Laddie Boy Harding Dog Collar

The citizens of Fairbanks, Alaska presented this collar to President Warren G. Harding and his wife Florence Kling Harding for their dog Laddie Boy on July 16, 1923. It is embellished with gold nuggets from the area. The collar measures 2.36 by 1.18 by 20.47 inches (6 by 3 by 52 cm). Laddie Boy, an Airedale terrier, became a celebrity during the Harding administration. He had his own chair for cabinet meetings and was "interviewed" by the Washington Post in 1921, offering his opinion on current issues such a prohibition and advocating an eight-hour workday for guard dogs. Warren Gamaliel Harding (1865-1923) was born in Corsica (now called Blooming Grove), a small town in Morrow County, Ohio. Harding graduated from Ohio Central College in Iberia at the age of sixteen. His family moved to Marion, where Harding taught school and briefly studied law. He worked occasionally as a reporter for a local paper before buying the Marion Star in 1884. Within five years, the Star was one of the most successful small-town newspapers in the state. Harding became popular as the leader of the Citizen's Coronet Band, which played at political rallies, and for his skill as an orator. Willing to follow the lead of political bosses, Harding advanced rapidly in Ohio politics, serving as state senator and lieutenant governor. In 1914 Harding was elected to the U. S. Senate. He launched his famous "front porch" 1920 presidential campaign from the porch of his Victorian home in Marion, Ohio. He won the presidency with sixty percent of the popular vote, promising a "return to normalcy" following the wave of reforms begun during Theodore Roosevelt's administration. As President, Harding appointed several friends to federal office who proved untrustworthy. His administration was tainted by corruption, and the infamous "Teapot Dome" scandal (in which Harding's secretary of the interior leased a U.S. petroleum reserve to a private oil company) nearly destroyed his presidency.