Video: 'UNITED STATES: Inaugurations of President Warren G. Harding (1921)'

(Friday, March 4, 1921, 1:18 p.m. EST) — Former U.S. Senator Warren G. Harding, 55, of Ohio was inaugurated today as the 29th president of the United States at the East Portico of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., with Chief Justice Edward D. White administering the oath of office.

Former Governor Calvin Coolidge, 48, of Massachusetts was inaugurated as the 29th vice president of the United States, replacing Vice President Thomas Marshall.

This inauguration was the first in which an automobile was used to transport the president-elect and the outgoing president (Woodrow Wilson) to and from the Capitol.

Doctors and family recommended that Wilson, who was in poor physical shape following a debilitating stroke, not go to any inaugural ceremonies other than to accompany the Hardings from the White House to the Capitol.

Harding and Coolidge, both Republicans, had defeated the Democratic ticket of Governor James M. Cox of Ohio and former Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt of New York in the 1920 presidential election.