Facts About the Presidents:
  from George Washington to George Bush
   Joseph Nathan Kane
  1993 The H. W. Wilson Co., NY USA
   ISBN: 0824207742


A widely consulted compilation of statistics & data about all the American Presidents. Thousands of pieces of information about the men, their lives, wives, terms, colleagues, incomes & bequests plus much more.

In this year of presidential nominations & election I decided it was time I learnt about all the men who had held the highest office in the land since the Father of this country, George Washington. My librarians turned me on to Joseph Nathan Kane's monumental work, started in 1959 & continually updated with each election.

In this reference book you will discover all manner of ordinary & extraordinary things about our Presidents. When & where they were born; what colleges they attended; their religious denominations; ancestries; occupations; marriage data; political parties; states represented; terms of office; Congresses; ages at vital times in their lives; lives after terms; death data.

You will discover who their parents & siblings were; what their elections were like; who their Vice-Presidents & Cabinet were; who they appointed to the Supreme Court & the important dates & Acts of their administrations & all sorts of interesting details from their private lives like inventions, books written, favorite pastimes & sports.

When I first landed in Chicago I noticed the streets had names such as Polk, Hayes, Fillmore, Pierce, Harrison, Garfield, Van Buren et al & all I could evince from Chicagoans was that they'd been presidents. Now I know much, much more about the men & the lives behind those names.

Part II of Facts About the Presidents is full of comparative data: chronology, family history & names; states & party affiliations; which presidents were British born & which were born west of the Mississippi River. Also listed are the occupations of their fathers, their ages at the deaths of their parents; masses of data on presidents' wives; history of presidents' names, nicknames & sobriquets.

Everything you ever wanted to know about inaugural speeches & who administered the oaths; presidential & congressional politics & all about the Vice-Presidents too.

Hours & hours of studying - which presidents succeeded others; who got elected almost as an after-thought; where they lived & how they ran the White House.

A fascinating reference book filled with facts & interesting trivia.
(04/30/00)

Rebecca