# Fame.am profile — machine-readable export
# Canonical URL: https://fame.am/person/william-howard-taft
# Generated: 2026-08-31T16:44:45.989Z

schema: https://schema.org/Person
url: "https://fame.am/person/william-howard-taft"
name: "William Howard Taft"
slug: "william-howard-taft"
description: "The only person to serve both as president and chief justice of the Supreme Court — though he wanted the robes far more than the Oval Office and spent years declining appointments to get the politics done first."
tagline: "27th President of the United States from 1909 to 1913 (1857–1930)"
image: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Cabinet_card_of_William_Howard_Taft_by_Pach_Brothers_-_Cropped_to_image.jpg?width=1200"
gender: "male"
country:
  name: "United States"
  isoCode: "US"
category:
  name: "Politicians"
  slug: "politicians"
profileType:
  name: "Politician"
  slug: "politician"
birthDate: "1857-09-15"
deathDate: "1930-03-08"
livingStatus: "DECEASED"
scores:
  popularity:           76.63
  momentum:             0
  historical:           26.962468
  currentAttention:     0
  sourceConfidence:     65
  profileCompleteness:  75
  trendDirection:       "FALLING"
ranks:
  global:   null
  country:  null
  category: 233
tags:
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    slug: "politicians"
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    slug: "lawyer"
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platforms:
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    title: "Willelm Howard Taft"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "William Howard Taft"
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    title: "Wikiquote"
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# bio (long form, separated for readability)
bio: |
  Born in Cincinnati in 1857 to a father who'd been attorney general and war secretary, Taft shot through the legal ranks — judge in his twenties, solicitor general, appellate court — before Theodore Roosevelt sent him to govern the Philippines in 1901 and then made him secretary of war. He rode Roosevelt's backing to the presidency in 1908, beating William Jennings Bryan, but the term unraveled: tariff fights, a split between conservative and progressive Republicans, and a bitter break with Roosevelt himself over conservation and antitrust policy. The 1912 race became a three-way brawl when Roosevelt challenged him for renomination; Taft held the party machinery but lost all but Utah and Vermont to Woodrow Wilson. He went back to Yale to teach, worked for the League to Enforce Peace, and finally got what he'd wanted all along when Warren Harding made him chief justice in 1921. He served nine years, resigned in failing health in February 1930, and died a month later — the first president buried at Arlington.