Mourning a President #576: John B. Kendrick Papers

Published March 5, 2026 at 6:00 AM MST

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Photos from the pictorial section of The Washington Post, covering the death and funeral of President Warren G. Harding, August 12, 1923. Box 227, John B. Kendrick papers, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

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Photos from the pictorial section of The Washington Post, covering the death and funeral of President Warren G. Harding, including at center a portrait of President Harding, August 12, 1923. Box 227, John B. Kendrick papers, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.

When President Warren G. Harding died on August 2, 1923, the nation went into mourning. Harding had been a popular president. He was in San Francisco at the time of his death, on a cross-country speaking tour. Aides had encouraged him to make the trip as he prepared to run for re-election.

Harding was only 58 and the cause of death is believed, today, to have been a heart attack. At the time, though, speculation and rumor ran rampant. Some accused Harding’s doctors of incompetence. Other believed he had been poisoned by his wife.

Harding’s body was returned by funeral train from San Francisco to Washington D.C. Services were held in the Capitol before Congress, the Cabinet, and a large group of dignitaries. The mourning public was invited to the Capitol rotunda, where Harding lay in state.

At his homestead in Vermont, Vice President Calvin Coolidge was sworn into office as the new president.

For more information about the solemn days following Harding’s death, see the John B. Kendrick papers at UW’s American Heritage Center.