Dead last : the public memory of Warren G. Harding's scandalous legacy / Phillip G. Payne.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Payne, Phillip G.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Harding, Warren G. (Warren Gamaliel), 1865-1923.

Harding, Warren G.

Harding, Warren G. (Warren Gamaliel), 1865-1923--Ethics.

Harding, Warren G. (Warren Gamaliel), 1865-1923--Historiography.

Historiography.

Ethics.

United States--Politics and government--1921-1923.

United States.

Politics and government.

Presidents--United States--Biography.

Presidents.

Political corruption--United States--History--20th century.

Political corruption.

History.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

viii, 267 pages, 6 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Athens : Ohio University Press, [2009]

Summary:

Warren G. Harding, the twenty-ninth president, was widely mourned when he died in office in 1923, but with his death began the construction of his public memory and his fall from political grace.

By examining the public memory of Harding, Phillip G. Payne offers the first significant reinterpretation of Harding's presidency in a generation. Rather than repeating the old stories, Payne examines the contexts and continued meaning of the Harding scandals for various constituencies.

If George Washington and Abraham Lincoln are the saints in America's civil religion, then Warren G. Harding is our sinner, ranking dead last among his peers. In Dead Last, Payne explores how Harding's name became synonymous with corruption, cronyism, and incompetence and how it is used to this day as an example of what a president should not be.

Payne explores such topics as Harding's importance as a midwestern small-town booster, his rumored black ancestry, the role of various biographers in shaping his early image, the tension between public memory and academic history, and, finally, his status as an icon of presidential failure in contemporary political debates.

Contents:

Questions asked

The president's hometown

Commemorating the tragedy of Warren Harding

My damned biographers

The shadow of William Estabrook Chancellor

He-harlot

Harding Alley

Dead last.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [257]-261) and index.

ISBN:

9780821418185

0821418181

9780821418192

082141819X

OCLC:

263497919