A Brief look at the Backgrounds of American Presidents on Presidents’ Day

American Presidents represent a wide array of backgrounds and experiences.  Of the nation’s 47 Presidents,[i]  nineteen served in the military in war-time and twelve held the rank of General in the Army.  Several were war-time heroes.  Twenty-six individuals served in Congress (House and/or Senate) before they became President.  James K. Polk, served as Speaker of the House and Lyndon Johnson served as Majority Leader of the Senate on their way to the presidency. 16 Presidents served as state governors.   William Howard Taft became Chief Justice of the United States eight years after he served as President. Taft admitted to having a judicial rather than an executive temperament.  While, at times, he agonized over serving as President, he very much enjoyed fulfilling his lifetime ambition of serving on the High Court.

Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln are among the Presidents who overcame poverty to advance in their careers.  When asked about his youth by John L. Scripps in 1859, Lincoln borrowed from Gray’s Elegy to describe his early life as “The short and simple annals of the poor.”[ii]  Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, on the other hand, were the beneficiaries of growing up in highly affluent families.  Whereas Lincoln had only one year of formal education in his life, at an ABC school, Roosevelt and Kennedy were among five presidents to graduate from Harvard.

Below, I will elaborate on the backgrounds, experiences, and governing styles of those who have served in the nation’s highest office. 

Presidents With Prior Service in Congress

26 of our 47 Presidents (55%) served in Congress (House, Senate, or both) prior to the Presidency.  Joe Biden was the longest serving member of Congress among those elected President, having served 36 years in the Senate. Lyndon Johnson served 24 years in the House and Senate before being elected Vice President and then President.  Johnson was Majority Leader of the Senate.  Gerald Ford served 25 years in the House of Representatives before being appointed Vice President by Richard Nixon. 

House and Senate Service: (10 Presidents)

John Quincy Adams served in the Senate before becoming President, and in the House after he was President.

Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon all served in both the House and Senate before becoming President. Kennedy and Nixon were both elected to the House in 1946 and both were elected to the U.S. Senate (Nixon in 1950 and Kennedy in 1952).  In 1950, John F. Kennedy hand -delivered a $1,000 contribution from his father, Joseph Kennedy, Sr., to Nixon for his Senate campaign. The Kennedy family admired Nixon’s strong anti-communist stance.  Lyndon Johnson served as Majority Leader of the Senate when Kennedy selected him as his running mate in 1960.

Service in the Senate Only:  (7 Presidents)

James Monroe, Martin Van Buren, Benjamin Harrison, Warren Harding, Harry Truman, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden.

Service in House only: (9 Presidents)

James Madison, James K. Polk (Polk was elected Speaker of the House), Millard Fillmore, Abraham Lincoln (served one term and lost his Senate bid to Stephen Douglass), Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, William McKinley, Gerald Ford, and George H.W. Bush (41). 

Presidents With Prior Military Service

Military Service: 19 of our 47 Presidents (40%) had military experience in war-time.

American history is replete with examples of illustrious military service among those who would go on to serve as President. Lieutenant James Monroe was wounded leading a charge at the Battle of Trenton during the Revolutionary War.  Andrew Jackson was a prisoner of war during the American Revolution before achieving fame for his decisive victory against the British in the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812.  William Henry Harrison came to prominence for his bravery in the Battle of Tippecanoe.  Rutherford B. Hayes was severely wounded in the Battle of South Mountain during the Civil War.  Ulysses S. Grant presided over the Army of the Potomac during the most critical period of the Civil War.

Presidents of the twentieth century may not match in sheer numbers the acts of valor of their predecessors, but their wartime exploits are no less prominent. Harry Truman served valiantly as an artillery officer in World War I. Under heavy enemy artillery fire, Truman rallied his deserting troops back to their positions to continue fighting.  John F. Kennedy was in command of PT-109 (Patrol Torpedo boat) when it was rammed by a Japanese destroyer. Kennedy and his surviving crew were forced to abandon their sinking PT boat and swim to a small island 3.5 miles away. It took five hours for Kennedy and his crew to swim to the island.  Kennedy towed a severely burned crewmate, Patrick McMahon, by clenching McMahon’s life-jacket strap with his teeth to keep McMahon afloat. Kennedy received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for his actions.

George H.W. Bush flew 58 combat missions in WWII and was shot down in enemy territory after attacking the Japanese stronghold of Chichi Jima a few hundred miles south of Tokyo. Bush narrowly escaped capture or, worse, death.  He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his service in the War.  Gerald Ford received ten battle stars for his service in combat on the USS Monterey.

