Return to normalcy

Harding called for "a return to normalcy."

"A return to normalcy" was U.S. Presidential candidate Warren Harding’s campaign promise in the election of 1920.  Although many of Harding's detractors believed that the word was a neologism as well as a malapropism coined by Harding (as opposed to the more usual term "normality"), there was contemporary discussion and evidence found that normalcy was listed in dictionaries as far back as 1857. Furthermore, the concept apparently encapsulated what Americans wanted, since he was elected president over his Democratic opponent James Cox. Many historians have found humor in the fact that Harding's presidency was, considered by many to be, one of the most scandalous presidencies ever. Plagued by the Teapot Dome scandal as well as several incidents that involved bribery, fraud and the destruction of documents, and the nomination of Ku Klux Klan members to the cabinet, Harding's presidency was far from the promised normalcy.

See also

• Creeping normalcy

External links

• "Normalcy", The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, 3th ed., edited by E. D. Hirsch, Jr., et al. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002. ISBN 0618226478.
• "A Time for Normalcy" by Evan Jenkins, Columbia Journalism Review, January/February 2002.