The Presidents of the USA - Your Online School Source

One of the most interesting parts of U.S. history is learning about all the men who have served as president of the United States. This guide is designed to help students gain a quick biographical overview of each president through a brief summary of the president’s term of office. Each name is linked to a site with more information on the man described, and links to general information about the office of president and those who have served in that role follow the biographies.

 

Short Biographies of the U.S. Presidents

 1. George Washington (1789–1797) is probably the man who is most synonymous with the U.S. presidency. Commonly regarded as the father of the United States, George Washington successfully led the Continental army against Great Britain, securing independence for the colonies that would eventually become a new nation. Elected as the country’s first president in 1789, Washington established several precedents for the office, including the customary farewell address, and he provided a national symbol of unity for the infant country.

 2. John Adams (1797–1801) served as the first vice president of the United States prior to his election as the nation’s second president. Adams established the Department of the Navy, beginning the process of building a fleet of ships to defend the country’s shores. Though he did not win reelection, many of his decisions were consequential for the rest of the country’s history, including his appointment of John Marshall as the chief justice of the United States Supreme Court.

 3. Thomas Jefferson (1801–1809) was one of the most important of the founding fathers of the United States and a strong advocate for states rights. In addition to doubling the acreage of the new country through the Louisiana Purchase, he successfully dealt with the Barbary pirates in the Mediterranean and protected U.S. merchants from the French and the British. After leaving the office of president, Jefferson helped establish the University of Virginia, one of the most well-regarded universities in the nation.

 4. James Madison (1809–1817) is often regarded as the father of the U.S. Constitution because of the extraordinary influence on that document from the Federalist Papers, of which Madison was a primary author. One of the most significant events of his presidency was the war of 1812 with Great Britain, which saw the British invade and burn Washington D.C. During his administration, the states of Louisiana and Indiana were admitted to the union.

 5. James Monroe (1817–1825) was the last founding father to be elected president of the United States, and he presided over the so-called “Era of Good Feelings,” a period of U.S. history when partisan fights were at a low ebb. He was also responsible for the Monroe doctrine that declared North and South America off limits to new European colonies. The famous Missouri Compromise, which forbade slavery in northern U.S. states, was also signed into law during his presidency.

6. John Quincy Adams (1825–1829) was the son of John Adams and one of only two men whose fathers also served as president of the United States. Opposed by the Jacksonians, who were supporters of his political opponent Andrew Jackson, Adams did not have a very distinguished tenure as president. Following his term in office, however, he did have a distinguished record of service as a member of the House of Representatives.

 7. Andrew Jackson (1829–1837) rode a wave of popular support into the office of the presidency, and he was the first president elected in a system wherein the Electoral College made use of the popular vote. During his term in office, the Indian Removal Act was passed and relocated thousands of American Indians west of the Mississippi River. Arkansas and Michigan were admitted to the union while Jackson was president.

 8. Martin Van Buren (1837–1841) was Andrew Jackson’s last vice president before being elected to the office of president himself. The nation suffered severe economic distress while Van Buren was in office, which helped ensure that he would not be reelected to a second term in office. He did, however, establish a treasury that was independent from the state banks while he served as president.

 9. William Henry Harrison (1841) won the presidency in 1840 in a landslide over the poorly regarded Martin Van Buren. Harrison had served in the U.S. army and had won acclaim in his campaigns against the American Indians. He would not serve as president long enough to achieve any major accomplishments — his main claim to fame as a U.S. president is the fact that he gave the longest inaugural address in U.S. history, caught pneumonia, and died a month after his swearing-in as commander in chief.

10. John Tyler (1841–1845) was William Henry Harrison’s vice president and the first U.S. president to ascend to the office due to the death of a sitting president. While president, he helped to pass and then signed a “Log Cabin” bill that gave settlers first right to buy their property before it went up for sale publicly. Ironically, Tyler, who served as a symbol of national unity, would later become a symbol of national disunity when he served in the Confederate House of Representatives after leaving the office of president.

11. James K. Polk (1845–1849) is largely known for his eagerness to expand the Western territories of the United States. Under his administration, the territories of Texas, California, and New Mexico were added to the country, and the boundary of the territory of Oregon was finally settled. Polk served only one term, in accordance with a promise he made during his campaign for office.

