Florence Harding: The First Lady, the Jazz Age, and the Death of America's Most Scandalous President

Carl Anthony reports in his prologue that the inspiration for this project came from none other than Alice Roosevelt Longworth, one of Florence Harding's collection of mercurial and dysfunctional friends. That fact alone speaks volumes about the tenor and atmosphere of the story. Perhaps aware of America's antipathy toward "The Duchess," Anthony has given this work a title worthy of an Oliver Stone epic. The reader who gets past the burlesque title will discover an intensively fascinating narrative of a driven, unconventional woman intertwined with a malleable young newspaper editor. When, years later, the Duchess would tell her "W'urrn" that she had made him president of the United States, many of their contemporaries would have agreed.Born in 1860 to an Ohio businessman who wanted a son, Florence was in fact raised as a boy until her fourteenth year, when her domineering father realized that what he had actually created was a feminist with an attitude. He struck back ferociously and physically; Florence eventually retaliated by having herself impregnated by a hayseeder several years her junior. Christmas Day of 1882 found the young mother homeless and abandoned. Anthony takes the time to access the options available to this intelligent, ambitious, but impoverished woman. Determined to not disappear into rural Ohio obscurity giving piano lessons, Florence makes two critical decisions that would change her life forever, for better and worse: she gave her child away, and she set her cap for the man through whom she could make her mark in the public forum. On the surface these seem like cynical strategies, but with feminist sympathies Anthony takes pains to remind the reader that American business and politics were both male bastions in the Gilded Age. There were few routes for a woman of ambition.Florence married the handsome and randy Warren Harding and immediately took over the operation of his local paper, turning a handsome profit and expanding the couple's business ventures. Anthony lets his facts carry the story: the Harding marriage is clearly one of convenience, arguably Florence's more than her husband's. Unencumbered by children, the Duchess, as she came to be called for obvious reasons, had time to consort with the political beat writers and politicians who came to Marion. She tended bar at their poker games, plied them with liquor for information and party gossip, and strategized a grand design for her husband's career in Ohio Republican politics. Managing Warren Harding was a full time job. He was not by nature ambitious, he was not a particularly good businessman, and he was not physically or mentally well, having suffered nervous breakdowns and indications of cardiovascular disease. His most obvious flaw-and one particularly odious to his wife-was his womanizing, which continued virtually to his death, with little concealment, and occasionally on the sly with her best friends. For two people as different as Warren and the Duchess,

I came to this book knowing little about the Harding administration except for its scandals and babbitry and knowing virtually nothing about Harding's wife Florence. This is an absolutely captivating piece of writing, both vividly portraying an era and brimming with human interest stories. Florence Harding was at least as much a modern First Lady as Eleanor Roosevelt--outspoken, a strong feminist, a woman with a major voice in her husband's administration. Her life was filled with tragedy--an out-of-wedlock child to a drunken, shiftless man before she met Warren; a domineering German-American father who was both unloving and bigoted; a philandering husband the equal of Bill Clinton at his worst; and an espousal of "causes" like animal rights and veterans' welfare that had a way of backfiring on her. Florence was very much the ambition behind Warren, who probably would not have made it further than being a small town Ohio newspaper editor without her; yet he showed considerable resentment toward her outspokenness over the years--perhaps the root of some of his womanizing. Florence's life provides a very apt prism through which to view Harding's rise to power, his demise, and his mysterious death, upon which the author sheds some new and interesting light. This is a book filled with memorable characters, including Florence's wealthy and bohemian friend, Evelyn Walsh McLean, owner of the Hope diamond, and the vitriolic Alice Roosevelt Longworth. As countless other reviewers have noted, it is hard to put down, too. A great book for a summer escape, with the redeeming virtue of shedding light on an understudied piece of American history.

In this biography of Florence Harding, Carl Anthony portrays an unfogettable cast of colorful and shady individuals who continued to influence American politics long after the Hardings' brief tenure. What a treat to read a page-turner that is also impeccably researched, richly annotated, and painstakingly attributed! The characters, especially the Hardings and their intimates, are deeply drawn with both compassion and accuracy, leaving the reader to form his own judgments. The machinations of politics are described in chilling detail. Anthony takes advantage of newly available material to answer mysteries which have long shadowed the Harding legacy, in a way no previous author could have done. The book is not without its shortcomings. In some places, the verbiage is thickly entangled, with absurd grammatical errors ("Late into the warm spring night poker games, illuminated by strings of tiny white bulbs, the popular songs of Tin Pan Alley and racing pieces in the new jazz sound wafted as far out as Evalyn's new greenhouses as she cranked the Victrola.") Anthony's descriptions of Mrs. Harding's medical problems make little sense in terms of today's knowledge. Also, I feel he employs an exaggerated sense of melodrama in relating the circumstances of Harding's death. However, compared to the other Harding literature I've read, this is far away the best-researched and most objective. Overall--one of the best books I've read on politics, the Jazz Age, and the hypocrises of public life.

I haven't read a lot about the Hardings -- at least, nothing much that presented them as other than a brief, corrupt interlude in our country's history -- so it was with interest that I picked up this big, thick book on a woman I knew little about. Once I opened the cover, I was never bored, and seldom tempted to skip pages :-) It was truly fascinating to discover Florence Harding as a real person. This book does include all the rumors and intrigues that surrounded Florence and her contemporaries ... and without which you would lose sight of historical perspective, for we are all not only what we think of ourselves, but also what others think of us. But it covers more than rumors and scandal; extensively researched and well-written, this book presents a stunning portrait of a complex woman and her times. However ... the similarities between the Clintons and the Hardings has probably stimulated my interest in reincarnation more than this book's non-metaphysical author would prefer ! A good read!