Nan Britton, Scandal-Maker
They don’t make scandals like they used to, and Nan Britton is proof. She not only managed to seduce President Warren G Harding, she also helped turn his reputation from one of the most well-liked men in American history to one of the most reviled. All it took was one shocking allegation…that also happened to be true.
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1. She Was A Country Girl
Fate caught up with Nan Britton early. Born in the rural town of Marion, Ohio in 1896, she just so happened to live in the same place as the future president Warren G Harding. At the time, Harding was a successful businessman and politician who owned the local newspaper The Marion Star—and Britton knew she had to have him.
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2. She Had An Intense Crush
Although Harding was over 30 years Britton’s senior, as a teenager she developed an all-consuming crush on the handsome, affable man about town. This was hardly an innocent infatuation either: the schoolgirl began stalking the politician, somehow always managing to run into him and flirt.
It was so obvious, and Britton was so determined, that something eventually had to be done.
Harris & Ewing, Wikimedia Commons
3. He Let Her Down Easy
Eventually, Nan’s father intervened on his daughter’s behalf, even going so far as to arrange a face-to-face meeting with Harding and his daughter so the older man could let her down gently. In the meeting, Harding reportedly informed Nan that he was sure she would one day meet the man of her dreams, insinuating that it wasn’t him.
This was apparently enough for Nan’s father. But then again, he didn’t have the slightest clue.
Bain News Service, publisher, Wikimedia Commons
4. She Liked Older Men
On the surface, it might have looked to everyone like Nan was barking up the wrong tree. After all, Harding was one of the most respected men in Marion. More than that, he had served in the Ohio State Senate, worked as lieutenant governor, and around this time was elected to the US Senate, with his eye on the White House. Except he was already hiding some dirty secrets.
5. She Knew What She Was After
Harding was nearly 50 years old at the time that Britton developed her crush, and no stranger to torrid love affairs. Although he was married to the iron-willed Florence Kling, who helped run his political campaigns and fiercely guarded his image, Harding nonetheless had an affair with Florence’s close friend Carrie Phillips.
So perhaps it was no surprise when Britton’s attentions began working.
Agence Rol. Agence photographique (commanditaire), Wikimedia Commons
6. She Campaigned For Him
While Britton’s infatuation grew, Harding was busy on his US Senate campaign. One day, she deliberately “passed” by his house and told him that she had adorned her room with his campaign posters. Far from dismissing her, Harding replied archly—with his wife Florence looking on—that maybe she’d like to have a real photograph in her collection. These kinds of interactions escalated.
National Photo Company Collection, Wikimedia Commons
7. He Treated Her Like A Doll
As Harding got deeper into his eventually successful Senate campaign, he took Britton right along with him. When she was still a teenager, he reportedly began sitting her on his lap in his private office, all while Britton remained starry-eyed for the much older man.
Then, when he finally became a US Senator, he let loose.
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8. She Became His “Bride”
Up until now, Britton’s flirtation with Harding was just that—a flirtation. But when she was 20 years old, and he was now over 50, the new Senator Harding took her to a New York Hotel where she, as she later euphemistically put it, became his “bride”.
Nan Britton was now officially a political mistress, but she was barely a woman, and it showed.
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9. He Liked That She Was A Little Girl
Recalling this first consummation, Britton said “I remember so well I wore a pink linen dress which was rather short and enhanced the little-girl look”. Indeed, she knew Harding enjoyed this “little-girl look”. As she put it, “The fact that I was so ignorant seemed to add to his cherishment of me”.
But it all went wrong almost immediately.
10. The Vice Squad Caught Them
Although Harding had registered at the hotel under a fake name, New York’s Vice Squad, who had been tipped off that an extramarital affair was afoot, burst into the room just after Harding and Britton had finished. The officers even began to arrest the couple, with Harding pleading to “Let this poor little girl go!”
Then they realized who they were dealing with, and everything changed.
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11. He Protected Her
This was 1910s America, and morality was taken as a legal imperative…just not for Senators. As soon as the officers recognized Harding, and his attendant high position in government, they stopped and actually apologized to him. As Britton remembered, they were “strangely respectful, withdrawing very soon”.
It would not be the last tight spot the two were in.
Harris & Ewing, photographer, Wikimedia Commons
12. Their Secret Grew
If Harding ever had any hesitance about Britton, all his qualms now seemed to disappear, and they indulged in a years-long affair under his wife’s nose. Reportedly, Harding especially liked to take romantic getaways with Britton, where she would drive him around; he nicknamed her “my little chaffeuse”. But all this made his next move very inadvisable.