12. Zachary Taylor (1849–1850) rose to prominence on the national scene as a military general who fought the Seminole Indians in Florida, and he was an important leader in the war with Mexico. Despite being a slave owner himself, Taylor pursued a policy of encouraging the new Western territories to come into the union as free states. He died after only a year in office as the result of cholera.

13. Millard Fillmore (1850–1853) was Zachary Taylor’s vice president and took office after Taylor’s surprising death in office. One of his most notable accomplishments as president was the opening up of U.S. trade with Japan. Tensions within his own party, however, ensured that he would not be re-nominated to run for reelection in 1852.

14. Franklin Pierce (1853–1857) also served only one term in office after failing to secure the nomination of the Democratic Party to run for reelection. Perhaps the most notable event of his presidency was the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska act, which would allow for new Western states to decide whether or not they would allow slavery within their boundaries. This led to many northerners and southerners flocking to Kansas to influence the decision there, and much violence ensued.

15. James Buchanan (1857–1861) is almost universally regarded as the least effective president of the United States because of his failure to prevent the U.S. Civil War. Buchanan is the only president never to have married, and though he did not do well domestically, he did make many overtures in foreign policy. He also sent federal troops to Utah to maintain order, resulting in the short and bloodless Mormon War of 1857–1858.

16. Abraham Lincoln (1861–1865) ranks as the greatest of all the U.S. presidents in most surveys conducted by professional historians, largely on account of his perseverance to keep the union together when the Civil War broke out. Lincoln’s efforts ended up expanding the power of the presidency in the long run, but his Emancipation Proclamation effectively annulled slavery in the United States. Unfortunately, Lincoln was assassinated early in his second term, preventing his plan of amicable restoration for the southern states from going forward and prolonging tensions between north and south for generations.

17. Andrew Johnson (1865–1869) has the notable distinction of being the first president ever to suffer an impeachment trial in the U.S. Congress. Even though he was eventually acquitted, the trial and other problems have resulted in Johnson being ranked as one of the worst presidents ever to hold the office. The many problems that attended his reconstruction efforts also contribute to this historical estimation.

18. Ulysses S. Grant (1869–1877) was the general of the Union army who finally prevailed over the Confederate armies and accepted the surrender of General Robert E. Lee at the Appomattox Court House. A national hero, Grant easily won nomination from the Republican Party as their presidential candidate in 1868 and served two terms in office. However, there were many scandals while he was in office because many members of his administration were corrupt.

19. Rutherford B. Hayes (1877–1881) served as the governor of Ohio for two terms before winning the nomination of the Republican Party for the presidency in 1876. As president, Hayes made a special push to expand education for all U.S. children, encouraging the distribution of federal funds to poorer states to help subsidize the costs for schooling. He also had to preside over the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, and many believe that his response to the problem helped save countless lives.

20. James Garfield (1881) was the last U.S. president to have been born in a log cabin. As a senator from Ohio and brigadier general for the north during the Civil War, Garfield rose to prominence on the national scene, and in 1862 he was elected to the House of Representatives, serving there for 18 years. Winning the presidency in 1880, Garfield served only a few months in office before being assassinated by a disgruntled lawyer who had been turned down for a post in the federal government.

21. Chester A. Arthur (1881–1885), James Garfield’s vice president, was sworn into office immediately upon the assassination of Garfield. Arthur was a president deeply concerned with reforming and creating accountability in the civil service, and so he worked to appoint only meritorious individuals to government jobs, and he also helped create the Civil Service Commission. His attempts to govern in a non-partisan fashion did not win him any friends in his own party, and he failed to be re-nominated as the Republican candidate for president in 1884.

22. and 24. Grover Cleveland (1885–1889) has the distinction of being the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms as president of the United States. A former governor of New York, Cleveland was also the first Democrat to win the presidency after the Civil War, and lost his bid for reelection in 1888 to Benjamin Harrison even though he won the popular vote (Harrison won the electoral college). He ran again in 1892, but economic problems in the nation prevented him from winning the Democratic nomination again in 1896.

 23. Benjamin Harrison (1889 –1893) was the Republican nominee for president who beat Grover Cleveland in the 1888 presidential election in the Electoral College, even though he lost the popular vote. Harrison expanded the reach of the federal government through increasing the number of jobs available under the Civil Service Act, and he presided over the first billion dollar federal budget. The high tariffs that produced in this revenue made the Republicans unpopular in the western states, which helped ensure that Harrison would not be elected to a second term.

