James Polk, U.S. President
Nov. 2, 1795-June 15, 1849
Lives of the Presidents: Fame, Shame (and What the Neighbors Thought) by Kathleen Krull, illustrated by Kathryn Hewitt(Harcourt, 1998)
Another one-termer, Polk was the 11th president of the U.S. The tradition of playing "Hail to the Chief" when a president enters a room began with him. One paragraph describes his life of work in this collective biography.
Read Polk's Inaugural address on March 4, 1845 at the Avalon Project at Yale.
