Ronald Reagan: One of America's Most Popular Presidents - Research Paper Example

Ronald Reagan: One of America's Most Popular Presidents Background (Early Life) Ronald Reagan was born on February 6 in the year 1911 in a small town of Tampico, Illinois. He was the second son to John Edward Reagan and Nelle Wilson Reagan. His father belonged to an Irish ancestry and his mother to a Scot-English ancestry. During his childhood he was given the nick name ‘Dutch’ due to his appearance and this name then stayed there for the rest of his life too. His family had moved to many different towns and cities in Illinois such as Monmouth and Chicago. However, in the year 1919 he moved back to Tampico and to Dixon in 1920 where they finally settled (Encyclopædia Britannica, 2009). Reagan was nine years old at that time. As they used to move so frequently therefore Reagan couldn’t make any lasting friends and was dependent on the family for any company, due to which the whole family was very close to one another like one unit. Both the brothers did not receive any formal education but they attended grammar school for some years. The Reagan family was poor and had to work hard to make ends meet. Due to this the brothers learned a lot throughout their lives and this made them ‘Street Smart’. The kids were taught to be generous and work hard to earn a living. Their parents were against racial discrimination and taught this to their children too and encouraged them to treat all their friends equally. Reagan’s parents had always encouraged him to concentrate more on studies but he focused more on sports instead. He was fond of football and was also interested in acting and took part in many church and school plays. He was a much known boy in school and liked by all, this lead him to become a president of the student body in the school. In the year 1928 he got into Disciples of Christ Eureka College (Encyclopædia Britannica, 2009). During his high school he was not one of the best students because he chose to spend most of the time he had into other school activities. But he became popular figure in college yet again when he carried out a protest strike. At Eureka he was member of college team of sports like football, track, swimming and basketball. He was an elected student body president and had won many awards in college. He graduated from that college in the year 1932 after completing his degree in economics and sociology (Encyclopædia Britannica, 2009). He was twenty one years old at that time. Life before the presidency After graduating from college he got two major setbacks in his life, firstly the girl he was seeing and was about to get married soon left him for another man and secondly he was not accepted as the manager of the Montgomery Wards Store in Dixon. His career at acting had already began while he was at college he entered the show business as a sports caster in a radio station. When he saw his friends who got a chance in films he thought even he could enter into films and it was in the mid 30’s he even got an opportunity to enter into Hollywood by signing with the Warner Bros. He made his first screen debut in the year 1937 in the movie love is in the air. This film was followed by many other movies made by Reagan. Eventually he got a prominent role in the Bette Davis dark victory after which is came in the eyes of the viewers and made some place in Hollywood and he featured in around 50 films in this time in Hollywood (Encyclopædia Britannica, 2009). He was in the army for three years and rose to the rank of a captain but realized there that he didn’t have any interest in the army. During his time there he has made training films during the World War II which included movies for the US military pilots. During the 50’s he freelanced for studios but his film career was fading by then. He began hosting the television show General electric theatre. After coming back from army he joined the Screen Actors Guild, he was part of it for many years and was also elected as the president in the year 1946. He served there for five years and gave his resignation in the year 1960 (Encyclopædia Britannica, 2009). During his tenure as the president of SAG he went around the country making speeches regarding the protection of small actors and the movie industry as a whole. People would cheer and applaud at his speeches. Through out his mission he had an anti communism sentiment. He had the fear that the communist would take over the Hollywood motion industry and during his time as the president he black listed several communist members of the industry. This was the time when his political career was taking a boom while his acting career was slowing down and eventually dieing off. In the year 1954 he signed a contract to work in a television show general electric and theatre (Simkin). He became a television producer and made money out of it. He had made his own talent agency named MCA. His last performance was in the year 1957 in the movie Hellcats of the navy where he was featured opposite his second wife Nancy Davis (Simkin). He ended his acting career in 1964 (Simkin). Marriage and children He got married in 1940 to an actress Jane Wyman in the year 1940 and had two children from her named Maureen and Christine and they adopted their third child Michael (Encyclopædia Britannica, 2009). It is said that the his only political ambitions caused this divorce, while some said that it was because of his role as the president of the screen Actors Guild that he got very busy and it caused problems in the marriage, while some say that it was because Wayne gave birth to a premature baby girl which didn’t survive. However no one knows that exact reason but Wyman took a divorce from him in the year 1948, making the marriage last for only eight years (Encyclopædia Britannica, 2009). He has been the only president of America who has been divorced so far in history. Later he met Nancy Davis and got married to her in the year 1952 and had two children from her as well (Rosenberg). They had a healthy relationship as they were happy together and were in love with one another at the time of Reagan’s death. They never took each other for granted and shared mutual feelings. Early political career It was the time when poverty was very common and unemployment was high in America. Therefore the Americans preferred supporting Franklin Roosevelt New Deal. Reagan was the supporter of FDR democrats. He has been actively involved in politics through out the 1950’s (Bragg, 2008). He used to make speeches