From Washington and Jackson to Colin Powell and John McCain, the veneration that Americans hold for those who have served in time of war is not surprising. As Philip Kunhardt, Jr., notes: “From the beginning, the presidency has beckoned to national heroes. Renowned for their service in time of war, they seem to stand above politics, holding out the possibility of a special kind of leadership.”[iii] 

Twelve American Presidents served as Generals in the Army 

The most famous military leaders were Washington and Eisenhower.  For both men, the Presidency was practically a step down from their fame as Generals of the Army during war.  Neither man sought the presidency. They both had to be convinced that they should serve.

 As Philip Kunhardt, Jr. notes, Washington is “the most revered of all” our chief executives. “He was America’s only classical hero, cut in the mold of the ancient Romans. And he was entrusted with the presidency not so much for his generalship as for his restraint and civility and love for his country.”[iv] 

Among twentieth century leaders, Eisenhower’s stature is almost as notable as Washington’s. Eisenhower’s command of the Allied forces at D-Day, and his presidential leadership during the perilous Cold War years of the 1950s ensure his standing in history. Indeed, in the entire landscape of American history, the closest counterpart to Washington in temperament, dignity, stature, and accomplishment in war and in peace is Dwight David Eisenhower.  “Like Washington, Ike appeared to be above politics; early on no one even knew whether he was a Democrat or Republican. And although he was far more politically motivated than anyone realized, throughout his presidency he remained a committed centrist, working hard trying to hold the entire country together.”[v]

The list of the 12 Generals who went on to serve as President is as follows:

George Washington—General of the Armies of the United States, the highest-ranking officer in the War for Independence.

Ulysses S. Grant, a 4 star General. The highest rank in the Civil War.

Rutherford B. Hayes--wounded 5 times in the Civil War, promoted to 2-star Major General.

James Garfield—commanded the 42nd Ohio in the Civil War. He was a Lt. Colonel, promoted to the rank of Major General.

Benjamin Harrison—a Captain in the Civil War, promoted to Brig. General

Andrew Jackson (Old Hickory), a Colonel in the War of 1812, was promoted to General after the Battle of New Orleans.

Franklin Pierce—Commanded troops in the Mexican-American War of 1846, promoted to Brig. General.

William Henry Harrison— led a force against the Indian Chief Tecumseh at the Battle of Tippecanoe in Indiana.  Harrison died in office after serving just 31 days as President.

Zachary Taylor, served in the War of 1812 and the Mexican American War. Became a Major General.

Andrew Johnson, War of 1812 and Creek Indian War given rank of Brig. General as Military Gov. of Tennessee during Civil War.

Chester Arthur, Brigadier General.

Dwight David Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe during WWII, Five Star General, the highest rank in the Army.  In effect, Eisenhower had the same status as George Washington, in command of all military forces.

Of the 15 most recent Presidents, 6 served in combat: Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, and Bush senior (41).  Four others served in non-combat positions, Ronald Reagan and Lyndon Johnson during WWII, Jimmy Carter as an officer in the Navy (Naval Academy graduate), and George W. Bush as a member of the Air Guard in Texas.  Biden, Trump, Obama, FDR, and Clinton had no military experience. Ronald Reagan entered the Army enlisted reserve in 1937. He was ordered to active duty in 1942 after he transferred to the Army Air Forces (AFF). Because of his poor eyesight, he was given limited-service status in the U.S. He was assigned to the AFF public relations unit, and later to the motion picture unit in Culver City, CA.  Johnson served in the Naval Reserve as a congressman and flew one combat mission as an “observer."

Presidents Who Had Been State Governors

16 U.S. Presidents had served as State Governors before being elected President.

Thomas Jefferson was the first president to have held the position of governor. He served as Virginia’s governor from 1779-1781.

• James Monroe: served as Governor of Virginia from 1799-1802, and again served for a brief period as the 16th Governor of Virginia from January through April in 1811.

• John Tyler: another Governor of Virginia, serving from 1825-1827.

• Martin Van Buren: Governor of New York in 1829.

• James Polk: Governor of Tennessee, serving from 1839-1841.

• Andrew Johnson: Governor of Tennessee from 1853-1857 and then appointed by Lincoln to serve as military governor of Tennessee from 1862-1864.

• Rutherford Hayes: Governor of Ohio from 1868-1872 and again from 1876-1877.

• Grover Cleveland: Governor of New York from 1883-1885.

• William McKinley: Governor of Ohio from 1892-1896.

• Woodrow Wilson: Governor of New Jersey from 1911-1913.

• Calvin Coolidge: Governor of Massachusetts from 1919-1921.

• Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Governor of New York from 1929-1933.

• Ronald Reagan: Governor of California from 1967-1975.

• Jimmy Carter: Governor of Georgia from 1971-1975.

• Bill Clinton: Governor of Arkansas for several terms, from 1979-1981 and from 1983-1992.

• George W. Bush: Governor of Texas from 1995-2000.

Six U.S. Presidents served as Secretary of State:

Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, and James Buchanan

15 Presidents previously served as Vice President.

Nine of those 15 became President upon the death or resignation (Nixon) of the President.  The other six Vice Presidents were elected in their own right to the Presidency, including John Adams, Richard Nixon, George H.W. Bush, and Joe Biden.

The Age Factor

The Youngest President in U.S. history was Teddy Roosevelt at age 42.

The Youngest elected President was John F. Kennedy at age 43

Bill Clinton was elected at age 46.

Barack Obama was elected at age 47.

The oldest President before Biden and Trump was Ronald Reagan.

Reagan was elected at age 69 and finished two terms at age 77.

Trump was sworn in for his first term at age 70.  He began his second presidency at age 78.

Biden, like Trump, was age 78 when he was sworn in as President. Hence, Trump and Biden are tied for the title of oldest Presidents in American history.

Socio-Economic Status of Presidents

Just under half of all American Presidents (23) came from high socio-economic status backgrounds, or politically prominent families, or both. Washington, Jefferson, and Madison were all large landowners—Washington through inheritance from his older brother. Both Roosevelts, Kennedy, both Bushes, and Trump, had significant wealth in their families.  All six graduated from Ivy League colleges. 

On the other hand, John Adams, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, and Harry Truman, were the sons of farmers who were not prosperous by any measure.  Lincoln truly did grow up in a Log Cabin with no windows.  Lincoln had only one year of formal education in his life, at an “ABC” school. 

Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, and Clinton grew up on the lower end of the S.E.S. scale. Reagan’s father was a shoe salesman and had a drinking problem. Bill Clinton’s father died in an automobile accident before he was born. His stepfather was an alcoholic who was abusive towards Clinton’s mother. Nixon’s father drifted from job to job.  Eisenhower’s father was a mill-mechanic at the local mill in Abilene, Kansas, and the sons worked at the mill to help make ends meet.  

Herbert Hoover’s father was a blacksmith. Lincoln’s father would not emancipate him until the age of 18 because he needed his help on his small dirt farm.

Taft, Pierce, Benjamin Harrison, and Harding had prominent fathers (Taft senior was a lawyer, Pierce’s father was a General, Harrison’s father was a Lt. Colonel, and Harding’s father was a doctor.

The fathers of Chester Arthur, Grover Cleveland, and Woodrow Wilson were Ministers, and well respected in their communities.

Educational Backgrounds of U.S. Presidents

Nine of America’s presidents (20%) had little or no formal college education: George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Grover Cleveland and Harry Truman—who briefly attended a vocational school but withdrew.  

Four Presidents had some college but did not graduate: James Monroe attended William & Mary but withdrew to fight in the War for Independence.  William Henry Harrison attended Hampden Sydney College; William McKinley attended Allegheny College. 

17 Presidents held degrees from Ivy League universities:

Harvard:  B.A. degree: (5) John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Theodore Roosevelt

                                             Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy

Harvard Law School: (2) Rutherford B. Hayes, Barack Obama

Harvard Business School: George W. Bush (MBA)

Yale: B.A. degree: (3) William Howard Taft, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush

Yale Law School: (2) Gerald R. Ford, Bill Clinton

Princeton: B.A. (2) James Madison, Woodrow Wilson

Columbia: B.A. degree:  Barack Obama

Pennsylvania: B.S. in Business: Donald Trump

U.S. Military Academies:

West Point: (2)   Ulysses S. Grant & Dwight David Eisenhower

Naval Academy:  Jimmy Carter

Other Universities that graduated American Presidents:

Amherst College:                       Calvin Coolidge

Bowdoin College:                      Franklin Pierce

Dickinson College:                     James Buchanan

Eureka College:                          Ronald Reagan

Georgetown University:           Bill Clinton

Kenyon College:                         Rutherford B. Hayes

Miami University of Ohio:        Benjamin Harrison

Texas State Teachers College:  Lyndon B. Johnson

Stanford University:                  Herbert Hoover

Union College                             Chester Arthur

University of Delaware             Joe Biden

University of Michigan              Gerald Ford

University of North Carolina    James K. Polk

Whittier College                         Richard Nixon

William & Mary                          Thomas Jefferson and John Tyler

Williams College                         James Garfield

Presidents with Law Experience

26 of America’s 47 Presidents (55%) were lawyers, though many never practiced law.  Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt practiced law briefly, but Wilson went on to earn a Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins University and ended up teaching political science at Princeton. He later became president of Princeton University. FDR left the practice of law to enter politics.

