Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library & Museum

Memorial Day 1924 President Coolidge placing wreath on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier with Secretary of War Weeks and Secretary of the Navy Wilbur.

Newspaper original caption "
"President Coolidge On Memorial Day established precedent by placing a wreath on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the outstanding feature of the impressive ceremonies held at Arlington National Cemetery. On the left is Secretary of War Weeks; on the right, Secretary of the Navy Wilbur."

Tuesday May 14 we are open 2-5 and closed in the morning for an annual staff training.

The Northampton VA is turning 100 and invites all to celebrate on Saturday May 11.
Coolidge as Vice President was instrumental in getting the new hospital built in Leeds (a village of Northampton), Massachusetts. Coolidge was unable to attend the 1924 dedication and Frank Hines, head of the Veterans Bureau was present and delivered a speech quoting President Coolidge's commitment to WWI Veterans with disabilities: "There is no duty imposed upon us of greater importance than prompt and adequate care of our disabled and every reasonable effort will be made in that direction."

🎉 Join us for the VA Central Western MA Centennial Celebration!
We're excited to celebrate 100 years of serving our veterans and the community. Come join us for a day filled with gratitude, camaraderie, and fun!

📅 Date: May 11, 204
🕙 Time: 9:00 am - 3:00 pm
📍 Location: 421 North Main Street, Leeds, MA 01053
✨ Highlights:
• Military Band 🎵
• Food trucks offering delicious eats 🍔🌭🍕
• Family-friendly activities and games 🎈🎉
• VA Showcase of services 💼
• VBA, and Eligibility and Enrollment resources 💼
• Community partnerships and resources 💼

Bring your family, friends, and neighbors to enjoy a memorable day as we honor our veterans and celebrate a century of service. See you there!



TJ's Pop
Wicked Whisk Food Truck
Thai Chili Truck

It is Teacher Appreciation Week!
Calvin Coolidge's stepmother was a teacher in his hometown of Plymouth Notch, Vermont. Coolidge's mother Victoria died when he was 12 and his father John married Carrie Brown during his freshmen year at Amherst College.

In his autobiography, Calvin Coolidge described his stepmother as
"one of the finest women of our neighborhood. I had known her all my life. After being without a mother nearly seven years I was greatly pleased to find in her all the motherly devotion that she could have given me if I had been her own son. She was a graduate of Kimball Union Academy and had taught school for some years. Loving books and music she was not only a mother to me but a teacher. For thirty years she watched over me and loved me, welcoming me when I went home, writing me often when I was away, and encouraging me in all my efforts. When at last she sank to rest she had seen me made Governor of Massachusetts and knew I was being considered for the Presidency.”

It is teacher appreciation week!
Grace Coolidge was a teacher at the Clarke Schools for Hearing and Speech 1902-1905. Here is a 1928 photo of Mrs. Coolidge visiting former mentor and life long family friend Caroline Yale who worked at Clarke School for over 60 years including 36 as principal.

Photo by Eric Stahlberg

Today is Arbor Day!
Photo from April 1920 of Governor and Mrs. Coolidge planting a tree
on Arbor Day at the Massachusetts State House

Today is National Telephone Day!
President Coolidge on the telephone with King Alfonso XIII of Spain, October 13,1928. Photo from the Harris & Ewing Collection at The Library of Congress

This was the first transatlantic phone call between world leaders. Coolidge said “I welcome this added link, no less strong because it is invisible, between Spain and the United States. I believe it to be true that when two men can talk together the danger of any serious disagreement is immeasurably lessened and that what is true of individuals is true of nations. The international telephone, therefore, which carries the warmth and the friendliness of the human voice, will always correct what might be misinterpreted in the written word."

Photo from April 24, 1920 at Braves Field in Boston, Massachusetts

Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge posed with baseball in hand getting ready to throw out the first pitch to start the game with Grace Coolidge standing beside him.