on communism and the anti American conservative activities. He supported many democrats who were running the state of California at that time. His political life was at a confusion stance because he supported Dwight D. Eisenhower in the campaigns in the year 1952 and 1956 though he was a liberal himself (Bragg, 2008). However he supported Nixon in the year 1960 and made speeches on his behalf (Bragg, 2008). He supported Barry Goldwater in 1964 as he was also anti soviet and communist (Bragg, 2008). He made a speech on his behalf on television. This was said to be the start of Reagan’s political career, though Goldwater lost that years presidential elections but was able to raised eight million dollars. Reagan converted from a FDR democrat to a conservative republican. He hated the communist and Soviet supporters. His association from the family’s side was mainly towards the republicans. As a social person most of his interaction was with the rich, elite yet conservatives of California. People believed that this political shift in Reagan was due to the fact that he had gone through hard times earning money and therefore didn’t wanted to give ninety percent of his annual income to the government in the form of taxes. All these factors combined and encouraged Reagan to join the Republican Party in the year 1962 (Bragg, 2008). He decided to run for the governor state of California four years after that. As he campaigned for himself he made his own identity and set himself apart from Goldwater as an average American who was confident and wanted lower taxes for the people, reduced government spending and work for the welfare and the peace in the state with less crime. During his campaign he also criticized his opponent Pat Brown for overspending and inability to control violence at the California State University. Pat to counter that did not take the actor turned politician seriously. However Reagan took a long lead and won the elections and became the governor of California in an overnight. The Governor of California He was the 33rd governor of California (Simkin). His tenure as the governor was neither very successful or a failure in general. He had to forgo many of pledges after he took the office like many other politicians. He faced the first major challenge when the government faced a major budget deficit and in order to reduce it he decreased the spending of each department of the government. This worked at few places however it had negative impact on some departments, like due to limited funds the government had to release unstable patients from the hospital. He sold the state jet and froze the states spending too. Moreover he contradicted his own statements by raining the taxes of the state to increase fund rather than decreasing them. He introduced a welfare program which did not prove to me very successful for him but later on became a model for other conservative governors. He remained firm on his anti war sentiments during the 1960’s. One of the most controversial cases he got into was to resolve the university of California case through the use of military force and even declared a state of emergency which caused unrest and vilolence. The voters of Reagan yet again loved him and supported him and wanted him to take the office again in the year 1970; however he refused to join it and ended his office of governor in the year 1970 (Bragg, 2008). Presidential tenure After his retirement from the office of governorship he decided to take up the presidential elections. This was the ideal time for him to run for these elections because he had the fame and the experience that was required. It was not till the 1970’s that he actively brought forward this idea in front of his family and closed ones and went ahead with it. It was 1976 when he had to run for the election campaign opposite the current president which was a very difficult task but he took up the challenge and decided to move on with his decision. He chose Senator Richard Schweiker as his running mate. He disagreed with Gerald Ford on many things and used those in his campaign and criticized the excessive power of the existing government (Simkin). He believed on focusing on education, welfare and development programs. He went on with his campaign making speeches all around the county. He lost the elections of 1976 but as a result of that at the time of 1980 elections he became the most favored republican nominee (Rosenberg). He again started campaigning and addressed to several issues in that such as the President Carter’s links with the Soviet. He proposed stronger defense of the country as the United States was losing a war against the Soviets at that time. He won the parties nomination and had to choose his running mate for the next elections. He chose George Bush for this place. Carter and Reagan both had nasty campaigns where they made strategies and tactics against each other. At that time the most controversial issue going on was the American hostages taken by Iran at that time and Carter’s inability to free them lead to Reagan’s increased popularity. All this lead towards defeat for Carter and Reagan and Bush won the elections. As soon as Reagan took the office of the president the Iranian ruler freed the hostages after 444 days (Rosenberg). He is known as the 40th president of United States. He introduced many different strategies and policies during his time. Though he campaigned against less spending on military by the government but he increased it during his own presidential period. Relations with the Soviet Union also improved but he was still against communists and its supporter worldwide. He was elected again for the post of president in the year 1984 but much of that time was gone in controversies with Iran and Reagan selling arms to them (Simkin). Reagan left the office of presidency when George Bush was elected as the next president of the United States. Reagan retired in 1994 from the public office to spend the rest of his life with his wife and children (Simkin). He has good ranking among the various presidents of Unites states so far. Works Cited "ABOUT THE WHITE HOUSE - PRESIDENTS." The White House. The White House. 7 Jul 2009 . Bragg, Karri. "Reagan Day in Maine!." Reagan's Legacy. 08 Feb 2008. 7 Jul 2009 . Ronald W. Reagan." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 07 Jul. 2009 Rosenberg, Jennifer. "Ronald Reagan." About.com: 20th century history. About.com. 7 Jul 2009 . Simkin, John. Spartacus Educational. 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