Screenshot from Boardwalk Empire, HBO (2010-2014)
13. He Ran For President
In the end, a wife at home was hardly Harding’s biggest concern. Despite the fact that he had only just recently escaped the Vice Squad and was still carrying on with his much-younger mistress, he sought the Republican nomination for president in 1920.
To be fair, he was a long shot. But he didn’t stay that way.
National Photo Company Collection, Wikimedia Commons
14. He Got Lucky
The 1920 Republican Convention brought a twist no one saw coming: Thanks to underground tensions and various factions, the widely popular Warren G Harding won the nomination, with Calvin Coolidge nominated as Harding’s prospective Vice President.
Britton was now the mistress of a presidential hopeful…and then much more than that.
Cornell University Library, Wikimedia Commons
15. She Romanced A President
In the end, Harding and the Republicans won in a landslide, and the new President Harding was inaugurated on March 4, 1921. As we’ll see, Nan Britton was rather busy herself at this time, but none of this stopped or even altered their affair. It only moved it into more scandalous surroundings.
Screenshot from Boardwalk Empire, HBO (2010-2014)
16. They Made Scandalous Choices
Partly because of the illicit nature of their relationship, Harding and Britton often found interesting places to conduct it. Britton later divulged some of these sites, including Harding’s Senate office couch. But once he was President Harding, Britton began gaining access to some of the most scandalous corners of the White House.
17. They Had A Favorite Closet
Britton and Harding, who hadn’t slowed things down when he became president, didn’t draw the boundary for their clandestine meetings at the White House door, either. Most scandalously of all, Britton later admitted that one of their favorite “spots” was a coat closet right near the Oval Office. They weren’t even very secretive about it.
18. His Wife Was Onto Them
Harding’s wife Florence was no fool, and though she wasn’t aware of his affair with Nan Britton at the beginning, she did eventually catch wind that something was going on. Determined to nip her husband’s philandering in the bud, she hired a spy to trail Britton and destroy any romantic letters he came across. She also took more drastic measures.
Miscellaneous Items in High Demand, PPOC, Library of Congress, Wikimedia Commons
19. They Had To Get Sneaky
To curb her husband’s White House trysts—and decrease his chances of utterly ruining his image—Florence began clocking whoever entered and exited the building. Nonetheless, all this did was force the president to use different estates to meet with Britton.
As for his reputation, Harding had professional help to keep that intact.
Chicago History Museum, Getty Images
20. The Secret Service Was In On It
President Harding may have been misusing the powers of his office to dally with Britton, but he very much had those powers. In fact, Britton's memoir alleges he had secret service members keep an eye out for him whenever he was in a compromising position; they would apparently even knock on that closet door if Florence was nearby.
But Harding and Britton’s affair got much more complicated than all that.
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21. She Had A Secret Baby
In early 1919, about a year before the Republic Convention that changed everything, Nan Britton made a jaw-dropping discovery: She was pregnant. The little girl, Elizabeth Ann, was born that October in the utmost secrecy in New Jersey, and Britton gave her to an aunt and uncle in Athens, Ohio to be raised.
But Elizabeth Ann’s true parentage would soon be an explosive matter.
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22. He Suddenly Fell Ill
In 1923, Britton and Harding were still carrying on their affair, with Britton’s daughter tucked safely away in Ohio. Then everything changed again, and it was nothing so lucky as a presidential nomination: That July, Harding fell ill with an abdominal complaint serious enough to cancel his upcoming weekend in Portland.
Before the summer was out, disaster hit.
Harris & Ewing, photographer, Wikimedia Commons
23. He Met A Brutal End
Thanks in part to Florence’s efforts, the early 1920s public loved President Harding, and they waited nervously along with Nan Britton to hear of his recovery. They never got the chance. In early August, Harding convulsed and perished from a heart attack in his sick bed at only 57.
It threw America into a panic, but perhaps no one suffered as much as Nan Britton.
Harris & Ewing, photographer, Wikimedia Commons
24. She Got Hush Money
While Harding was alive, Britton received regular, monthly payments from him. This money helped her provide for her daughter—and, quite likely, bought her silence about her dalliance with the president. So when Harding suddenly collapsed, Nan didn’t just lose her lover, she lost funds she depended on. Her attempts to scrape them back were doomed.
Screenshot from Boardwalk Empire, HBO (2010-2014)
25. She Lost Everything
In the wake of the president’s death, Harding’s widow Florence went into overdrive trying to protect his legacy. She refused to grant an autopsy and destroyed all his papers with near-religious fervor. She also, despite appeals from Britton, refused to give Harding’s mistress a single cent, perhaps thinking that would cut off the sordid story once and for all.
But where there’s no hush money, well, people talk.
