Government Documents as Primary Sources: 1920-1929

Includes messages, public papers, state of the union addresses, news conferences, proclamations, signing statements, executive orders, presidential debates, administrative policy and more. This collection includes papers of Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover.

Online documents include the Memoirs of Herbert Hoover in three volumes and the Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Herbert Hoover in four volumes.

The digital collections of the Library of Congress contain a wide variety of material associated with U. S. presidents. These resource guides compile links to digital materials such as photographs, manuscripts, political cartoons, and documents that are available throughout the Library of Congress Web site. Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover Resource Guides

Available through the Center for Research Libraries, 1789-1933. Microform available through Interlibrary Loan.

Collection of military publications, including manuals, regulations and pamphlets from the Civil War to the present. The collection also contains photographs, manuscripts, diaries, letters, and images of artifacts.

Obsolete military manuals are frequently used by researchers to understand the thought process and operating environment of the military during a certain time frame. This collection has an emphasis on Army doctrine.

This collection assembles a broad array of Library of Congress source materials documenting the prosperity of the Coolidge years, the nation's transition to a mass-consumer economy, and the role of government in this transition.

The Nation's Forum Collection consists of fifty-nine sound recordings of speeches by American leaders from 1918-1920. The speeches focus on issues and events surrounding the First World War and the subsequent presidential election of 1920. Speakers include: Warren G. Harding, James Cox, Calvin Coolidge, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Samuel Gompers, Henry Cabot Lodge, and John J. Pershing. Speeches range from one to five minutes.

The collection consists of materials gathered by the Justice Department’s Bureau of Investigation (renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1935), military and naval intelligence, the Department of State, and the Post Office Department on the activities of black radicals from 1917 to 1925. The information concerns black communists and socialists, Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association, radical black publications (such as The Crusader, The Defender and The Messenger), the Pan African movement, the race riots of 1919, the draft evasions during the First World War, the attitudes and morale of the black military units, the African Blood Brotherhood, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Special Collections microfilm FILM BOOK 0042.

The material is arranged chronologically. Each campaign book has either a table of contents or alphabetical index or both. The Democratic Campaign books consist largely of speeches and articles written by party leaders which reflect the party’s position on the issues of that particular campaign year. The purpose of the Campaign Book was to provide a unified national party front on issues that could then serve as the basis for local Democratic campaigns throughout the nation. The campaign books trace the evolution of the political thinking in the Democratic Party over 64 years. Special Collections Microfiche 329.3

This collection contains all the debates and discussion over issues facing the nation at the time of the national political convention. The conventions nominated such men as Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, James K. Polk, James Buchanan, Samuel Tilden, Grover Cleveland, William J. Bryan, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Adlai Stevenson, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey. They debated such issues as the veto of the Bank of the United States charter, the expansion into Oregon and Texas, slavery and states’ rights, Reconstruction, bimetalism, government regulation of trusts, entry into World War I, New Deal programs, post-war foreign policy under Truman, civil rights, the war on poverty, and the war in Vietnam. Special Collections Microfilm 14:3-4.

The Republican Campaign Book served as the basis for a unified political campaign on a national scale. It consists largely of the party platform along with position statements by presidential and vice-presidential nominees and other prominent members of the party. It also contains attacks on the performance and positions of the Democratic Party and its candidates. The Campaign Books taken individually reflect the Party's stance in a particular election campaign. Taken together, they reflect the evolution of the Party's approach to national issues as the country made the transition into the twentieth century. The material is arranged chronologically. There is a table of contents at the beginning of the volume for each campaign. Special Collections microfiche MICF 329.6.

This collection contains the discussions and debates of the Republican National Conventions. The issues include the expansion of slavery into the territories, secession, mobilization of support for the Union in the Civil War, Reconstruction, civil rights for freedmen, policies for business, imperialism, regulation of trusts, involvement in World War I, depression, the opposition to the New Deal, foreign policy after World War II, national defense, civil rights, and the War in Vietnam. The conventions nominated such men as Abraham Lincoln, U. S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, Wendell Wilkie, Thomas Dewey, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, and Barry Goldwater. Special Collections microfilm MISC.

Shows scenes of Calvin Coolidge at his summer home in Plymouth, Vermont, including Coolidge helping out on the neighboring farm of cousin Ed Blanchard; in the "summer White House" above the Plymouth post office; attending church with his father John Calvin, wife Grace Goodhue, and son John; and visiting with his future vice-president, General Charles Dawes. May be a compilation of newsreel footage taken by Pathe in August 1924.

Governor Calvin Coolidge. "Law must rest on the eternal foundations of righteousness...The government is founded upon a righteousness which will endure."

Governor Calvin Coolidge. "Works which endure come from the soul of the people. The mighty in their pride walk alone to destruction. The humble walk hand in hand with providence to immortality."