Coolidge Museum News and Articles

John Calvin Coolidge
July 4, 1872-January 5, 1933

Calvin Coolidge died in his home, “The Beeches,” in Northampton on January 5, 1933 at the age of 60 of heart disease. Coolidge was at his office at 25 Main Street in the morning and returned home for lunch. He was found on the floor of his dressing room at 12:25 pm by his wife Grace after she had returned home from shopping in downtown Northampton.

His funeral was held in Northampton at the Edwards Church on January 7 officiated by Rev. Albert Penner. The Daily Hampshire Gazette on January 7, 1933 reported that a special train from Washington, D.C. arrived to Northampton at 10 a.m. with 45 mourners including President and Mrs. Hoover, Vice-President Curtis and Chief Justice Hughes and members of Congress, Cabinet and old political and personal friends. The Washington delegation returned by train at Noon. Immediately following the Northampton funeral, 9 cars led by a police motorcycle traveled to Plymouth, Vermont where the President was buried.

There is nothing cozier than curling up in your favorite blanket with a good book and a cup of hot chocolate. When the cold weather persuades you to stay indoors, make sure you have your tools at the ready.

“…An individual may make progress without books, but the people as a whole are dependent on them. Where there is the most leisure and the least outside diversion the need for books and the benefits from them are greatest. Provision for…libraries would be a public service of the first importance.”

From “Calvin Coolidge Says” a syndicated newspaper column April 30, 1931

Forbes Library thanks you for your support.

“You have to stand everyday three or four hours for visitors. Nine-tenths of them want something they ought not to have. If you keep dead-still they will run down in three or four minutes. If you even cough or smile they will start up all over again.”

Advice to President-elect Herbert Hoober in 1929; The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover: The Cabinet and the Presidency, 1920-1933, 1952

Can you imagine how President Obama is faring?

Today, everyone is interested in the environmental issues facing us in the 21st century. In 1920, Coolidge was already speaking about our country’s level of resource consumption.

“Diminishing resources warn us of the necessity of conservation. The public domain is the property of the public. It is held in trust for present and future generations. The material resources of our contry are great, very great, but they are not inexhaustible.”

Speech accepting the vice presidential nomination, Northampton, Massachusetts, July 27, 1920

Bob Flaherty: A century ago, Mayor Cal showed his ‘cool’
November 3, 2009 | Daily Hampshire Gazette (Northampton, MA)
Author: BOB FLAHERTY | Section: Local News

Tuesday November 3 is election day in Northampton!
For more information and a specimen ballot see http://www.northamptonma.gov/cityclerk/Elections/November_3_2009_Election_Candidates/

The Coolidge Museum has been asked, “what would Calvin do?”

The answer is a simple one. Calvin Coolidge would tell his constituents to get out and vote, to care about their government, and to exercise their duty as citizens. As you make your decision whether or not to go to the polls and then how to vote, remember the words of Calvin Coolidge, “We have a tendency to be too indifferent before primaries and elections and too critical after. Public officers can and do exercise large influence over our daily life but the main course of events is in our own hands.” From a November 4, 1930 newspaper column

“Whether one traces his Americanism back three centuries to the Mayflower, or three years to the steerage, is not half so important as whether his Americanism of today is real and genuine. No matter by what various crafts we came here, we are all now in the same boat.”

Presidential address to the American Legion convention, Omaha, Nebraska, October 6, 1925