 John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, and William Howard Taft were distinguished practicing attorneys before devoting their life to public service.  William Howard Taft went on to become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court after he served as President of the United States, thus making him the only person to have served in both of these prestigious institutions.

Most recently, Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, and before them, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, were admitted to the Bar.  None of the other post World War II Presidents were lawyers. Dwight David Eisenhower, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush (41), George W. Bush (43), and Donald Trump never attended law school.  Lyndon Johnson attended Georgetown law school briefly but dropped out.

Presidents with Family Ties to the White House

Prior to the Bush 41 and Bush 43 presidencies, there had been only one other case of both father and son serving as President. John Adams was elected in 1796 and his son, John Quincy Adams, was elected (by the House of Representatives) in 1824.  In the case of the Adamses, there was a 24-year interval between their presidencies, whereas only 8 years had elapsed between the two Bush presidencies. In terms of family ties, it should be noted that President Benjamin Harrison was the grandson of our 8th President, William Henry Harrison, and that Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt were cousins.  Franklin was delighted to have his cousin Teddy speak to his classmates at Groton when Franklin was a student. Teddy was Police Commissioner of the New York City police department and, according to Franklin, kept his classroom in “an uproar for an hour telling us incredible stories about policemen.”  

Conclusion

The American presidency has had a mixture of self-made individuals like Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, and Harry Truman, along with more patrician figures such as Thomas Jefferson, Franklin and Teddy Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy. Men like John Quincy Adams and George H.W. Bush (41) had extensive and varied government service before reaching the Oval Office.  Others, such as Ulysses S. Grant, Eisenhower, and Trump had little or no direct experience in government though they had an abundance of experience running large enterprises. 

Some presidents, like Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and to some extent, Abraham Lincoln, were micromanagers. Whereas others, Eisenhower and Reagan come to mind, were accustomed to broad delegation of authority. Some presidents had a preference for position papers (Nixon and Carter), whereas others, like Lincoln, Eisenhower, and Gerald Ford, were more people oriented and preferred lively debates of the Cabinet, though they also studied position papers.

 Some presidents did not utilize formal advisory bodies like the Cabinet and NSC extensively (Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Biden), whereas others (Nixon, Eisenhower, Reagan and Bush senior) enjoyed systematic use of these advisory bodies.

 Eisenhower was the first president to institute a formal Chief of Staff in the White House. Kennedy abolished the Chief of Staff position and it was not revived until Richard Nixon, who became overly dependent on his White House staff.  Gerald Ford had a highly effective chief of staff in Donald Rumsfeld, who was replaced by Deputy Chief of Staff, Dick Cheney, when Rumsfeld became Secretary of Defense.

 Jimmy Carter tried to get along without a Chief of Staff and found it unworkable. He later named Jack Watson as his staff chief.  Bill Clinton became the first Democrat in modern history to formally appoint a Chief of Staff at the beginning of his tenure as President. Every Democrat and Republican after Clinton formally appointed a Chief of Staff.  The position, like the position of National Security Advisor (another Eisenhower innovation) have now become ingrained,  institutionalized features of the presidency. 

Although presidential personality is still a significant variable that can impact substance and style, institutional precedents and constraints factor in to shaping the office of the presidency more today than ever before.     

[i] When Donald Trump took the oath of office on January 20, 2025, he became only the second person in American history to serve non-consecutive terms, a distinction shared by  Grover Cleveland.  Hence, Trump is the nation’s 47thPresident having also served as the nation’s 45th President.  Likewise, Grover Cleveland was the nation’s 24th President, but also had served as the nation’s 22nd President.  Consequently, while we list 47 official Presidents of the United States, only 45 individuals have actually occupied the office of the presidency. 

[ii]   Lincoln Home: The Formative Years 1809-1830, National Park Service website:  The Formative Years 1809-1830 - Lincoln Home National Historic Site (U.S. National Park Service)

[iii]. Philip B. Kunhardt, Jr., et al, The American President (New York, NY Riverhead Books/Penguin Putnam, Inc., 2000 paperback edition)  p. 3.

[iv]. Kunhardt, p. 3.

[v]. Kunhardt p. 5.

By Phillip G. Henderson

Associate Professor in the Department of Politics at the Catholic University of America.

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