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Vol. 3, Issue 3
September October November 2016
Autumn
is one
Vol.PP3, Issue
1 of those seasons that provide
great opportunities for outdoor play and creative
Harding urged America to take to the skies
The next time you fly, give a
nod to President Harding. Just six
weeks into his administration, Harding
was pushing for commercial aviation to
figure into America's future.
Harding had closely followed
the use of airplanes during the recent
Great War (WWI), which ended in
1918. In the skies over Europe, pilots
flying flimsy bi-planes fought enemy
pilots with service revolvers at first,
and no parachutes were on board. For
every 92 hours of flying time, a pilot
died in a crash.
On the American homefront,
airplanes had been used to transport
mail on a limited basis since 1918.
With the armistice in place, trained
pilots were looking for work and
wartime planes were sitting in
warehouses. The time was perfect for
expansion.
Harding's Secretary of
Commerce, Herbert Hoover, convened
the first national conference on
commercial aviation and initiated
government regulations on safety
equipment and practices -- all without
the involvement of Congress. Hoover
and Harding pressured Congress behind
the scenes to act on air commerce
legislation to develop airports and
regulate the new industry. Congress,
however, wasn't interested.
The United States Post Office
took matters into its own hands,
running the air mail industry itself at
first with federal money -- a move that
caused the competing railroads to cry
foul. The Post Office said it was just
experimenting, so the use of federal
funds was justified. In 1925, the Kelly
Act gave the Post Office the ability to
contract mail service with private
companies.
The postal service, by 1921, had
settled on using retrofitted deHavilland
airplanes, which had been used in the
war along with 50-some other aircraft
designs. Even with safety
improvements, piloting a mail plane
wasn't for the faint of heart.
The cockpits were redesigned so
they sat at the rear of the plane to allow
at least a bit of cushion for pilots in
case of a crash, and the exhaust pipes
were moved away from the cockpits to
more safely vent noxious fumes. Still,
pilots were seated in open cockpits with
the bulk of their planes made from
plywood -- while ferrying 500 pounds
of mail.
Keeping to the schedule
was paramount, the pilots were told. If
that meant flying in fog or a blizzard,
navigating with broken compasses, or
limping through without a map, so be
it. Known informally as the "suicide
club," 35 of 200 air mail pilots died in
crashes between 1919 and 1926.
During 1922-23, the last two
years of the Harding Administration, air
mail pilots flew almost 2 million miles,
mostly in the East and Upper Midwest,
although an intercontinental route
between New York and San Francisco
had been established. And, Harding
was the first president to climb aboard
an aircraft carrier when he visited the
Langley at the Washington Navy Yard
in 1923.
With the advent of spectacular
long-distance flying contests among
dare-devil pilots (think Charles
Lindbergh) in the latter part of the
1920s, aviation caught the imaginations
of the public. And the rest, as they say,
is history.
(Sources: Harding Presidential Papers, "The Harding Era" by
Robert K. Murray, the Smithsonian National Postal Museum, the
Aeronautics Learning Laboratory for Science, Technology &
Research. Photos from National Postal Museum)
Pieces of Harding 2020 coming together nicely, thank you
My sister-in-law loves
jigsaw puzzles. Billions hundreds
of impossibly shaped pieces of a
puzzle are insanely dumped
precisely spread out on a table in
her house in some kind of
haphazard mess order that couldn't
possibly makes total sense only to
her. In case you can't tell, I hate
heartily dislike frown upon jigsaw
puzzles. Yet, if I hate heartily
dislike frown upon jigsaw puzzles
so much, why am I so energized
when I see all of the moving parts
of Harding 2020 methodically
dovetailing and fitting together?
If you remember, Harding
2020 is the project announced in
April which calls for restoration of
the Harding Home and grounds to
their 1920 appearances, and
construction of a Harding
Presidential Library & Museum.
We (site staff and Ohio History
Connection folks) meet at least
monthly to compare progress on
our various assignments, hash out
the project timetable and plan the
exhibits in the new building. Oh,
and we are working on raising
money, too (just a detail).
To give you a taste of what
we're doing, let's talk about the
exhibits. The architectural
renderings
that we've
been
circulating
show the
exhibit
gallery as a
big, white,
Lego-type
space.
Yet, in our
exhibits meetings, that exhibit
gallery is brimming with historical
objects, cool photos, and engaging
activities. Just think of the original
objects as the "old stuff" in the
Harding Collections. We have
more than 5,000 pieces of "old
stuff," so we have a lot to draw
upon as we design the exhibits.
It's not a matter of just
setting out the "stuff" for you to see
when you visit in 2020. We work
from what we call an interpretive
plan. The plan itself involves a lot
of work and carefully considers
what visitors will "take away" from
their experience at the Harding
Home site. What will they learn?
How will they learn it? Are there
ways to compare Warren Harding's
time in history with what's going
on in today's world? How can we
give our visitors the very best of all
the research we've done and all the
cool things we have?
One of my favorite exhibits
already is one about the trip
President and Mrs. Harding took to
the western states, Canada and
Alaska in the summer of 1923. We
want you to experience the trip the
way they did -- traveling by train.
We will build a train car for you to
enter, and you will see what the
president saw as he gazed out the
windows. You'll hear the clicking
of the train car on the tracks and
listen to him speak to huge crowds
as he headed west. Most people
don't know much about this
momentous, six-week trip, so we
will take you along as we bring it
to life.
Stay tuned for updates about
Harding 2020 in future newsletters.
And I encourage you to get
involved financially. We need
everyone's help. Give me a call or
email if you'd like to donate, or log
onto www. ohiohistory.org/
Harding2020 to donate online.
