Mr. President

A Life of Benjamin Harrison

By Ray E. Boomhower

2018

First Published

3.35

Average Rating

224

Number of Pages

6H50M

Audio Length

"In the 1850s, a young man from Ohio, ready to begin his career as a lawyer, pondered where to practice his new profession, considering Cincinnati, Chicago, and Indianapolis. The attorney, Benjamin Harrison, visited Indianapolis in March 1854 and decided to make it his home. The choice pleased his father, who wrote his son that he would not require any letters of introduction to pave his way, as "the fact is your name is introduction enough to any of the old inhabitants of Hoosierdom—the old men of Indiana who have become patriots of your grandfather and loved him as they loved no other public man." Harrison, who would go on in 1888 to win election against incumbent Grover Cleveland, becoming America's twenty-third president, seemed destined from birth for national political success. After all, his father had been a two-term congressman from Ohio; his grandfather, William Henry Harrison, served as governor of the Indiana Territory and became the country's ninth president; and his great-grandfather, Benjamin Harrison V, had been governor of Virginia and one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence"—

Avg Rating

3.35

Number of Ratings

5 STARS

15%

4 STARS

27%

3 STARS

40%

2 STARS

17%

1 STARS

goodreads

Author

Ray E. Boomhower

Author · 7 books

From famed World War II correspondent Ernie Pyle to unlucky astronaut Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, author and historian Ray E. Boomhower has produced books on a variety of notable figures in Indiana and American history. Currently senior editor at the Indiana Historical Society Press, where he edits the quarterly popular history magazine Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History, Boomhower has also published books on the life of Civil War general and author Lew Wallace, reformer and peace activist May Wright Sewall, U.S. Navy ace Alex Vraciu, and journalist and diplomat John Bartlow Martin. In 1998 he received the Hoosier Historian award from the Indiana Historical Society and in 2010 he was named winner of the Regional Author Award in the annual Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Awards. In 2009 his book Robert F. Kennedy and the 1968 Indiana Primary was selected as the winner in the historical nonfiction category of the annual Best Books of Indiana contest sponsored by the Indiana Center for the Book. His books have also been finalists in the annual Benjamin Franklin Awards from the Independent Book Publishers Association.