25. William McKinley (1897–1901) served as governor of Ohio before winning the presidency in a campaign against what were perceived to be the inflationary policies of William Jennings Bryan, the Democratic nominee. The Spanish-American war broke out under his tenure as president, leading to U.S. seizure of the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico. Easily reelected to a second term in office, McKinley was assassinated by an anarchist only a few months later.

26. Theodore Roosevelt (1901–1909) is one of the most colorful men to have ever served as U.S. president and the first so-called “progressive” candidate to hold the office. This former governor of New York was known as a trust-buster for his efforts to break up monopolies in the country, and he greatly expanded the amount of land owned by the federal park system. Roosevelt also led the United States to new prominence on the world stage, securing a peace treaty between Russia and Japan and sending the navy on a tour of the world.

27. William H. Taft (1909–1913) was Theodore Roosevelt’s Secretary of War who always wanted to serve on the Supreme Court more than he wanted the office of president. Though Roosevelt supported him for president in his first bid for office, the former president later ran as an independent against Taft in his reelection campaign, ensuring that Taft would not win a second term. He did finally get his wish to serve on the highest court of the land when Warren G. Harding nominated him to serve as its chief justice.

28. Woodrow Wilson (1913–1921) served as the president of Princeton University and governor of New Jersey before winning election to the presidency in 1912. During his two terms of office, Wilson presided over an expansion of federal power and led the nation through World War I. His dreams of a peaceful world order, however, were shattered when the U.S. Congress failed to join his League of Nations after the war ended.

29. Warren G. Harding (1921–1923) won the presidency in 1820 on a platform of returning the country to a normal order after the end of World War I. Though generally regarded as an honest man, Harding’s loyalty to his friends largely blinded him to their failings. Many of them would be accused of corruption and would be at the center of scandals, although Harding’s death of a heart attack halfway through his term in office meant that he would not live to see these problems become public.

30. Calvin Coolidge (1923–1929) presided over a long period of economic prosperity in the United States and won acclaim for his willingness to prosecute scandal-ridden individuals from the Harding administration. His domestic policy was generally aimed at preventing further expansion of the federal government, and his immigration policies tended to favor northern Europeans at the expense of persons from other countries. After leaving the presidency, Coolidge was one of the most notable critics of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal.

31. Herbert Hoover (1929–1933) was president during Black Friday, the infamous crash of the stock market that marked the beginning of the Great Depression. Although widely regarded as doing little to stop the economic downturn, Hoover actually pursued a policy of federal intervention that differed little from what his successor would do in his attempt to end the depression. Hoover lost his bid for reelection in a landslide to Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

32. Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933–1945) forever changed the perception of the role of the president and federal government in the life of everyday Americans. The former governor of New York brought comfort to millions through fireside chats that attempted to console people during the Great Depression, and his intervention in World War II guaranteed that the Allies would emerge victorious over Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire. Roosevelt enacted several domestic programs that remain popular today, including Social Security, and he effectively propped up the banking system through the formation of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

33. Harry S. Truman (1945–1953) became president after the death of the exhausted and strained Franklin Delano Roosevelt early in his fourth term of office. Truman’s time as president was marked by several significant decisions in foreign policy, such as his decision to use the atomic bomb to end World War II in the pacific and the establishment of the Marshall Plan to rebuild Western Europe. Truman was also responsible for laying the groundwork for the United States’ resistance to communism throughout the 20^th century, and he is regarded as one of the country’s greatest presidents.

34. Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953–1961) was a military hero who led the Allied forces to victory in Europe during World War II. After easily winning the Republican nomination for president and the presidential election of 1952, Eisenhower presided over a strong period of economic growth. One of his most significant domestic policy achievements was the formation of the Interstate Highway System in the United States, and both Alaska and Hawaii entered the union during his administration.

35. John F. Kennedy (1961–1963) narrowly defeated Richard M. Nixon to become the 35^th president of the United States in 1960. Assuming office in 1961, Kennedy faced several foreign policy crises including the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought the world to the very brink of nuclear war. Unfortunately, Kennedy was assassinated about halfway through his term in office, and various questions and conspiracy theories still surround that tragic event.

