05/11/2025
She told the truth about the President. They destroyed her life. Then, 24 years after she died, science proved she'd been right all along.
1927, NEW YORK CITY
Nan Britton walked into a small printing office with a manuscript no publisher would touch. She was 31, unmarried, raising an 8-year-old daughter alone, and completely broke.
Her book was called The President's Daughter.
In it, she made an explosive claim: Warren G. Harding, the 29th President of the United States who had died four years earlier, was her daughter's father. She described their secret affair—meetings in hotels, his Senate office, and even a coat closet in the White House.
Every major publisher rejected her. "You have no proof," they said. "You'll destroy us with lawsuits. No one will believe you."
So Nan did something radical for 1927: she self-published.
She had no idea what was about to happen.
THE AFFAIR
Nan first saw Warren Harding when she was just 13 years old in Marion, Ohio. He was her father's friend—a charismatic newspaper publisher and politician. She was a child with a crush. He was 31 years older.
In 1917, when Nan was 20, Harding was a U.S. Senator. According to Nan, that's when their relationship began. Secret meetings. Hidden letters. Promises.
In 1919, she gave birth to a daughter: Elizabeth Ann.
Nan claimed Harding was the father. But he was married and politically ambitious. He couldn't acknowledge the child publicly. Still, she said, he supported them financially and promised to provide for them after his presidency.
Then, in 1923, President Harding died suddenly of a heart attack.
Nan was left with a 4-year-old daughter and no way to prove the President had ever known her name.
THE RECKONING
When The President's Daughter was published in July 1927, it exploded.
The Harding family called it slander. The press called Nan a prostitute, a liar, a gold-digger. Newspapers destroyed her reputation. Bookstores refused to stock the book. Libraries banned it.
But people bought it anyway—over 90,000 copies. Not because they believed her. Because they loved the scandal.
Desperate and emboldened, Nan sued the Harding estate for child support.
The case went to court. The Harding family brought powerful lawyers. Their argument was simple: "She has no evidence. No letters. No photographs. No witnesses. Just her word against a dead President."
The judge dismissed the case. Even if Harding was the father, the judge ruled, he had no legal obligation to a child born out of wedlock.
Nan lost everything. She was ordered to pay court costs she couldn't afford.
A LIFETIME OF SHAME
For the next 64 years, Nan Britton lived as the woman nobody believed.
She worked odd jobs to survive. She raised Elizabeth Ann in poverty and shame. Her daughter grew up hearing whispers, enduring taunts, carrying a secret she couldn't speak aloud.
When Elizabeth Ann asked about her father, Nan told her the truth—but warned her never to say it publicly. "They'll call you a liar," she said. "Just like they call me."
Historians dismissed Nan as delusional. Biographers wrote her off as a footnote. She watched the world label her a fraud for more than six decades.
Nan Britton died in 1991 at age 94, still called a liar.
Elizabeth Ann died in 2005, never acknowledged by the Harding family.
2015: THE TRUTH
Ten years after Elizabeth Ann's death, her grandson decided to seek answers.
He contacted AncestryDNA and proposed a test. If Elizabeth Ann really was Harding's daughter, her descendants would share DNA with Harding's living relatives.
The Harding family initially refused. But eventually, two of Harding's nephews agreed.
On July 28, 2015, AncestryDNA announced the results:
Nan Britton had been telling the truth.
Elizabeth Ann was Warren G. Harding's biological daughter. The DNA match was conclusive.
Ninety-two years after Harding's death.
Eighty-eight years after Nan published her book and was destroyed for it.
Twenty-four years after Nan died.
THE VINDICATION THAT CAME TOO LATE
The revelation made international headlines. Historians scrambled to rewrite Harding's biography. The Harding family issued careful statements. News outlets that had once mocked Nan now praised her "courage."
But Nan Britton wasn't alive to see it.
She'd spent 64 years being called a liar. She died without ever receiving an apology.
Her daughter spent her entire life being told her father was a fantasy. She died without acknowledgment.
Neither woman lived to see vindication.
THE LESSON
Nan Britton's story isn't unique.
Throughout history, women who spoke up about powerful men were dismissed, mocked, and destroyed.
No evidence? You're lying.
No witnesses? You made it up.
Why did you wait? Why didn't you document everything?
The burden of proof was always, impossibly, on the woman.
And when a woman did speak—like Nan did—she paid for it with her reputation, her livelihood, and her peace.
"Believe women" is a modern phrase addressing an ancient problem.
THE TRUTH
Warren G. Harding is considered one of America's worst presidents—corrupt, ineffective, scandal-plagued.
But for nearly a century, his defenders protected his reputation by destroying Nan Britton's.
Now we know she was telling the truth.
The President did have an affair with a woman 31 years younger.
He did father a child.
He did meet her secretly in the White House.
And when he died, his family left her and his daughter to face poverty and shame alone.
She told the truth in 1927.
The world called her a liar for 64 years of her life.
Science proved her right in 2015, 24 years after she died.
Sometimes vindication comes too late to matter.
Sometimes the truth arrives after everyone who needed to hear it is gone.
But it's still the truth.
And it still matters.
Nan Britton (1896–1991): The woman who told the truth and was destroyed for it—until DNA proved her right, 24 years after her death.
Remember her name.
Remember what they did to her for telling the truth.
And remember: when someone speaks up, maybe we should start by listening—instead of waiting 88 years for proof.
