Ohio's Last VP: Nobel Prize Winner, #1 Hit Songwriter, Gen. Charles Dawes

Ohio V. The World

Our Presidential mini-season is back for 2024! We start with a bio episode on Ohio's last Vice President, General Charles G. Dawes (1925-1929), Calvin Coolidge's running mate from Marietta, Ohio. With JD Vance on the Republican ticket, Ohio may be seeing their first VEEP in 100 years. Charles Dawes is completely lost to history despite being a Nobel Peace Prize winner, writer of a #1 pop song, WWI General and a popular Vice President.

Alex sits down with author Annette Dunlap to discuss her excellent biography, Charles G. Dawes: A Life, (2016) of the former VP. Her great book is the only Dawes biography we could find in the last 90 years. Annette takes us through his family history from the Mayflower to the American Revolution and the Civil War to his youth in Marietta and Cincinnati, Ohio. Annette discusses, Dawes first foray into politics helping to run William McKinley's successful 1896 presidential campaign to his time as an important general in WWI for the American Expeditionary Force.

Bruce Carlson joins the show to discuss Dawes' time in Nebraska, in politics and the Dawes Plan to ease the global crisis surrounding Germany's WWI reparations. Carlson the host of the My History Can Beat Up Your Politics podcast and the Vices podcast talks to us about Dawes' years as Vice President and his rocky relationship with his running mate Calvin Coolidge. We discuss his 1925 Nobel Peace Prize and how did a former Vice President write a #1 pop music hit?

Buy Annette's book here https://www.amazon.com/dp/0810134195

Check out Bruce's Vices podcast on America's Vice Presidents https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/vice-presidents-of-the-united-states-podcast/id1440240504

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