Calvin Coolidge. US statesman and 30th president (1923-9), born in Plymouth, Vermont, USA.He studied at Amherst College (1895), and became a lawyer in Northampton, MA. As a Republican, he held a series of local and state offices until becoming governor of Massachusetts (1919-20), gaining national attention for using the state militia to suppress a police strike. Elected vice-president (1920), he succeeded to the presidency on Warren Harding's death (1923) and was re-elected the next year.
A popular and deliberately hands-off president in prosperous times, he was noted more for what he did not do and say than for what he did (although among his oft-quoted phrases is his 1925 remark, ‘the business of America is business’). In his private life he was equally noted for his taciturn, thrifty ways. After leaving the White House, he retired to Northampton and wrote various articles promoting his conservative views as well as his autobiography (1929).