36. Lyndon B. Johnson (1963–1969) was John F. Kennedy’s vice president and assumed the office of presidency following the tragic assassination of Kennedy in 1963. Johnson greatly expanded the role of the federal government in domestic affairs through his “Great Society,” which introduced welfare, Medicare, and Medicaid to the United States. His escalation of the war in Vietnam made him extremely unpopular towards the end of 1968, and he refused to stand for reelection as the Democratic nominee for president.

37. Richard M. Nixon (1969–1974) is one of the few men to become president after losing an earlier election for that office. After losing to John F. Kennedy in 1962, Nixon went on to become governor of California before winning the 1968 presidential election. As president, he began de-escalating the U.S. involvement in Vietnam and opened up relations with China, but his involvement in the Watergate break-in during the 1972 presidential election led to his eventual resignation of the office.

38. Gerald R. Ford (1974–1977), because Nixon appointed him as vice president, is the only president never to have been elected to the office of presidency or vice presidency. Much of his term was spent dealing with the fallout of the Watergate scandal, and his pardon of Richard Nixon did not do much to help his popularity. In 1976, Ford narrowly lost his reelection bid to Jimmy Carter.

39. James Carter (1977–1981) won the presidential election in 1976 despite having been a long shot for the Democratic nomination. Better known as “Jimmy” Carter, he made human rights the emphasis of his foreign policy, securing a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel that stands to this day. The Iran hostage crisis and high domestic inflation, however, resulted in his landslide defeat to Ronald Reagan in 1980.

40. Ronald Reagan (1981–1989) was elected in a landslide both times he ran for president of the United States, and he remains one of the most popular presidents of all time. Reagan advocated a strong foreign policy that eventually brought about better relations with the Soviet Union and, ultimately, the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and Russia. The Iran-Contra scandal plagued much of his last two years as president, and the federal budget deficit increased greatly while he was in office.

41. George H.W. Bush (1989–1993) easily beat Michael Dukakis, the Democratic governor of Massachusetts, in the 1988 presidential election. His skillful oversight of the dissolution of communist Eastern Europe and successful war against Iraq granted him great domestic popularity early in his term as president. Yet an economic downturn and perceived indifference to the plight of the middle class contributed to his loss to Bill Clinton in the 1992 presidential election.

42. William J. Clinton (1993–2001) is the former governor of Arkansas who defeated Republican George H.W. Bush in the presidential election of 1992. Better known as Bill Clinton, he presided over a lengthy economic expansion and left office with high approval ratings. His scandalous affair with Monica Lewinsky, however, also led to his impeachment trial and acquittal during his second term.

43. George W. Bush (2001–2009) defeated Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election, winning more electoral votes while narrowly losing the popular vote total. The second of only two men whose fathers also served as president, Bush spent much of his two terms responding the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Problems with the wars he started in Iraq and Afghanistan and a severe economic downturn meant that he would leave office with historically low approval ratings.

44. Barack Obama (2009–) is the current president of the United States and only African American to have ever held the office. Known for his oratorical skills, Obama rose quickly to prominence on the national scene and ran a disciplined and skilled campaign against Republican John McCain in 2008. Though he has racked up several domestic policy accomplishments, it remains to be seen how many of them will remain popular in the years ahead.

Other Resources on the U.S. Presidents

• Ben's Guide for Kids: The President of the United States — On this kid-friendly page, users can learn the basic duties of the U.S. president.

• Educational Excellence: The Presidents — Teachers will especially appreciate this page of links to sites about the U.S. presidents for the classroom.

• The Presidents — This official White House page contains information on the history of the U.S. presidency and information on all the men who have served in the office.

• Presidents of the USA: Resource Guides — Here are some excellent online resource guides on the presidents of the United States from the Library of Congress.

• U.S. Presidents: Miscellaneous Records — The National Archives hosts this site containing miscellaneous records from sever recent presidents of the United States.

• U.S. Secret Service — The U.S. Secret Service is tasked with protecting the president of the United States from assassination, and this page is full of resources about the service, its role, and the former presidents.

• Vice President of the United States — Many of the U.S. presidents once served as vice president of the United States, and this U.S. Senate site contains information about these men who eventually held the highest office of the land. A wealth of information on those who never made it beyond the vice presidency is also included.