This weekend, the Glenn Beck Show featured Coolidge.
The show was triggered by our own Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation’s book, co produced with the National Notary Association, Why Coolidge Matters. Below are some boots at the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation. Thanks to the Forbes Library of Northampton, Silent Cal’s cowboy boots, shown on the right, were also displayed on the show.

Dear Ms. Shlaes,

My family came from Brattleboro, VT. I was raised with the knowledge that I was a descendent of Calvin Coolidge on my maternal side. I have always been hesitant to tell people this as I was educated in the public school system. I was taught that “Silent Cal” was a do nothing, not very bright man. I would like to thank you for giving me the facts about the man and the President that he was. I am proud to tell people now that I am related to him!

Thank you for telling the truth about history. If we are able to educate our children about our past, maybe we can back on track with our country. We need a Calvin Coolidge today to rein in spending and corruption.

I am grateful to you for your dedication and hard work.

Terry J. Nelson

Clermont, FL

We have just posted a comprehensive bibliography of works about Calvin Coolidge and the 1920s. Students, educators, researchers, and people interested in Calvin Coolidge and the 1920s more broadly will find it immensely useful. To see it, simply click on the “Coolidge Bibliography” tab at the very top of this website.

The bibliography consists of the following six sections: Online Resources, Works by Calvin Coolidge, Biographical Works, Contemporary Accounts, The Coolidge Era and the 1920s, and Bibliographies and Other Useful Sources.

The lady in the photo is Mimi Baird, long time Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation Trustee.Here she is dressed as Grace Coolidge and looking like the picture of Grace herself. We’re going to pretend Mimi’s hat came from Stearns. Coolidge’s friend Frank Stearns owned the R. H. Stearns department store. Grace often wore garments and accessories from Stearns.  

This month the new Calvin Coolidge Memorial Museum and Education Center opened at the Coolidge Homestead in Plymouth Notch. Now that Plymouth Notch has a school building, the children of Vermont will have a chance to get to know Silent Cal better. I have to add that the architecture of the addition fits right in with the clapboard and stone surrounding it, a rare achievement for a public (usually, they clash).

Highlights at the opening included the attendance of Vermont Governor Jim Douglas. It was wonderful to see a crowd of hundreds, rather than the usual dozens, at the birthplace of CC.  Got to know the team from the National Notary Association, Milt Valera and Debbie Thaw. Nothing symbolizes what is worth preserving in this country more than the notary. A notary public is a man or woman who provides over private transactions between individuals, burnishing private property rather than undermining it, as federal regulation so often does. Notaries public are licensed by the individual states.  ”National Notary Association” is almost an oxymoron, but a pleasing oxymoron — a bow of respect for local authorities from the national stage.

Wonderful news: a new Coolidge anthology, Why Coolidge Matters is being released this week.  Interestingly, this new bit of Coolidge-eana was pulled together by the National Notary Association. The notaries are honoring the fact that President Coolidge was sworn in by a notary, his own father, after the death of President Harding. Amity contributes to this volume, but so do many others, including David Shribman of the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette.  Amity likes David’s emphasis on common sense. 

Among the other essays, readers will find Melanie Gustafson’s dicussion of Coolidge’s penchant for brevity and his careful demarcation of the line between the public and private spheres.  In his piece, Senator John F. Kerry’s assesses how Coolidge’s example restored the public’s confidence in the government after it had beem shattered by the scandals of the Harding years.

The other authors who contributed to the volume are: Cynthia D. Bittinger, former Executive Director of the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation; Ward Connerly, founder and chairman American Civil Rights Institute;  Michael Dukakis, former Governor of Massachusetts; Alvin S. Felzenberg, Ph.D., Presidential scholar; Robert H. Ferrell, Ph.D., historian; Burton Folsom, Jr., Ph.D., historian; Russell Fowler J.D., legal historian; Robert E. Gilbert, Ph.D., historian; J.R. Greene, historian; Daniel J. Leab, Ph.D., historian;  John Moser, Ph.D., historian; Governor M. Jodi Rell (CT); Peter W. Schramm, Ph.D., Presidential scholar and author; David M. Shribman, journalist; L. John Van Til, Ph.D., historian; and Jerry L. Wallace, historian. The volume’s introduction and foreward were contributed by Milt Valera, President of the National Notary Association, and Governor James H. Douglas (VT),  respectively.

To learn more about the book, visit its official website. Purchase a copy through the National Notary Association’s website or on Amazon.com.