Coolidge Trivia
November 20, 2025
Coolidge ran as the Republicans’ vice-presidential nominee in the 1920 election. Who was his opposite number on the Democratic ticket that year?
The answer is…
Just thirty-eight years old in 1920, Roosevelt had served in two years in the New York State Senate before becoming assistant secretary of the navy under President Woodrow Wilson. Democratic nominee James M. Cox wanted Roosevelt, largely for the young man’s famous last name.
November 6, 2025
As president of the Massachusetts Senate, Coolidge cast the deciding vote to have the Board of Censors review a film and potentially ban it from theaters. What film was it?
The answer is…
The Birth of a Nation, D. W. Griffith’s 1915 film lionizing the Ku Klux Klan.
In his book about the fight over The Birth of a Nation, Dick Lehr recounts that the Massachusetts Senate considered a bill to put Griffith’s film before the Board of Censors. The bill lacked one vote in the Senate. “It suddenly seemed as if the bill might get derailed,” Lehr writes. “But that was when Senate president Calvin Coolidge came to the rescue.”
Lehr calls the scene “a moment of high legislative drama.” Coolidge hadn’t cast a vote all year, but he shouted to the clerk to call his name “once he realized the direction of the roll call.” Coolidge issued the deciding vote to send The Birth of a Nation before the Board of Censors. Those leading the protests against the film were “jubilant,” Lehr reports, “while The Birth of a Nation lobbyists were crestfallen.”
October 23, 2025
President Coolidge’s cabinet included a future president of the United States. Who was it?
The answer is…
Herbert Hoover.
President Warren Harding appointed Hoover as secretary of commerce, and Hoover stayed on in that role when Coolidge became president upon Harding’s death.
Coolidge had a somewhat complicated relationship with his commerce secretary. He respected Hoover’s work habits but referred to him derisively as “Wonder Boy” for Hoover’s faith in government action.
When Coolidge chose not to run again in 1928, Republicans nominated Hoover to succeed him. Although Hoover campaigned in 1928 by promising a “continuation of Coolidge policies,” Coolidge understood that Hoover’s activism would set him on a different path.
October 9, 2025
What progressive cause, which became U.S. law in 1920, did Coolidge support while he served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives?
The answer is…
Women’s suffrage.
In his Autobiography, Coolidge wrote that after he was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, he “supported a resolution…providing for woman suffrage.” In 1920, ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guaranteed women the right to vote.
In a 1930 newspaper column marking the tenth anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment’s ratification, Coolidge wrote, “Nothing can be safer for the commonwealth than the informed judgment of the mothers of the land.”
september 25, 2025
Coolidge visited only one foreign country as president. Which country was it?
The answer is…
Cuba.
In Coolidge, biographer Amity Shlaes describes the president’s arrival in Cuba:
One sunny January day in 1928 the people of Cuba gathered at Havana harbor to mount the greatest welcome they had ever given a foreign leader. Thousands climbed onto the Morro Castle and the rooftops of buildings, craning their necks to get a glimpse of the battleship USS Texas as it moved into the harbor. Every balcony near the harbor was packed with cheering families. Overhead, six Cuban army planes circled to protect the Texas and her long convoy, which included three destroyers and the cruiser Memphis. Whistles shrieked; the Texas fired her sixteen-pounders in salute. Cannons at Fort La Cabaña saluted back.
President Coolidge traveled to Cuba to address the Pan-American Conference.
september 11, 2025
Besides Coolidge, who is the only other U.S. president born in Vermont?
The answer is…
Chester A. Arthur, America’s 21st president.
Arthur was born in Fairfield, Vermont. But the State of Vermont acknowledges that the State Historic Site marking Arthur’s birthplace was actually the future president’s second Vermont home.
During the 1880 presidential election, Arthur’s political opponents spread rumors that Arthur had been born in Canada, which would have made him ineligible for the presidency.
August 28, 2025
Coolidge is one of three presidents to serve as a mayor and a governor before entering the White House. Who are the other two?
The answer is…
Andrew Johnson and Grover Cleveland. Before becoming president, Johnson had served as mayor of Greeneville, Tennessee, as well as governor of Tennessee. Cleveland was mayor of Buffalo before being elected New York’s governor. Coolidge, meanwhile, became governor of Massachusetts after serving as mayor of Northampton.
August 14, 2025
Which member of the Coolidge administration cowrote a number-one hit song?
The answer is…
Vice President Charles Dawes. Dawes was a bank president in 1911 when he composed “Melody in A Major” for piano and violin. The recording sold well. Songwriter Carl Sigman added lyrics in 1951 — coincidentally, the year Dawes died — and called the song “It’s All in the Game.” Many artists, including Louis Armstrong, Dinah Shore, Nat King Cole, Ricky Nelson, and Van Morrison, have recorded “It’s All in the Game.” But it was Tommy Edwards’s 1958 version that went to number one on the charts.