Who is William Howard Taft?
William Howard Taft, twenty-seventh president of the United States of America, was born on September 15, 1857, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Louise Torrey Taft, his mother, was a Massachusetts native and Alphonso Taft’s second wife. Alphonso, father of William Howard Taft, was a Vermonter who had moved to Cincinnati twenty years prior to his son’s birth to establish a law practice. He became a judge and eventually held the positions of secretary of war and attorney general during the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant. Growing up, William Howard Taft was a good student. In 1874, he was admitted to Yale University. At Yale, he was studious and well liked. He graduated as salutatorian of his class in 1878 and returned to Ohio to enter the Cincinnati Law School. Upon graduation from law school in 1880, things moved quickly for Taft. He passed the Ohio bar exam in short order, and in 1881, was appointed assistant prosecutor of Hamilton County, Ohio. From 1883 to 1887, Taft spent a few years in Cincinna
