Grace Anna Coolidge (née Goodhue; January 3, 1879 – July 8, 1957) was the wife of the 30th president of the United States, Calvin Coolidge. She was the first lady of the United States from 1923 to 1929 and the second lady of the United States from 1921 to 1923. She graduated from the University of Vermont in 1902 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in teaching and joined the Clarke Schools for Hearing and Speech in Northampton, Massachusetts, to teach deaf children to communicate by lip reading, rather than by signing.[1] She met Calvin Coolidge in 1904, and the two were married the following year.
Grace Coolidge | |
---|---|
First Lady of the United States | |
In role August 2, 1923 – March 4, 1929 | |
President | Calvin Coolidge |
Preceded by | Florence Harding |
Succeeded by | Lou Hoover |
Second Lady of the United States | |
In role March 4, 1921 – August 2, 1923 | |
Vice President | Calvin Coolidge |
Preceded by | Lois Marshall |
Succeeded by | Caro Dawes |
First Lady of Massachusetts | |
In role January 2, 1919 – January 6, 1921 | |
Governor | Calvin Coolidge |
Preceded by | Ella McCall |
Succeeded by | Mary Cox |
Second Lady of Massachusetts | |
In role January 6, 1916 – January 2, 1919 | |
Lieutenant Governor | Calvin Coolidge |
Preceded by | Beatrice Barry (1915) |
Succeeded by | Mary Cox |
First Lady of Northampton | |
In role January 3, 1910 – January 1, 1912 | |
Mayor | Calvin Coolidge |
Preceded by | Margaret O'Brien |
Succeeded by | Catherine Feiker |
Personal details | |
Born | Grace Anna Goodhue January 3, 1879 Burlington, Vermont, U.S. |
Died | July 8, 1957 Northampton, Massachusetts, U.S. | (aged 78)
Resting place | Plymouth Notch Cemetery |
Political party | Republican |
Spouse | |
Children | 2, including John |
Education | University of Vermont |
Signature | |
As her husband advanced his political career, Coolidge avoided politics. When Calvin Coolidge was elected Governor of Massachusetts in 1919, she remained at home in Northampton with their children. After her husband's election as vice president in 1920, the family moved to Washington, D.C., living at the Willard Hotel. Coolidge did not speak out on political issues of the day, including women's rights. Instead, she dedicated herself to supporting popular causes and organizations, such as the Red Cross and the Visiting Nurse Association. Following the unexpected death of her young teenage son Calvin in 1924 from blood poisoning, she won the sympathy of the country. Unlike previous first ladies, who had withdrawn almost entirely from the public spotlight after personal tragedies, Coolidge resumed her role after a few months.
In 1929, Calvin Coolidge's term as president ended, and the couple retired to Northampton. After her husband's death in 1933, Coolidge continued her work with the deaf and wrote for several magazines. She served on the boards of Mercersburg Academy and the Clarke School. After the start of World War II, Grace joined a local Northampton committee dedicated to helping Jewish refugees from Europe, and loaned her house to WAVES. In 1957, she died of heart disease, and was buried in Plymouth, Vermont, beside her husband and her son.
Early life and marriage
editGrace Anna Goodhue was born in Burlington, Vermont, on January 3, 1879, as the only child of Andrew Issachar Goodhue and Lemira Barrett Goodhue.[2] Through her father, she was descended from the Goodhue family descended from the 1635 colonist William Goodhue.[3] When her father was injured following a work accident at a mill, Grace moved to live with their neighbors, the Yale family. Here she developed a bond with their adult daughter, June Yale.[3] June began teaching at the Clarke School for the Deaf in Massachusetts and would sometimes bring students to Vermont over the summer, giving Grace the opportunity to help care for them.[4] Grace began her education at age five at a local public grade school in Burlington and attended Burlington Public Grammar School. In 1893, she entered Burlington High School. There she studied Latin and French, as well as geology, biology, and chemistry.[5]
As a Democrat,[6] Grace's father was appointed by President Grover Cleveland as a steamboat inspector in 1886.[3] This brought money and status to the family in their small town.[6] Grace had a deeply religious upbringing, raised on Puritan values and spending most of the family's social outings at church events. The family was Methodist until she was a teenager, when she convinced them to convert to Congregationalism.[7] She also received private lessons in piano, speech, and singing.[7][3]
Grace enrolled in 1898 at the University of Vermont, where she founded the Vermont Beta chapter of Pi Beta Phi Fraternity for Women, acted in productions of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing and Twelfth Night, and joined the college's glee club. She would become the first First Lady to have earned a four-year undergraduate degree.[5] From 1902 to 1904, inspired by a childhood friend who had pursued a career teaching deaf children, she studied lip reading at Clarke Schools for Hearing and Speech and became a teacher there. The education of deaf children remained her lifelong passion.
Grace dated several young men during college. One relationship, that with Frank Joyner, was serious enough that marriage seemed inevitable. She ended the relationship in 1903 when she met a young rising attorney, Calvin Coolidge.[5] They first met when Grace walked by Coolidge's house and saw him shaving wearing nothing but a Derby cap and long underwear, which she found humorous. Her laughter prompted Coolidge to notice her and seek her out later on.[8]
Grace's vivacity and charm proved a perfect complement to Coolidge's reserved manner. In the summer of 1905, Coolidge proposed in the form of an ultimatum: "I am going to be married to you." Grace readily consented, but her mother objected and did everything she could to postpone the wedding. Coolidge never reconciled with his mother-in-law, who later insisted that Grace had been largely responsible for Coolidge's political success. On October 4, 1905, Goodhue and Coolidge married in a simple ceremony at her parents' house in Burlington: Coolidge House,[9] which was restored in 1993 by Champlain College*. They honeymooned for a week in Montreal and settled in Northampton, Massachusetts, where they occupied what is now known as the Calvin Coolidge House until 1930.
