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50 free Warren G. Harding trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Warren G. Harding bought a failing Ohio daily for $300 at eighteen, ran a front porch campaign copied from McKinley, won the biggest popular-vote share the two-party era had seen, and died in office more popular than almost any president before him. Then the scandals broke, and for decades scholars ranked him last of all. This quiz covers the whole story: Blooming Grove and Caledonia, The Marion Star and 'the Duchess', the Ohio Senate and the 1914 race that made him the state's first directly elected senator, the Boston 'normalcy' speech, the tenth-ballot nomination after the night at the Blackstone Hotel, Coolidge's surprise nomination, Albert Lasker's advertising, the cabinet of Hughes, Mellon and Hoover, the Washington Naval Conference, the Budget Bureau, the Mellon tax cuts, Debs's release, the Birmingham speech, the Voyage of Understanding to Alaska and Vancouver, the Palace Hotel, and then Teapot Dome, the Veterans' Bureau, the Little Green House on K Street and the 2015 DNA test. Early questions suit anyone who knows the outline of the 1920s; later ones ask for vote counts, ballots, treaties and the names of the men in the smoke-filled room. Fifty questions, every one sourced.
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Q 01Warren G. Harding was which number president of the United States?
29th
He served from March 1921 until his death in August 1923 and was succeeded by Calvin Coolidge.
Q 02In which Ohio village was Harding born in 1865?
Blooming Grove
He was the eldest of eight children; his mother Phoebe was a licensed midwife and his father became a doctor.
Q 03Harding raised how much with partners to buy a failing local daily, the future Star?
$300
It was the weakest of the city's three papers but its only daily; he eventually left an $850,000 estate.
Q 04Harding is the only president to have had full-time experience in which profession?
Journalism
He briefly tried teaching, insurance and law before buying the Star.
Q 05What nickname did Harding give his wife Florence?
The Duchess
It came from a character in a New York Sun serial who kept an eye on 'the Duke' and their money.
Q 06Florence Harding's father, Amos Kling, was what by profession?
A banker and developer
He opposed the match, spread rumours about Harding's ancestry and urged a boycott of his businesses.
Q 07Where did Harding go five times for 'fatigue, overstrain, and nervous illnesses'?
The Battle Creek Sanitorium
Five stays between 1889 and 1901 are seen as early signs of the heart disease that killed him.
Q 08In which year was Harding first elected to the Ohio State Senate?
1899
He served four years and ended as one of the most popular figures in the state party.
Q 09Which political fixer said of Harding, 'Gee, what a great-looking President he'd make'?
Harry Daugherty
Daugherty later managed his campaigns and became his attorney general.
Q 10Which amendment made Harding's 1914 Senate race Ohio's first direct election for the seat?
The Seventeenth
He beat Foraker in the primary by 12,000 votes and Catholic Democrat Timothy Hogan by over 100,000.
Q 11How did Daugherty describe persuading Harding to run for the Senate in 1914?
Pushing a sunning turtle into the water
'I found him like a turtle sunning himself on a log, and I pushed him into the water.'
Q 12Harding was temporary chairman and keynote speaker at which Republican National Convention?
1916
It nominated Justice Charles Evans Hughes, who narrowly lost to Wilson.
Q 13Harding was one of how many senators who signed a round-robin letter opposing the League of Nations?
39
He grilled Wilson on Article X at the White House and made a major speech against the treaty.
Q 21H. L. Mencken compared Harding's prose to what?
A string of wet sponges
McAdoo called it 'an army of pompous phrases moving over the landscape in search of an idea'.
Q 22What percentage of the popular vote did Harding win in 1920?
60.2%
It was the highest share since the two-party system evolved; he took 404 electoral votes.
Q 23Socialist Eugene Debs won 3% of the 1920 vote while campaigning from where?
A federal prison
Harding commuted his sentence on 23 December 1921 and invited him to the White House.
Q 14In which city did Harding give the 1920 speech calling for 'not nostrums, but normalcy'?
Boston
It came right after his poor showing in the Indiana primary, where he finished fourth.
Q 15On which ballot was Harding nominated at the 1920 Republican convention?
The tenth
He had been sixth in the final poll; Lowden released his delegates and the vote became a formality.
Q 16The 1920 'smoke-filled room' was in which Chicago hotel?
The Blackstone
RNC chairman Will Hays hosted the suite where senators came and went; historians doubt any real pact was made.
Q 17Whom did Harding want as his 1920 running mate before the convention stampeded to Coolidge?
Irvine Lenroot
Oregon delegate Wallace McCamant proposed Coolidge and the hall roared approval.
Q 18Harding's 1920 Democratic opponent, James M. Cox, shared which profession with him?
Newspaper owner and editor
Cox's running mate was Assistant Navy Secretary Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Q 19Harding's front porch had been remodelled to resemble whose?
William McKinley's
Neighbours took it as a sign of presidential ambition.
Q 20Which Chicago advertising man ran Harding's pioneering 1920 media campaign?
Albert Lasker
He used newsreels, sound recordings, billboards and scripted telemarketing calls; Harding later made him Shipping Board chairman.
Q 24Harding was the first person elected president directly from which office?
Sitting US senator
He skipped the inaugural parade and kept the ceremony subdued.
Q 25Which Pittsburgh banker became Harding's Treasury Secretary?
Andrew Mellon
Mellon's study argued lower rates would raise revenue; the top rate fell from 73% to 25% by 1925.
Q 26Harding's Secretary of State, a former Supreme Court justice, was whom?
Charles Evans Hughes
Harding let Hughes run foreign policy and ignored Lodge's objections to the pro-League choice.
Q 27Will Hays left Harding's cabinet after a year to become what?
Chief censor of the film industry
He had been Postmaster General, then a cabinet post.
Q 28Which Idaho senator proposed the conference that became the Washington Naval Conference?
William Borah
Hughes opened it on 12 November 1921 by proposing to scrap 30 US warships if Britain cut 19 and Japan 17.
Q 29Whom did Harding appoint as the first director of the new Bureau of the Budget in 1921?
Charles Dawes
His mandate was to cut expenditures; federal spending fell from 6.5% to 3.5% of GDP.
Q 30The 1921 Per Centum Act limited immigration to 3% of each nationality counted in which census?
1910
It barely touched Irish and German arrivals but barred many Italians and eastern European Jews.