Mrs. Coolidge was a baseball fan from her childhood days in Vermont and would later be known as "The First Lady of Baseball" or the first celebrity fan of the major leagues. We assume she was disappointed that day when her beloved Boston Braves lost to the New York Giants 4-7

Braves Field in Boston opened in 1915 and was the home of the Boston Braves of the National League from 1915 to 1952, prior to the Braves' move to Milwaukee in 1953. The site is now home to Boston University's Nickerson Field.

Today is National Picnic Day!
A newspaper photo from September 1928 of President and Mrs Coolidge and their son John entertained with a cruise around Apostle Islands in Lake Superior and a picnic on Devil's Island in Wisconsin.

Original Caption states "President and Mrs Coolidge and John were yacht guests of Mr and Mrs Hunter [and Lamora] Gary for a cruise among Apostle Islands in Lake Superior. Party is shown enjoying picnic dinner on Devil's island."

We will be closed on Monday April 15 in observance of Massachusetts holiday Patriots' Day
On April 19, 1926 President Coolidge spoke to the Daughters of the American Revolution on the importance of voting and reflected on the history and patriotism of the holiday.

"We live in a republic. A vital principle of that form of government is representation. More and more as our population increases it becomes necessary for the people to express their will through their duly chosen delegates. If we are to maintain the principle that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, if we are to have any measure of self-government, if the voice of the people is to rule, if representatives are truly to reflect the popular will, it is altogether necessary that in each election there should be a fairly full participation by all the qualified voters." For the full speech see:

Address of President Coolidge before the Daughters of the American Revolution Address of President Coolidge before the Daughters of the American Revolution Title: Address of President Coolidge before the Daughters of the American Revolution Date: April 19, 1926 Location: Washington, D.C. Context: Coolidge addresses the DAR and praises the accomplishments of the group and the....

President and Mrs. Coolidge viewing the eclipse January 24, 1925 at the White House.

Join Forbes Library for a viewing party on our lawn at 3PM today!

Photo from the National Photo Company Collection at The Library of Congress

Yesterday was the annual Easter Egg Roll at the White House.
First Lady Grace Coolidge enjoyed this tradition along with her pets. Here are newsclipping photos of Mrs. Coolidge with Rebecca the racoon in 1927 and dogs Laddie Buck and Rob Roy in 1925.

Today, April 1, only! The Coolidge Museum has replaced Thunderbolt, the President's mechanical exercise horse, with a live horse named Centennial !

Today is National Girl Scout Day!
On March 12, 1912 Juliette Gordon Low founded Girl Scouts of the USA.
In this Underwood & Underwood photo, First Lady Grace Coolidge is receiving and tasting a bag of cookies from Girl Scouts at the White House on October 17, 1923. To the right of the First Lady is district Scout commissioner Dolly Lindsay.

In honor of International Women's Day a photo of Grace Coolidge, Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan at the White House in 1926. Grace Coolidge was a teacher at the Clarke Schools for Hearing and Speech 1902-1905 and remained devoted to deaf education and awareness throughout her life.

Mrs. Coolidge earned a place on the “twelve greatest living women” list compiled by Good Housekeeping in 1931.

We are collecting oral histories of Coolidge Memories! Do you recall trick or treating at Road Forks or delivering newspapers to Grace Coolidge or have anecdotes of the Coolidge family or their homes passed down in your family? If so we would love to record and them!

Coolidge Museum Committee member Rob Weir, retired professor of history is leading this project. If you would like to participate in email [email protected] or [email protected] with a description of your tale and if you are able to come in person to the library or record online or at a local assisted living community.

You will be asked to sign a permission form to allow use and your stories will that can become part of a larger archive and possible video display at the museum.

Happy Valentine's day!
Grace Goodhue was a teacher at the Clarke School for the deaf when she met lawyer Calvin Coolidge who lived next door. In her autobiography, Grace describes their first date: "The first bolt of political lighting has recently struck him, and he was serving as chairman of the Republican city committee. If my memory serves me faithfully, the first invitation which he extended to me was to attend a Republican rally at the city hall. I accepted, and have been accepting similar invitations from him ever since that first acquiescence.” (Grace Coolidge: An Autobiography p.30-31). Photo of Calvin and Grace Coolidge, Thanksgiving 1919.

