Adams, John (19 October 1735–04 July 1826), second president of the United States, diplomat, and political theorist, was born in Braintree (now Quincy), Massachusetts, the son of John Adams (1691–1760), a shoemaker, selectman, and deacon, and Susanna Boylston. He claimed as a young man to have indulged in “a constant dissipation among amusements,” such as swimming, fishing, and especially shooting, and wished to be a farmer. However, his father insisted that he follow in the footsteps of his uncle Joseph Adams, attend Harvard College, and become a clergyman. John consented, applied himself to his studies, and developed a passion for learning but refused to become a minister. He felt little love for “frigid John Calvin” and the rigid moral standards expected of New England Congregationalist ministers....
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Adams, John (1735-1826), second president of the United States, diplomat, and political theorist
William Pencak
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Adams, John (1735-1826)
Maker: Gilbert Stuart
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Agnew, Spiro T. (1918-1996), vice president
Dennis Wepman
Agnew, Spiro T. (09 November 1918–17 September 1996), vice president, was born Spiro Theodore Agnew in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Margaret Pollard Akers Agnew and Theodore Spiro Agnew, who, after immigrating from Greece in 1897, changed his name from Anagnostopoulos. Agnew's father was a successful restaurateur and a leader in the Greek community until the Great Depression, when he lost his business and turned to selling fruit and vegetables on the street. Agnew supplemented the family income by doing odd jobs while he attended public schools in Baltimore. After graduating from Forest Park High School, he entered Johns Hopkins in 1937, majoring in chemistry, but in 1940 he left and began taking night classes at the University of Baltimore School of Law. During the day he worked alternately as an assistant personnel manager of a grocery-store chain and as an insurance investigator and claims adjuster. In 1942 he married Elinor Isabel Judefind, a coworker at his insurance company; they had four children....
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Arthur, Chester Alan (1829-1886), twenty-first president of the United States
Thomas C. Reeves
Arthur, Chester Alan (05 October 1829–18 November 1886), twenty-first president of the United States, was born in Fairfield, Vermont, of Irish and English descent, the son of William Arthur, a teacher and Baptist minister, and Malvina Stone. During his youth he and his family experienced considerable economic insecurity. Still, “Chet,” as friends called him, was given a solid classical education, and he graduated from Union College in Schenectady, New York, in 1848. At eighteen, Arthur was a tall, good-looking, charming, somewhat romantic young man who enjoyed debating and writing and who shared his father’s abolitionist beliefs....
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Arthur, Chester Alan (1829-1886)
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Barkley, Alben William (24 November 1877–30 April 1956), vice president of the United States
Robert H. Ferrell
Barkley, Alben William (24 November 1877–30 April 1956), vice president of the United States, was born in a log cabin in a community named Wheel, between the villages of Lowes and Fancy Farm, in Graves County, Kentucky, the son of John Wilson Barkley and Electra Smith, tenant tobacco farmers. Named Willie Alben, the “Willie” for two uncles, he changed his name as soon as he could (as he put it, as soon as he was old enough to assert himself), letting it be known that he was Alben William “and no foolishness!” Barkley grew up in poverty, working on the farm. He did not graduate from high school but managed to enroll in a tiny Methodist institution, Marvin College, in Clinton, Kentucky. Upon graduation in 1897 he sold cookware to pay his way through law school. The crockery cracked upon use, and he was reduced to going back to purchasers and paying them for their losses out of his own pocket. He managed to borrow $200 to attend a year of law school, 1897–1898, at Emory College (now Emory University), then located in Oxford, Georgia. Lacking means to continue, he taught a few months at Marvin and thereupon moved to Paducah, where, with a few shirts, fifty cents in change, and a letter of introduction to a local lawyer, he began reading law. He was admitted to the Kentucky bar in 1901 and had his last formal instruction in law during a summer at the University of Virginia in 1902. The next year he married Dorothy Brower, with whom he had three children....
