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Gerald Ford

president of the United States from 1974 to 1977 (1913–2006)

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 17, 2026
Entity authorityQ9582 ↗
Source-derived summary

Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. (born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913 – December 26, 2006) was the 38th president of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977. He assumed the presidency after the resignation of Richard Nixon, under whom he served as the 40th vice president from 1973 to 1974 after the resignation of Spiro Agnew. A member of the Republican Party, Ford previously served in the United States House of Representatives from 1949 to 1973.

Ford was born in Omaha, Nebraska, and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He attended the University of Michigan, where he also played for the university football team, winning two national championships, before eventually graduating from Yale Law School with a Bachelor of Laws. Afterward, he served in the U.S. Naval Reserve from 1942 to 1946. Ford was elected to the House of Representatives in 1948 from Michigan's 5th congressional district, and served in this capacity for nearly twenty-five years, the final eight of them as the House minority leader. During his career in the House, he was also part of the Warren Commission, which investigated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In December 1973, two months after the resignation of vice president Agnew, Ford was appointed to the vice presidency, becoming the first person appointed to become vice president under the terms of the twenty-fifth amendment.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Gerald Ford” is president of the United States from 1974 to 1977 (1913–2006). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Gerald, Ford and president, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1913, 2006, 1974, 1977—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1913-07-14. For this dossier, Gerald, Ford and president is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “president of the United States from 1974 to 1977 (1913–2006)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q9582. VIAF identifies the subject as 110300539. The Library of Congress control number is n79022087. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1913, 2006, 1974 and 1977.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Gerald Ford”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Gerald Ford primary sources, Gerald Ford archive and Gerald research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Gerald Ford”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Gerald Ford” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.