In October 1929, the stock market crashed and the country entered the Great Depression.
13.   He created the President’s Emergency Committee on Employment to help the unemployed.
14.   He was defeated for re-election by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932.
15.   He retired to California and tried to run again, but was not successful.
16.   In 1947 he headed the Hoover Commission and established the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.
17.   He died on October 20, 1964 at the age of 90.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt: 32nd (1933-1945)
1.      He was born on January 30, 1882 in Hyde Park, New York.
2.      He attended Harvard College and Columbia Law School.
3.      He passed the bar exam in 1907.
4.      He married Eleanor Roosevelt, his fifth cousin on March 17, 1905.
5.      He ran for the State Senate in 1910.
6.      In 1912 he was appointed Secretary of the Navy by Woodrow Wilson.
7.      In 1921 he became ill from polio and became paralyzed from the waist down.
8.      He was nominated for Governor in 1928 and won. He served for two terms.
9.      He ran for president in 1932 and won on his “New Deal” plan.
10.   He closed all the banks on March 6, 1933 to re-organize the banks and reopened the healthy banks with new funds.
11.   In 1933 he signed the Securities Act.
12.   The Banking Act of 1935 created a central banking system.
13.   The Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) were created.
14.   In June 1933 the National Industrial Recovery Act created the Public Works Administration and the National Recovery Administration.
15.   The Farm Credit Association was created along with the Tennessee Valley Authority.
16.   In August 1935 the Social Security Act was signed to provide unemployment insurance.
17.   He passed the Lend-Lease Act to supply Great Britain with aid and armaments.
18.   On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, plunging the US into war.
19.   He attended the Yalta conference in 1945 to create the United Nations.
20.   He was the only president to be elected four times.
21.   He died on April 12, 1945.

Harry S. Truman: 33rd (1945-1953)
1.      He was born on May 8, 1884 in Lamar, Missouri.
2.      He really does not have a middle name – only the letter S.
3.      After high school, he enlisted in the Missouri Army National Guard and served in 1911.
4.      He rejoined the National Guard for World War I.
5.      He married Bess Wallace on June 28, 1919 and they had one daughter.
6.      He attended law school but never finished.
7.      In 1926 he was elected as judge.
8.      During the Great Depression, he was named Director of the federal re-employment program.
9.      In 1934 he was elected to the US Senate.
10.   He headed the Truman Committee which saved thousands of lives during WWII.
11.   Roosevelt asked him to be his running mate in 1944.
12.   On April 12, 1945 after Roosevelt died, he became the next president.
13.   He helped create the Employment Act of 1946.
14.   Mostly he continued the New Deal policies of Roosevelt but then created his own “Fair Deal” policies.
15.   He won a second term in 1948.
16.   In 1950 the Korean Conflict began.
17.   The House Committee on UnAmerican Activities was created to investigate Communist activities.
18.   He demanded the unconditional surrender of Japan during WWII.
19.   He authorized the dropping of two atomic bombs over Japan – Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
20.   The Truman Doctrine declared the US would support any country threatened by Communism.
21.   He pushed for the creation of the United Nations and the charter was started in June 1945.
22.   He also supported the start of NATO – The North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
23.   The Cold War started.
24.   North Korea invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950. He ordered Douglas MacArthur to intervene.
25.   He then fired MacArthur when he went behind his back to Congress.
26.   The US recognized Israel as its own state on May 15, 1948.
27.   He left the White House in 1952 after two terms.
28.   He built a presidential library and published his memoirs.
29.   He died on December 26, 1972.

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