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Barkley, Alben William (24 November 1877–30 April 1956)
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Breckinridge, John Cabell (1821-1875), vice president of the United States and Confederate general
William L. Barney
Breckinridge, John Cabell (21 January 1821–17 May 1875), vice president of the United States and Confederate general, was born in Lexington, Kentucky, the son of Joseph Cabell Breckinridge and Mary Clay Smith. Breckinridge was an only son born into a devoutly Presbyterian family that was distinguished by its leading role in the early history of the Jeffersonian Republican party in Kentucky. His grandfather was a U.S. senator, and his father was a lawyer and Kentucky state representative whose death in 1823 left the young Breckinridge to be raised by his mother and a grandmother at a family estate near Lexington. Breckinridge graduated from Centre College, Kentucky, in 1839, read law at the College of New Jersey in Princeton, and returned home to finish his legal studies at Transylvania University. He received his law degree in 1841 and moved to Burlington, Iowa, to start his law practice. Two years later he was permanently back in Kentucky, where he married Mary Cyrene Burch in 1843; they had six children....
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Breckinridge, John Cabell (1821-1875)
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Burr, Aaron (06 February 1756–14 September 1836), revolutionary soldier, U.S. senator, and vice president of the United States
Steven E. Siry
Burr, Aaron (06 February 1756–14 September 1836), revolutionary soldier, U.S. senator, and vice president of the United States, was born in Newark, New Jersey, the son of Aaron Burr, a theologian and the second president of the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University), and ...
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Burr, Aaron (06 February 1756–14 September 1836)
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Calhoun, John C. (1782-1850), vice president, U.S. senator, and secretary of state
John Niven
Calhoun, John C. (18 March 1782–31 March 1850), vice president, U.S. senator, and secretary of state, was born John Caldwell Calhoun at what was then known as the District of Ninety-six, later known as Abbeville, on the frontier of southwestern South Carolina, the son of Patrick Calhoun, a prosperous Scotch-Irish farmer and one of the largest slave owners in the backcountry, and Martha Caldwell, also of Scotch-Irish descent. John Calhoun was the couple’s third son, and though like his older brothers and sister he did his share of farm work, the family considered him to have such promise that he deserved a better education than the local field schools afforded. Calhoun attended ...
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Calhoun, John C. (1782-1850)
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Clinton, George (1739-1812), soldier, governor of New York, and vice president of the United States
Ethan S. Rafuse
Clinton, George (26 July 1739–20 April 1812), soldier, governor of New York, and vice president of the United States, was born in Little Britain, New York, the son of Charles Clinton, a farmer and surveyor, and Elizabeth Denniston. After schooling with a private tutor, George left home in 1757 to serve as a steward’s mate on the ...
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Clinton, George (1739-1812)
Maker: Ezra Ames
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Colfax, Schuyler (1823-1885), congressman and vice president of the United States
Phyllis F. Field
Colfax, Schuyler (23 March 1823–13 January 1885), congressman and vice president of the United States, was born in New York City, the posthumous son of Schuyler Colfax, a bank clerk, and Hannah Stryker. He and his mother lived with his widowed grandmother while he attended public schools. At age ten he entered the workforce as a store clerk. In 1834 his mother married George W. Matthews, who removed the family to New Carlisle, Indiana, in 1836. Matthews ran a store (in which Colfax clerked) and held the patronage position of village postmaster. In 1841 Matthews was elected county auditor on the Whig ticket and moved to the county seat, South Bend. Colfax served as his deputy until 1849. Following his parents’ wishes, Colfax read law, but his real love was politics. He corresponded with prominent Whigs, contributed to ...
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Colfax, Schuyler (23 March 1823–13 January 1885)
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Coolidge, Calvin (1872-1933), thirtieth president of the United States
Donald R. McCoy
Coolidge, Calvin (04 July 1872–05 January 1933), thirtieth president of the United States, was born John Calvin Coolidge in Plymouth Notch, Vermont, the son of John Calvin Coolidge, a storekeeper and farmer, and Victoria Moor. After graduating from Amherst College in 1895, Coolidge read law in Northampton, Massachusetts. He was admitted to the bar in 1897. In 1905 he married Grace Anna Goodhue ( ...
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Coolidge, Calvin (1872-1933)
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Curtis, Charles (1860-1936), congressman, senator, and vice president of the United States
William E. Unrau
Curtis, Charles (25 January 1860–08 February 1936), congressman, senator, and vice president of the United States, was born in North Topeka, Kansas, the son of Orren Arms Curtis, a soldier, and Ellen Gonville Pappan, a quarter-blood member of the Kansa (Kaw) Indian tribe. The only person of Indian blood to be elected to the second highest office in the land, Curtis traced his ancestry on the maternal side to Kansa chief White Plume, who married a daughter of the renowned Osage chief ...
