QUICK FACTS

Nickname: Young Hickory of the Granite Hills

Years in office: 1853–1857

Political party: Democratic

Birthday: November 23, 1804

Official presidential portrait of Franklin Pierce

by George Peter Alexander Healy, 1858

Franklin Pierce, by Mauritz H. Traubel, 1852 (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution)

Handsome Frank was the Democratic Party nominee for the election of 1852. Pierce easily defeated the Whig candidate, Winfield Scott. 

In the election of 1852, the Whig party chose to not nominate the incumbent president, Millard Fillmore.  Instead, they went with General Winfield Scott.  He challenged a lesser-known Democratic candidate, Franklin Pierce.  Pierce won by a large margin, signaling the decline of the Whigs.

BIRTHPLACE

Hillsboro, NH

FRANKLIN PIERCE UNIVERSITY

 Rindge, NH

HOME

Concord, NH

GRAVESITE

Concord, NH

BOOKS

Davis, Kenneth C., and Pedro Martin. Don’t Know Much about the Presidents. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2014.

DeGregorio, William A., and Aaron Jaffe. The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents. Fort Lee, NJ: Barricade Books, Inc., 2017.

Kane, Joseph Nathan, and Janet Podell. Facts about the Presidents: A Compilation of Biographical and Historical Information. New York: H.W. Wilson, 2009.

WEBSITES

Encyclopedia Britannica, britannica.com

Library of Congress, loc.gov

Miller Center, University of Virginia, millercenter.org/the-presidency

The White House, whitehouse.gov

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