Ronald Reagan was widely known for many different aspects of his life and his various careers. In his later life, he was a Hollywood movie and actor and then ran and was elected president of the United States of America where he made his mark for better or for worse on the nation. Considering his great accomplishments later in life his early life and his upbringing is often overlooked.
Reagan was born on February 6th (Aquarius), 1911 in a small town in Illinois called Tampico. He was born into a low-income family where he was the younger of two sons. His parents were the descendants of Catholic immigrants who had originated in England and Ireland. Raegan was slightly overweight growing up and because of this was nicknamed by his friends and family “Dutch.” His family moved around quite a bit during his childhood and resided in 4 different towns in Illinois. Reagan throughout these moves was an active church member along with his mother.
In his teen years, Reagan attended Dixon High School in Illinois. He worked many jobs during his high school career, his longest and most prominent being a head lifeguard. After graduating from high school, he attended Eureka College. He majored in economics and sociology. He participated in many sports and recreational clubs and was even voted student body president. After college, he became a radio announcer and then slowly developed his acting career which leads him to Hollywood and shaped him into the Reagan everyone knew him as. 
It's so intriguing to discover who Reagan was before becoming president. He also had many experiences with "presidency"; his popularity as well as his charisma and talent earned him the role of class president in high school, and later on in his acting career, he became the president of the Screen Actors Guild. Though acting and politics seem to be totally unlinked, it was during his time as an actor that Reagan became involved in politics. It was during this time that there were issues over Communism in the film industry. Remember, he wasn't always a conservative Republican. After he landed a position as as a public relations representative for GE, he began to advocate for pro-business policies and openly oppose wasteful spending and an overly controlling government. By the time he formally entered politics, he had converted from a liberal to a conservative.
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https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/ronald-reagan/
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ronald-Reagan
https://www.biography.com/us-president/ronald-reagan
This was a super interesting and informative post! As you mentioned, many people just know Reagan as a Hollywood actor and a politician, but it's really cool to see how he got there. It seems like Reagan had demonstrated key presidential qualities like leadership and hard work in high school through being the student body president and a multi-sport athlete. It's also interesting that Reagan himself was born into a low-income family, but his supply-side economic policies as president seemed to prioritize the wealthy rather than the poor.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.ushistory.org/us/59b.asp
The information you put together was very interesting! I was surprised to find out that Reagan was an actor before he became president. After I did a little research it took me by surprise that he was actually the main actor in the world renowned move, law and order.
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