Spread the word about the project!
Sherry Hall is historic site manager of the
Harding Home Presidential Site.
College professor launched falsehoods to thwart Harding
In June, Harding Home staff member Brett Hall
detailed a little-known story in a program entitled
"ProfessorHappens
of Falsehoods:to
William
What
the Chancellor's Bid to
Derail the Harding Presidency."
Trees
in Autumn?
Chancellor,
a professor at the College of
Wooster, believed in Democrat Woodrow Wilson's
proposal that the U.S. join the League of Nations. He
also believed in preserving the old social hierarchy of
whites dominating African-Americans. To him, the two
causes were linked. As the GOP candidate who balked
at the League, and as a white person rumored to have
"black blood," Warren Harding was in Chancellor's
crosshairs.
If Harding had "black blood," Chancellor
theorized, he would naturally open the door to a race
revolution. The professor embarked on a smear
campaign, fabricating several versions of the Harding
family tree to "prove" the black blood story,
distributing circulars and planting seeds of juicy
gossip. An "open letter" to the public just two weeks
before the 1920 election resulted in a firestorm of
outrage against him. Several Wooster students,
including a future president of the college, protected
Chancellor from the hostile crowds in front of his
house who were threatening to lynch him.
The college fired Chancellor, but that did not
stop him from writing a Harding biography built on his
own theories and prejudices. After fleeing to Canada to
escape the backlash of his work in America, he
eventually returned to the classroom at Xavier
University in Cincinnati.
Hall's program was part of a fascinating body of
research he assembled about President Harding and
race relations.
Engaging speakers prompt questions, discussions
Judging from the positive
reactions of participants at July's
Warren G. Harding Symposium,
you're losing out if you skip this
annual event.
The 2016 Symposium was
timely, with a theme of "The U.S.
Presidential Candidate: Reality vs.
Illusion." A trio of speakers, all
plugged into today's political
scene, offered insightful sessions
about the path of politics over the
past few decades and weighed in
candidly about the race between
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
The three participated in a lively
panel discussion at the gala dinner
to wrap up the event.
During fascinating afternoon
presentations, Professor Alan
Schroeder, of Northeastern
University, explored the impact
that televised debates have on
voters, while Dr. Daniel Shea of
Colby College offered insightful
data demonstrating the growing
divisions between the two major
parties. Analyses of individual
The Symposium panel of (left to right) Mo Elleithee, David Shea and Alan Schroeder weighs in on a
question during a post-dinner discussion about the 2016 presidential campaign.
legislators' tendencies to
compromise and work with the
opposing party was especially
interesting, along with the
comparisons of the two candidates'
use of paid and unpaid media.
Mo Elleithee, a longtime
Democratic insider and veteran of
four presidential campaigns who is
currently at Georgetown
University, offered frank and
thought-provoking views about the
Thank You, Mr. President
The Annual Presidential Wreathlaying, which this year honored the service of
President Warren G. Harding in the year marking his 151st birthday, was part of the
Harding Symposium weekend. Brigadier General Stephen E. Strand of the 88th
Regional Support Command of Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, represented President
Barack Obama at the ceremony.
strengths and weaknesses of both
Clinton and Trump, as well as the
construction of each campaign.
Each of the sessions sparked a
wide range of comments and
questions.
The Harding Symposium is
held the third weekend of July at
the Ohio State University Marion
and Marion Technical College
campus. Mark your calendars to
attend next year!
2016
Site Events
October 9, 85th Annual Scout Pilgrimage at
the Harding Memorial, 3 p.m. . No charge.
November 13, Beyond the Ropes, 1:30 and
3:30 sessions at the Harding Home. Friends of
Harding Home and Ohio History Connection
members, no charge; general admission, $10.
Reservations required due to limited seating.
November 17, Florence Harding Shopping
Spree, 8-10 p.m., Scioto Shoe Mart, 206
James Way, Marion. Friends of Harding Home
and Ohio History Connection members, $10;
general admission, $15. Advance tickets only.
November 25, 26, 27: Thanksgiving Weekend
tours, 1 p.m. only.
December 27, 28, 29, 30: Christmas Vacation
tours, 1 p.m. only. (House will not be
decorated)
Questions?
800.600.6894
[email protected]
Hardings' chauffeur, cooks introduced
Harding Home researcher
Jon Andersen, during an August
program, brought the Hardings'
household employees to the
forefront.
Andersen painted a picture
of a lively Inez McWhorter (shown
at right). Originally from Georgia,
Inez cooked for the Hardings in
their Washington, D.C., Senate
home. She eagerly traveled to
Marion to oversee the kitchen
operations during the 1920 front
porch campaign and became a
favorite with the newspapermen -not only for her delicious waffles,
but for her boisterous personality.
After the Hardings entered
the White House, Inez worked for
several affluent households in
Washington and Atlanta. She
apparently did a good job of saving
her money, dying in 1932 with an
estate worth more than $500,000 in
today's money.
Laura Rice, who worked for
the Hardings in Marion, outlined
her observations about the Hardings
in a journal, noting that Warren
would stop home at lunchtime if he
knew Laura was making raspeberry
cake. He never forgot to leave the
dinner table on Saturday nights
without neatly placing Laura'
weekly pay near his plate.
Learn more about
Find out
about2020
Harding 2020
Harding
at www.ohiohistory.org/Harding2020
at
ohiohistory.org/Harding2020
ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED
Harding Home Presidential Site
380 Mt. Vernon Ave.
Marion, OH 43302
hardinghome.org