Calvin Coolidge's political career took off in 1907 when he was elected to the Massachusetts General Court. After his term in the state legislature ended, he served three consecutive one-year terms as Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts (1916–1919), and two one-year terms as Governor of Massachusetts (1919–1921). In 1920, he was elected vice president and took office in March 1921. Grace did not maintain much of a public profile.
The Coolidges had two sons, John (1906–2000) and Calvin (1908–1924).
In 1921, as wife of the Vice President of the United States, Grace Coolidge went from her housewife's routine into Washington society and quickly became the most popular woman in the capital. [10]
First Lady
editAfter Harding's death and Calvin Coolidge's succession to the Presidency, Grace planned the new administration's social life as her husband wanted it: unpretentious and dignified.
As First Lady, she was a popular hostess. She was also the first First Lady to speak in sound newsreels.[11] The social highlight of the Coolidge years was the party for Charles Lindbergh following his transatlantic flight in 1927. The Coolidges were a particularly devoted couple, although the president never discussed state matters with her. She did not even know that he had decided not to seek re-election in 1928 until he announced it to the press. She received a gold medal from the National Institute of Social Science. In 1931 she was voted one of America's twelve greatest living women.
The first family was given a raccoon in 1926 as a Thanksgiving gift, and the family raised it as a pet. President Coolidge even gave the animal a collar that was sewn with the words "White House Racoon." After the Coolidges left the White House, the raccoon went to live at a zoo.[12]
Later life and death
editCalvin Coolidge summed up his marriage to Grace in his autobiography: "For almost a quarter of a century she has borne with my infirmities, and I have rejoiced in her graces."
For more privacy in Northampton, the Coolidges purchased The Beeches, a large house with spacious grounds. The former president died there after a sudden heart attack on January 5, 1933, at the age of 60. After her husband's death, Grace Coolidge continued her work on behalf of the deaf. She was also active in the Red Cross, civil defense, and scrap drives during World War II. Grace kept her sense of fun and her aversion to publicity until her death on July 8, 1957, at the age of 78. She is buried next to her husband in Plymouth, Vermont.[13]
Legacy
editFirst lady biographer Betty Boyd Caroli said that Grace "epitomized current flapper style" and credited her among the other first ladies of the 1920s whose more public views prepared the role of first lady for the more active Eleanor Roosevelt.[14] Grace kept away from politics throughout her life and is not seen as having influenced Calvin's political positions.[15]
See also
edit- Rebecca (raccoon), her White House pet
Notes
edit- ^ "Grace Coolidge | biography - American first lady". Retrieved 2015-05-18.
- ^ Schneider & Schneider 2010, pp. 211–212.
- ^ a b c d Miller 1996, p. 385.
- ^ Miller 1996, p. 386.
- ^ a b c "Grace Coolidge Biography :: National First Ladies' Library". www.firstladies.org. Archived from the original on 2012-05-09. Retrieved 2015-05-18.
- ^ a b Anthony 1990, p. 248.
- ^ a b Schneider & Schneider 2010, p. 212.
- ^ "Grace Coolidge Overview".
- ^ 312 Maple Street, Burlington, VT 5401, which was restored in 1993 by Champlain College.
- ^ "Grace Goodhue Coolidge - Burlington - Vermont Historical Markers on Waymarking.com". www.waymarking.com. Retrieved 22 March 2018.
- ^ "Little-known facts about our First Ladies". Firstladies.org. Archived from the original on 2015-07-14. Retrieved 2015-07-07.
- ^ "White House pets: Cats, dogs and raccoons through the years". BBC News. 2021-01-26. Retrieved 2021-01-31.
- ^ text copied from White House biography Archived 2010-05-30 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Caroli 2010, p. 157.
- ^ Caroli 2010, p. 170.
References
edit- Anthony, Carl Sferrazza (1990). First Ladies: The Saga of the Presidents' Wives and Their Power, 1789–1961. William Morrow and Company. ISBN 978-0-688-11272-1.
- Caroli, Betty Boyd (2010). First Ladies: From Martha Washington to Michelle Obama. Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 978-0-19-539285-2.
- Miller, Kristie (1996). "Grace Goodhue Coolidge". In Gould, Lewis L. (ed.). American First Ladies: Their Lives and Their Legacy. Garland Publishing. pp. 384–408. ISBN 978-0-8153-1479-0.
- Schneider, Dorothy; Schneider, Carl J. (2010). First Ladies: A Biographical Dictionary (3rd ed.). Facts on File. pp. 211–219. ISBN 978-1-4381-0815-5.
Further reading
edit- Coolidge, Grace (1992). Wikander, Lawrence E.; Ferrell, Robert H. (eds.). Grace Coolidge: An Autobiography. High Plains Pub. Co. ISBN 1881019012. LCCN 92072825.
- Ferrell, Robert H. (2008). Grace Coolidge: The People's Lady in Silent Cal's White House. University Press of Kansas. ISBN 9780700615636. LCCN 2007045737.
- Finneman, Teri (2016). "Grace Coolidge". In Sibley, Katherine A. S. (ed.). A Companion to First Ladies. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 404–422. ISBN 978-1-118-73218-2.
- Ross, Ishbel, Grace Coolidge and Her Era (1962)