Description: These photographs show President Warren G. Harding meeting the Firestone family during a camping trip in 1921. The first image shows the Firestones greeting the president on his arrival. The second image shows Harding and Harvey Firestone reading the newspaper, and the third image shows Harding with the Firestone family. Harvey Firestone (1868-1938) was born in Columbiana County, Ohio and began to manufacture rubber tires in 1896. He founded the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company in 1900 and moved it to Akron, Ohio. The camping trip was one of many that automobile manufacturer Henry Ford, Firestone, and inventor Thomas Edison took between 1916 and 1924. Harding was invited to their camping trip in Maryland in July of 1921, which became known as "Camp Harding." Warren Gamaliel Harding (1865-1923) was born in Corsica (now called Blooming Grove), a small town in Morrow County, Ohio. Harding graduated from Ohio Central College in Iberia at the age of sixteen. His family moved to Marion, where Harding taught school and briefly studied law. He worked occasionally as a reporter for a local paper before buying the Marion Star in 1884. Within five years, the Star was one of the most successful small-town newspapers in the state. Harding became popular as the leader of the Citizen's Coronet Band, which played at political rallies, and for his skill as an orator. Willing to follow the lead of political bosses, Harding advanced rapidly in Ohio politics, serving as state senator, lieutenant governor, and governor. In 1914 Harding was elected to the U. S. Senate. He launched his famous "front porch" 1920 presidential campaign from the porch of his Victorian home in Marion, Ohio. He won the presidency with sixty percent of the popular vote, promising a "return to normalcy" following the wave of reforms begun during Theodore Roosevelt's administration. As President, Harding appointed several friends to federal office who proved untrustworthy. His administration was tainted by corruption, and the infamous "Teapot Dome" scandal (in which Harding's Secretary of the Interior leased a U.S. petroleum reserve to a private oil company) nearly destroyed his presidency. After he died in office in August 1923, other scandals were uncovered, further tarnishing Harding's reputation. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: Om1523_1505291_016
Subjects: Harding, Warren G. (Warren Gamaliel), 1865-1923; Presidents; Firestone, Harvey Samuel, 1868-1938
Places: Marion (Ohio); Marion County (Ohio); Pecktonville (Maryland)