On Saturday, April 2nd, I had the pleasure of being part of the judging team for Junior Performance Entries at Vermont History Day, held at U32 High School in Montpelier. The knowledge, hard work, and creativity of these students as they dramatically took on the characters of historical figures were exciting and impressive. As explained on Vermont Historical Society’s web site: “Vermont History Day, affiliated with National History Day, encourages students to study history and share their knowledge through a variety of project choices such as displays, web sites, papers, and performances. The program is open to Vermont students in grades five through twelve and home study students ages 10 to 18. Working individually or in small groups, students choose a topic related to the National History Day annual theme, which in 2016 is Exploration, Encounter, Exchange in History. The topic can relate to Vermont history, US history or world history.” The Coolidge Foundation awards a cash prize each year.

Immigration has been a hot button issue in the presidential campaign this year, on both sides of the aisle. Our country is confronting this issue with many of the same hopes and fears that have colored our discourse on immigration from the earliest days of the republic. How much control should the Federal Government have over those who enter our labor market from abroad? What impact does increased immigration have on low-skill American workers? Will a massive wave of new immigrants imperil our Anglo-American constitutional traditions? On Tuesday, 23 February, high school students from the Salisbury School in Connecticut will debate immigration here at Plymouth Notch. Previous generations confronted these questions just as we do. It is useful to explore past approaches to guide our consideration of these issues today.

On February 18, 2016 it was announced that President Barack Obama will visit Cuba. This trip will make him the first sitting U.S. president to visit the island since President Calvin Coolidge went in January 1928. This lecture about Coolidge’s Cuba excursion was given by Coolidge Foundation program associate Rushad Thomas on Presidents’ Day Weekend 2015.

Calvin Coolidge, the Puritan in Babylon, the Scrooge Who Begat Plenty, the Great Refrainer, Silent Cal. We know him by all these names. But there’s one name we rarely consider when it comes to Silent Cal: Electoral Juggernaut! This is astonishing when you consider the fact that he probably won more elections, at every level of government, than any president in American history. Yet Coolidge is often remembered only for being silent. While presidential brevity is something of a lost art, for which Coolidge can be commended, we must not forget that Coolidge was a politician who stood for election, and had to convince people to vote for him, just like politicians have done for centuries. The 1924 presidential election campaign, the last which Coolidge would fight in his life, was no different, and the story of that fascinating election sheds a great deal of light on the man Calvin Coolidge was. We will explore the story of the 1924 presidential campaign today, and hopefully draw some lessons from a tremendously interesting moment in presidential election politics.