26. Whispers Rose Up
The first dent in Harding’s legacy didn’t come from Britton at all, but from within his own government. Over the next few years, infamous cases like the Teapot Dome Scandal revealed immense corruption, payoffs, and rot at the heart of the Harding administration, all of which still cast a shadow over his legacy today.
As Harding’s golden reputation lost its luster, more lips loosened.
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27. She Struggled Without Him
Over the next years, Britton reeled from her grief over Harding while struggling to support herself as well as her daughter, working mostly as a secretary. Florence’s passing just a year after her husband (she had never been healthy herself) all but foreclosed any future payments from the estate, and Britton had to have realized she was on her own.
In response, she began writing the most controversial book of her day.
Beku Kanomi, Unsplash, Enhanced
28. She Wrote A Tell-All
Britton began writing a memoir about her time with Harding, hoping its sales would help support her. She pulled no punches: In The President’s Daughter, she revealed many of the infamous details of their affair that we know today, including the tidbit about the closet, and insisted that Elizabeth Ann was Warren Harding’s daughter.
It was the first presidential kiss-and-tell book, and American society nearly imploded.
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29. No One Wanted Her
Even getting the book off the ground was scandalous for Britton. Even given Harding’s waning reputation, no one wanted to touch the book with a ten foot pole. Britton eventually had to create her own moral universe around it, setting up the “Elizabeth Ann Guild” in honor of her daughter in order to publish the book, and then dedicating it primly to “all unwedded mothers”. It didn’t help at all.
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30. The Government Despised Her
When Britton’s book finally came out, it caused a frenzy. The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice had officers seize every copy they could of it, both printed copies and zinc plates, and one congressman even introduced a bill aiming to ban the book, which he called “a blast from Hell”. Not that this stopped Britton.
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31. Her Book Was Naughty
Eventually, to get the book out to anyone at all, Britton had to resort to distributing it like it was suggestive contraband. People sold it door-to-door, wrapped in brown paper, exactly as most people got, ahem, “other” kinds of reading material. For all that, the book did sell, giving Britton the money she’d hoped for…but not the respect.
32. She Landed In Court
After The President’s Daughter became a sensation, publisher Charles Klunk put out The Answer, which aimed to both leapfrog off the book’s popularity and systematically debunk most of Britton’s claims. Incensed at the work, Britton took Klunk to court for libel.
It was here the punishments began to rain down…on her.
Thomas Martin Easterly, Wikimedia Commons
33. She Was “Deranged”
Although it was Britton who brought the lawsuit, she reaped the bitter consequences of a public trial. During cross-examination, congress member Grant Mouser lambasted her, calling her everything from a “degenerate and pervert” to someone who was “distorted,” “deranged,” and “demented”. Worse was to come.
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34. She Lost Her Case
After enduring this brutal, intensely personal cross-examination, Britton got absolutely nothing out of her suit. In particular, since she couldn’t prove via primary sources that Harding had fathered her child, the judge couldn’t call The Answer libel and dismissed the case.
Britton had to exit with her tail between her legs, and her reputation never recovered.
35. She Went Into Hiding
Fed up with the constant scrutiny and once more out of money, Britton took her daughter Elizabeth Ann and moved to Illinois, setting up the girl at school there and watching her grow. Although she sometimes gave interviews early in this period, she became something of a recluse, and often shied away from attention. That attention, after all, was often vicious.
36. History Was Cruel To Her
Ironically, although many people did seem to think Britton was telling the truth, no one high up in the government seemed to think so, and even more recent historians have seen her as a mere gold digger. As John Dean put it in his 2004 book on Warren G Harding, Britton was only trying to “cash in,” and “[all] her papers show is a lifetime fixation with Harding”.
Alfred S. Campbell, Wikimedia Commons
37. She Never Changed Her Story
Despite the erosion of her credibility, Britton remained steadfast that Elizabeth Ann was Harding’s daughter; according to Elizabeth Ann herself, her mother informed her from a young age that Warren was her father. Moreover, in interviews, although she refused to say Warren’s name, Britton referred to her daughter as “Ann Harding”.
But the Harding family told a much different story.
38. They Thought He Was Infertile
Over the years, the Harding family staunchly denied Warren’s paternity of Elizabeth Ann—and they apparently had good reason. Reportedly, an early bout of mumps had left Warren sterile, and his childless marriage to Florence only seemed like proof of this. Only, they may have been overlooking something.
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39. He Had A Loveless Marriage
While Warren’s marriage to Florence was regimented and organized, it was anything but romantic. He even once coldly admitted about it: “there isn’t one iota of affection in my home relationship. … It is merely existence, necessary for appearance’s sake,” indicating that he and Florence were very rarely intimate, if at all.
