16th1861–1865
Abraham Lincoln
16th President · Illinois
The first Republican president, who led the Union through the Civil War, issued the Emancipation Proclamation and pressed the Thirteenth Amendment through Congress.
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The Administrations
Nineteen Republican Presidents
From Abraham Lincoln to Donald J. Trump. Each record covers the president’s life and offices, the administration’s major actions and documents, and the criticism and debate around it. Portraits are public-domain photographs, credited on each record.
Era II · 1861–1877
Union, Emancipation and Reconstruction
16th
18th1869–1877
Ulysses S. Grant
18th President · Illinois
The Union’s victorious general, who as president enforced Reconstruction and the Fifteenth Amendment while his administration was shadowed by scandal.
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Era III · 1877–1900
Industrial America
19th1877–1881
Rutherford B. Hayes
19th President · Ohio
A reform-minded Union veteran who won the disputed election of 1876 and presided over the end of Reconstruction.
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20th1881
James A. Garfield
20th President · Ohio
A self-made scholar and Civil War general whose presidency of barely six and a half months ended with an assassin’s bullet that spurred civil service reform.
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21st1881–1885
Chester A. Arthur
21st President · New York
A product of New York’s patronage machine who surprised his critics by signing the Pendleton Civil Service Act and beginning the modern steel navy.
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23rd1889–1893
Benjamin Harrison
23rd President · Indiana
A grandson of President William Henry Harrison who signed the Sherman Antitrust Act, admitted six western states and backed federal protection of Black voting rights.
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25th1897–1901
William McKinley
25th President · Ohio
The last Civil War veteran to serve as president, who led the nation through the Spanish–American War and into a new role as a Pacific and Caribbean power.
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Era IV · 1901–1920
Roosevelt and Republican Progressivism
26th1901–1909
Theodore Roosevelt
26th President · New York
The youngest president, who used the office as a “bully pulpit” to regulate corporations, conserve public lands and project American power abroad.
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27th1909–1913
William Howard Taft
27th President · Ohio
A judge by temperament who continued Roosevelt’s trust-busting, split with him over reform, and later became the only person to serve as both president and chief justice.
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Era V · 1920–1952
Republicanism Between the World Wars
29th1921–1923
Warren G. Harding
29th President · Ohio
A small-town newspaper publisher who promised a “return to normalcy” after World War I, and whose brief presidency paired lasting reforms with notorious scandals.
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30th1923–1929
Calvin Coolidge
30th President · Massachusetts
A taciturn New Englander who championed thrift, tax reduction and limited government during the prosperity of the 1920s.
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31st1929–1933
Herbert Hoover
31st President · California
A celebrated engineer and humanitarian whose presidency was overwhelmed by the Great Depression.
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Era VI · 1953–1964
Eisenhower and the Cold War
34th1953–1961
Dwight D. Eisenhower
34th President · Kansas
The commander of D-Day and victory in Europe, who as president ended the Korean War, built the Interstate Highway System and enforced school desegregation at Little Rock.
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Era VII · 1964–1980
Goldwater and the Conservative Movement
37th1969–1974
Richard Nixon
37th President · California
A Cold War strategist who opened relations with China, pursued détente and signed landmark environmental laws before becoming the only president to resign.
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38th1974–1977
Gerald R. Ford
38th President · Michigan
The only president never elected to the presidency or vice presidency, who sought to heal the nation after Watergate and pardoned his predecessor.
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Era VIII · 1981–1989
The Reagan Era
40th1981–1989
Ronald Reagan
40th President · California
The former actor and California governor who cut taxes, rebuilt the military and signed the first treaty to eliminate an entire class of nuclear weapons as the Cold War neared its end.
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Era IX · 1989–2008
The Bush Era and Post–Cold War Republicanism
41st1989–1993
George H. W. Bush
41st President · Texas
A World War II naval aviator and veteran diplomat who guided the peaceful end of the Cold War, led the coalition that liberated Kuwait and signed the Americans with Disabilities Act.
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43rd2001–2009
George W. Bush
43rd President · Texas
A two-term governor of Texas and son of the forty-first president, whose presidency was defined by the response to the September 11 attacks and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
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Era XI · 2015–present
Trump, MAGA and America First
45th & 47th2017–2021; 2025–present
Donald J. Trump
45th & 47th President · New York; Florida since 2019
A New York real estate developer and television personality who won the presidency in 2016 without any prior government service, lost reelection in 2020 and returned to the White House in 2025 — the second president to serve non-consecutive terms.
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