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Jane Pierce
Jane Appleton was born on March 12, 1806, to parents Elizabeth and Jesse Appleton. Following the death of her father, a Congregationalist minister and president of Bowdoin College, Jane attended boarding school in Keene, New Hampshire. She later met a Bowdoin graduate, a young lawyer with political ambitions, Franklin Pierce. Although he was immediately devoted to Jane, they did not marry until
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Bio
Grover Cleveland
The first Democrat elected after the Civil War, Grover Cleveland was the only president to leave the White House and then return for a second term later. One of nine children of a Presbyterian minister, Cleveland was born on March 18, 1837 in Caldwell, New Jersey. He was raised in upstate New York. As a lawyer in Buffalo, he became notable for hi
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Bio
Herbert Hoover
Son of a Quaker blacksmith, Herbert Clark Hoover brought to the presidency a luminous reputation as an engineer, administrator, and humanitarian. Born in West Branch, Iowa on August 10, 1874, Hoover grew up in Newberg, Oregon with his uncle after the deaths of his parents.He married his Stanford sweetheart, Lou Henry, and they went to China, where he worked for a
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Bio
Abigail Powers Fillmore
Abigail Powers was born in Saratoga County, New York, on March 13, 1798, while it was still a frontier out-post. Her father, a locally prominent Baptist preacher named Lemuel Powers, died shortly thereafter. Courageously, her mother, Abigail, moved on westward, thinking her scanty funds would go further in a less settled region, and ably educated her small son and daughter beyond the
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Bio
Millard Fillmore
Millard Fillmore became president upon the death of Zachary Taylor in July 1850. Born in upstate Cayuga County, New York on January 7, 1800, Fillmore as a youth endured the privations of frontier life. He worked on his father’s farm, and at 15 was apprenticed to a cloth maker. He attended a local school where he met Abigail Powers, who was 19 years old at
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Bio
William McKinley
At the 1896 Republican convention, in time of depression, the wealthy Cleveland businessman Marcus Alonzo Hanna ensured the nomination of his friend William McKinley as the “the advance agent of prosperity.” The Democrats, advocating the “free and unlimited coinage of both silver and gold” — which would have mildly inflated the currency-nominated William Jennings Bryan.While Hanna amassed large contributions from eastern Republican
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Bio
Margaret Taylor
Margaret “Peggy” Smith was born in Calvert County, Maryland, on September 21, 1788 to Ann Mackall and Walter Smith, a major in the Revolutionary War and wealthy tobacco plantation owner. In 1809, visiting a sister in Kentucky, she met young Lieutenant Zachary Taylor. They were married on June 21, 1810, and for a while the young wife stayed on the farm given them as a wedd
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Bio
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson was born on March 15, 1767 near Lancaster, South Carolina, to a family of Scotch-Irish immigrants. His father, Andrew, passed away just a few weeks before his son's birth. All three Jackson boys—Hugh, Robert, and Andrew—were raised by their mother Elizabeth. The family settled in the Waxhaws near the North and South Carolina border, where they joined a larg
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Bio
James K. Polk
On November 2, 1795, James K. Polk was born in Pineville, North Carolina to Samuel and Jane Polk. The promise of greater economic opportunities and prosperity drew Samuel Polk and his family westward, and they soon settled just south of Nashville, Tennessee. He became a respected community leader, county judge, businessman, and prominent slave owner. Upon his death in 1827, Samuel Polk left
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Bio
Martin Van Buren
Martin Van Buren was born in the rural town of Kinderhook, New York, on December 5, 1782. His father, Abraham, owned a successful inn and small farm. The Van Buren tavern served as a hub of social activity for the town, and the constant coming and goings of travelers between New York City and the state capital of Albany brought young Martin
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Bio
Zachary Taylor
Zachary Taylor was born on November 24, 1784 in Virginia, but his family moved shortly thereafter to Louisville, Kentucky. He was raised on a plantation called Springfield, surrounded by enslaved laborers owned by his father Richard. Taylor received a basic education and aspired from a young age to join the military. He enlisted at the age of twenty-two and became an officer
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Bio
Ulysses S. Grant
On April 27, 1822, Ulysses S. Grant was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio. Grant’s father, Jesse, was a tanner and an abolitionist. Grant received an education from several private schools and later attended the United States Military Academy at West Point. After graduating in the middle of his class, Grant was stationed in Missouri where he visited with his former classmate an