William Estabrook Chancellor

William Estabrook Chancellor (September 25, 1867 – February 12, 1963) was an American academic and writer. An opponent of the 1920 Republican presidential candidate, Warren G. Harding, Chancellor gained notoriety when he allegedly wrote a study of Harding's ancestry just before the election, asserting that Harding had an African-American ancestor. Chancellor denied authorship, and it has never been proved. Two years later, a biography of Harding was published under Chancellor's name, but Chancellor denied authorship of that as well.

Biography William Estabrook Chancellor was born in Dayton, Ohio, in 1867. After graduating in 1889 from Amherst College, where he was Phi Beta Kappa, editor of the college newspaper and class orator, he went into teaching. In 1906, while serving as superintendent of schools of Paterson, New Jersey, he was appointed superintendent of schools in Washington, D.C. He also served as superintendent of schools in Bloomfield, New Jersey; and Norwalk, Connecticut. helped gather biographical information on Republican presidential candidate Warren G. Harding. His investigations included Harding's racial lineage. Chancellor concluded that Harding had some black ancestry. Controversy erupted around Professor Chancellor when some pamphlets were published about Harding's ancestry, which Chancellor was accused of writing even though he denied it. The scandal cost him his professorship at the College of Wooster, and, subjected to continuing harassment, he fled to Canada in 1921.

In 1927 Chancellor was hired by the Xavier University, in Cincinnati, Chancellor denied writing the pamphlets, but he refused to sign a statement saying that he believed Harding to be all white, because he considered that to be a lie. Copies of the pamphlets were confiscated by Federal agents and destroyed; only five are thought to be in existence, three of which are owned by rare book collectors, the other two owned by museums.

After Harding was elected president, Chancellor did additional research, with the aim of publishing a biography of Harding. The book was to include not only Chancellor's findings about Harding's lineage, but also extended to corruption in the nominating process, and, later, in the formation of Harding's administration. He singled out oil companies in particular.

Research by Ohio author John A. Murphy, published in 2000 under the title "The Indictment" The book told the complete account of the Chancellor affair, and included a detailed family perspective as its author was a family descendant of Chancellor.

Evaluation In 2015, press reports indicated that DNA analysis showed Harding had no recent black ancestors.

According to Harding biographer John W. Dean, Chancellor's analyses were partly based on a story spread by Amos Kling, Harding's father-in-law, who opposed him politically. Dean, who lived in Marion, Ohio, as a teenager, claimed that Kling spread the story as retribution for positions taken by Harding in his newspaper The Marion Star. Dean characterized Chancellor as racist.

Following Chancellor's death, the author Francis Russell attempted to determine whether Harding was of mixed race. His book, The Shadow of Blooming Grove, published in 1968, noted that he was unable to substantiate Chancellor's conclusions beyond circumstantial evidence. (This work should not be confused with the 1930 book by Gaston Means, The Strange Death of President Harding, which uses the singular "Death"). Russell wrote, "To anyone who tracks it down today, [the book attributed to Chancellor] comes across as a laughable partisan screed, an amalgam of bizarre racial theories, outlandish stereotypes and cheap political insults. But it also contains a remarkable trove of social knowledge—the kind of community gossip and oral tradition that rarely appears in official records but often provides clues to richer truths." Our City Schools, Their Direction and Management (1908) Class-teaching and Management (1910) Our Presidents and their Office (1912) A Life of Silas Wright 1795–1847 (1913) Our Schools: Their Administration and Supervision (1915) Educational Sociology (1919) The Health of the Teacher (1919)