How do you prepare for a job as the President of the United States? As a student currently enrolled in school, you may have dreams of becoming a public leader but aren’t quite sure how to get there. Before you worry that your college major might not end up being relevant to your future career, take a moment to consider the past jobs of the U.S. presidents. From George Washington to Andrew Johnson to Barack Obama, U.S. presidents have worked as farmers, lawyers, tailors, soldiers, and even teachers. Here are 10 U.S. presidents who got their start in teaching.
James Garfield: James A. Garfield served as 20th President of the United States, beginning his term in 1881 and is still the only member of the U.S. House of Representatives to have been elected president. Garfield, a former general in the U.S. Army, was shot just four months after his inauguration, and died two months later. The Ohio native attended school at the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute before moving to Massachusetts for a college education. After graduating, Garfield eventually found his way back to Ohio and became a classical languages teacher at the Eclectic Institute before becoming principal one year later.
Chester A. Arthur: Republican Vice President Chester A. Arthur was made 21st President of the United States after James Garfield died from a gunshot wound in 1881. Arthur, who was nicknamed "The Father of Civil Service," was born in Vermont but spent much of his boyhood years in New York. Arthur earned an undergraduate and a Master’s degree from Union College, and became a principal at the North Pownal Academy in Vermont in 1849, before studying law and moving to New York City after passing the bar in 1854.
Grover Cleveland: Grover Cleveland, the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms, was the 22nd and 24th President of the United States. Cleveland was a Democrat who was known as a reformer who fought corruption in the White House and was an anti-imperialist. Cleveland was born in 1837 in New Jersey, though his family moved to Fayettville, NY, when he was still young. Cleveland dropped out of school when his father died in 1853, and he became an assistant teacher at the same school where his brother worked, the New York Institute for the Blind, in New York City.
Woodrow Wilson: As the 28th President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson is best known for helping Europe recover from WWI and creating the League of Nations in 1919, during Wilson’s second term. Also during Wilson’s second term, women earned the right to vote. Wilson, who was born in Virginia in 1856, was the son of Confederacy supporters and one of the founders of the Southern Presbyterian Church in the United States. Wilson struggled with dyslexia when he was young, but he attended Davidson College and then Princeton University for undergraduate school, and then the University of Virginia for one year of law school. Because of an illness, Wilson dropped out of law school but eventually picked up his studies again at Johns Hopkins University, where he earned a PhD in history and political science. After graduating, Wilson was an instructor at Bryn Mawr College and Wesleyan University.
Dwight D. Eisenhower: Even before becoming the 34th President of the United States (1953-1961), Dwight D. Eisenhower was a major U.S. figure. Eisenhower was the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe during WWII and the first supreme commander of NATO. Just before working with NATO, and right after WWII in 1948, Eisenhower was appointed President of Columbia University. He himself graduated from the Military Academy in 1915.
Lyndon B. Johnson: As 36th President of the United States, LBJ succeeded John F. Kennedy after he was assassinated in 1963 and known for his leadership in the civil rights movement and involvement in the Vietnam War. Before becoming such a high-profile and controversial public figure, however, LBJ was a humble schoolteacher in Texas. Johnson graduated from Southwest Texas State Teachers’ College in 1926 and taught the children of poor Mexican immigrants in Cotulla, TX. Johnson also taught high school in Pearsall, TX, and Houston, TX, and credited his experience teaching poor children with leading him to become so passionate about civil rights during his presidency.
Gerald Ford: Gerald Ford was the 38th President and 40th Vice President, though he was never elected to either position (he succeeded elected officials both times). During his presidency, the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War ended, and the U.S. moved closer to resolutions with Eastern Europe during the Cold War. Ford, who was born Leslie Lynch King, Jr., moved with his mother from Omaha, NE, to Michigan, and eventually changed his name after his mother married Gerald Rudolff Ford. Ford attended the University of Michigan as an undergrad, where he played center and linebacker for the football team. Though he was offered contracts to play with the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions, Ford decided to coach football and boxing at Yale so that he could attend the law school.
Bill Clinton: During his first term as 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton was credited with promoting welfare reform and turning around the U.S. economy so that there was actually a federal surplus. During his second term, however, Clinton’s affair with an intern dominated his presidency, and he was impeached for obstruction of justice (though later acquitted by the Senate). Clinton was born in Hope, AK, and was mostly raised by his mother. Clinton received a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University and attended Yale Law School after going to the University of Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. Clinton moved back to Arkansas after graduating from Yale and became a professor at the University of Arkansas. One year later, he left academia for politics and became the Arkansas Attorney General in 1976.
Barack Obama: Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States and the first black president in 2008. The Columbia University and Harvard Law School alumnus was born in 1961 in Hawaii to mixed-race parents, his father from Kenya. Obama was raised by his maternal grandparents after living in Indonesia with his mother and stepfather until the age of ten. Obama graduated from Columbia in 1983, and after working in Chicago, enrolled at Harvard Law School in 1988, where he became the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. After graduation, Obama moved back to Chicago, where he worked as a community organizer and also as a professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago for 12 years. Obama remained affiliated with the university as a senior lecturer until 2004.