In fact, sometimes it seemed like Harding was seducing everyone but his wife.
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40. She Wasn’t The Only One
Britton was desperately young when she and Harding started a relationship, and perhaps too young to fully comprehend his enormous bedroom appetite. For one, Harding’s affair with his wife’s friend Carrie Phillips also went on for many years; it only stopped in 1920, just before his presidency and only after Phillips exchanged her silence about the dalliance for, again, money.
Thus, for a time, Harding juggled Britton, Phillips, and his wife. This soon came out in the worst way.
Louis Van Oeyen/ WRHS, Getty Images
41. His Letters Came Out
By the 1960s, many had forgotten about Nan Britton, and those who did believed her story less and less. Until, that is, another of Harding’s secrets came out decades after: a biographer found love letters between him and Carrie Phillips that left no doubt about his enthusiastic philandering. One letter, dated early 1912, opens “I love your poise / Of perfect thighs / When they hold me / in paradise”. It wasn’t the only uncomfortable discovery.
42. He Used Nicknames
It’s also partly through these letters that the wider world learned about Harding’s nickname for “himself”. While he called Carrie Phillips’ parts “Mrs Pouterson,” he named his own equipment “Jerry” and referred to “him” often in their letters. In no time at all, these nicknames were stuck in the public consciousness.
People were finally waking up to Harding, and—much to her dismay—remembering Nan Britton.
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43. She Shut Down
Harding’s letters to Phillips brought a new credibility to Britton’s decades-old claims, plus a renewed interest in her story, and reporters began trying to track Britton down to get her side of it. The trouble was, Britton was tired of talking; when journalist RW Apple Jr located her, she refused to give an interview. Besides, she still had her enemies.
44. They Still Hated Her
For every person who now seemed willing to give Nan Britton a chance, there was another who wanted to shame her for eternity. During this time, Britton, her daughter, and later on even Britton’s grandchildren, would sometimes “be hounded by hateful skeptics,” particularly whenever it was an election year. It all got to be too much.
Screenshot from Boardwalk Empire, HBO (2010-2014)
45. She Lived Much Longer Than Her Lover
In the 1980s, a now-eldery Britton moved again, this time to the even more remote Oregon, setting up herself and her family in the town of Sandy. She would live out the rest of her days there, passing in March of 1991 at the age of 94. She had continued to remark very little on the scandal that made her name—except, that is, to keep claiming that Elizabeth Ann was Harding’s daughter.
But Britton also had another, more heartbreaking reason for keeping her silence.
46. She Loved Him Until The End
For all his faults, Nan Britton kept Warren G Harding in her heart for decades, and through every bit of turmoil and vitriol she experienced as a result of their affair. In 1991, just after her passing, her grandson told the New York Times that Britton had been utterly in love with Harding “until the day she died”.
Yet for all that she was long-lived, Nan Britton never got to see justice. That would come more than 20 years later, and only after another death.
47. Her Daughter Followed Her Footsteps
Nan Britton’s daughter Elizabeth Ann might have put to rest all the rumors by simply taking a DNA test to prove or disprove that she was Harding’s daughter…except that she had no interest in doing so. Though some argued it was in the public interest to know, Elizabeth Ann, steadfast like her mother, refused a paternity test until the day she died, at the age of 86, in 2005.
It would be ten more years until the truth came out.
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48. She Was Proven Right
In 2015, with all parties in the age-old scandal buried, Ancestry.com took up the charge and, with permission, tested the descendants’ of Warren G Harding’s brother and Nan Britton’s grandchildren. The results showed, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Elizabeth Ann was Warren G Harding’s daughter.
It set off another flurry of interest around Britton, though she was no longer around to speak for herself. More discoveries came with it.
Screenshot from Boardwalk Empire, HBO (2010-2014)
49. There Might Have Been Others Like Her
Carrie Phillips and Britton were likely not the only mistresses Harding entertained, and Elizabeth Ann may not have been his only child. One affidavit indicates that Harding had an affair with his Senate secretary, and after taking up with yet another of his wife Florence’s friends, he may have had another illegitimate daughter in Marion Louise Hodder, though there is no current DNA test to confirm.
Then again, this was a man who told reporters when he was president, “It’s a good thing I’m not a woman. I would always be pregnant. I can’t say no”.
Screenshot from Boardwalk Empire, HBO (2010-2014)
50. She Was Vindicated
Nan Britton spent her early life getting what she thought she wanted, her middle years desperate to be believed and validated, and her bittersweet end trying to shut that door behind her. History, though, kept pulling it open, until the day—24 years after she died—it finally gave her what she deserved.
Visual Studies Workshop, Getty Images
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