Early life
Warren G Harding, was named after his great-uncle the Reverend Warren Gamaliel Bancroft, a Methodist chaplain at the Wisconsin State Prison. Harding was called 'Winnie' by his mother was born on November 2, 1865, near Corsica, Ohio (now Blooming Grove, Ohio). Harding was the eldest of the eight children of Dr. George Harding and Dr Phoebe Dickerson Harding. His boyhood heroes were Alexander Hamilton and Napoleon. His wholesome and picture book childhood -- farm chores, swimming in the local creek, and playing in the village band -- was the basis of his down-home appeal later in life. Like so many small-town boys in post-Civil War Ohio, Harding, along with his five younger siblings (four sisters and a brother) attended a one room schoolhouse where he learned to read, write, and spell from the McGuffey's Readers.

Unlike other children his mother was a midwife who later obtained her medical license, and his father taught for a time at a rural school north of Mount Gilead, Ohio. While a teenager, the Harding family moved to Caledonia, Ohio in neighboring Marion County, Ohio when Harding's father acquired The Argus, a local weekly newspaper. Harding also received a practical education in journalism, serving as a printer's apprentice on the weekly Caledonia Argus. Harding's education was completed at Ohio Central College (later Muskingum College) in Iberia, Ohio. While a college student, he learned about the printing and newspaper trade while working at the Union Register in Mount Gilead.

After graduation, after the Hardings moved to Marion in 1883, he worked on the Marion Democratic Mirrr. His apprenticeships paid off in 1884, when Harding raised $300 with 2 friends to purchase the Marion Star and became its editor and publisher. It was the weakest of Marion's three newspapers and the only daily in the growing city. Harding converted the paper's editorial platform to support the Republicans and enjoyed a moderate degree of success. Harding struggled as a newspaper owner and editor for several years. The paper's future improved once Harding married Florence Kling De Wolfe, a wealthy widow. With an infusion of money from his new bride, Harding was able to expand his newspaper, making it one of the more popular and politically powerful ones in central Ohio. However, Harding's political stance was at odds with those who controlled most of Marion's local politics. When Harding moved to unseat the Marion Independent as the official paper of daily record, his actions brought the wrath of Amos Kling, one of Marion's wealthiest real estate speculators, down upon him.

While Harding won the war of words and made the Marion Daily Star the biggest newspaper in the county, the battle took a toll on his health. In 1889, when Harding was 24, he suffered exhaustion and nervous fatigue. He traveled to Battle Creek, Michigan to spend several weeks in a sanatorium regaining his strength, later returning to Marion to continue operating the paper. He spent his days boosting the community on the editorial pages, and his evenings "bloviating" (Harding's term for informal conversation) with his friends over games of poker.

In 1891, Harding married Florence Mabel Kling De Wolfe, an older woman by 5 years, a divorcee, and the mother of a young son. She had pursued him persistently, until he reluctantly surrendered and proposed. Florence's father, Amos Kling, was Harding's nemesis. Upon hearing that his only daughter intended to marry Harding, Kling cut her completely out of the family and even forbade his wife to attend her wedding. He opposed the marriage vigorously and would not speak to his daughter or son-in-law for eight years.

While the marriage was not one of full-blown passions, the couple complemented one another, Harding's affable personality balancing his wife's no-nonsense approach to life. Florence Harding inherited her father's determination and business sense, and turned the Marion Daily Star into a profitable business. One of the Hardings' paperboys at the Star was the young Norman Thomas, son of the city's Presbyterian Church minister, who later became a noted journalist and socialist leader in New York City. Thomas, who ran for President on the Socialist Party ticket, often credited his work ethic to Florence Harding, whom he remembered fondly in his recollections of life in Marion. Florence's drive has been credited with helping Harding to achieve greater things than he could have done alone, leading to speculation that she later pushed him all the way to the White House.

Harding was also a Freemason, raised to the Sublime Degree of a Master Mason on August 27, 1920, in Marion Lodge #70, F.& A.M., Marion, Ohio.

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