What you’ll learn to do: describe the presidencies of Harding and Coolidge

Figure 1. This political cartoon pokes fun at the never-ending lament for the “good old days.” Life for Americans changed after WWI, but  Americans hoped for a “return to normalcy” as promised by President Warren Harding.

After World War I, Americans were ready for “a return to normalcy,” and Republican Warren Harding offered them just that. Under the guidance of his big-business backers, Harding’s policies supported businesses at home and isolation from foreign affairs. His administration was wracked by scandals, and after he died in 1923, Calvin Coolidge continued his policies in much the same vein. Herbert Hoover, elected as Coolidge’s heir apparent, planned for more of the same until the stock market crash of 1929 ended a decade of Republican ascendancy.