We will be closed on Tuesday February 13!

Due to wintery mix weather this morning, we will not open until Noon.
Photo from March 30, 1931 of the entrance driveway to the post Presidency home of Calvin Coolidge called the "Beeches"

From January 20, 1919
Massachusetts Governor Coolidge receiving colors returned from France by the 301st Regiment.

Calvin Coolidge died at his home, "The Beeches," in Northampton, Massachusetts on January 5, 1933.

Photo of Main Street Northampton during Coolidge's January 7 funeral.

Coolidge's mentor Judge Henry Field published this tribute in the Daily Hampshire Gazette January 7, 1933
“This American nation and peoples beyond our borders and across the seas will mourn his departure, but here at home, his home and ours, his death comes as a grievous personal loss. We all knew his fine character, his kindness and consideration for others, his exceptional abilities, his genius for government, his strong common sense, his keen sense of humor. We all knew that he had the courage and perseverance of his Puritan ancestors and their firm and abiding faith. And we also knew how unpretentious he was, how eager to avoid all display. And yet this quiet, unostentatious friend and fellow citizen of ours retired from the Presidency the most highly esteemed and most popular man in all these United States, and in doing so he was passed from this world into a better one. He filled all his many public offices to the entire satisfaction of the people. They trusted him. They felt that in his hands their government was safe. His life has been of infinite value to this country and the nation knows the seriousness of its loss. But to us at home the loss is more intimate. In all the long history of this good city he was its most distinguished citizen, and here in his home town he made life better and finer for every one who came within his influence.”

Happy Birthday Grace Coolidge!
Grace Anna Goodhue was born January 3, 1879 in Burlington, Vermont, the only child of Andrew Issaclar Goodhue (1848–1923) and Lemira Barrett Goodhue (1849–1929). Grace graduated from the University of Vermont in 1902, where she founded the Vermont Beta chapter of Pi Beta Phi Fraternity for Women. She moved to Northampton, Massachusetts to teach at the Clarke Schools for Hearing and Speech 1902-1905. It was at the Clarke property where she met a young lawyer named Calvin Coolidge who rented a room in a house next to the dormitory she resided in. They married in 1905 and welcomed sons John in 1906 and Calvin, Jr. in 1908.
As First Lady, she was a popular hostess inviting the public back to the White House grounds that had been closed during World War I and bringing tourism to Washington, D.C. through events such as the White House Easter Egg Roll, National Christmas Tree and formal entertaining in the White House.
In 1930, Grace Coolidge was named one of America's Twelve Greatest Women in a Good Housekeeping magazine contest from reader submitted nominations. Also in 1930, University of Vermont awarded Mrs. Coolidge an honorary doctorate with the citation “All ours when the school girl lived and worked among us; ours till though not unshared when the First Lady cast her kindly spell of act and speech and manner over the hearts of a nations; ours now when we honor in her guise the crowning achievement, the art of arts, the power of grace, the magic in a name.”

Photograph by Stephen Petegorsky of a painting by Howard Chandler Christy in 1924 of Grace Coolidge. This portrait is permanently on view in the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library & Museum.

Today in History!
December 21, 1938, the first cars drove over the new Calvin Coolidge Memorial Bridge. The bridge spans over the Connecticut River from Northampton to Hadley. It was completed in 1939 and a formal dedication ceremony and parade was held October 12, 1939.

These images are from a bridge construction scrapbook compiled by Forbes Library director Joseph Harrison in 1938-1939. The book is available in the archives database: https://archives.forbeslibrary.org/argus/final/Portal/Default.aspx?lang=en-US&g_AABJ=coolidge+bridge&p_AAFG=+%5c%7czCollNmL+%3d%3d+%27d0bd2122-5ebd-4d48-81f9-e7f32e5fc246%27&d=d