SS President Coolidge Newport News, Virginia built the two ships, completing "President Hoover" in 1930. The keel for "President Coolidge" was laid 22 April 1930 and the ship was delivered 1 October 1931. They were the largest merchant ships built in the United States up to that time. Each ship had turbo-electric transmission, with a pair of steam turbo generators generating current that powered propulsion motors on the propeller shafts. Westinghouse built the turbo generators and propulsion motors for "President Coolidge" but General Electric built the turbo generators and propulsion motors for "President Hoover". In the "President Coolidge" twelve Babcock & Wilcox superheater
Calvin Coolidge personality: "When he wished he were elsewhere, he pursed his lips, folded his arms, and said nothing. He looked then precisely as though he had been weaned on a pickle." As president, Coolidge's reputation as a quiet man continued. "The words of a President have an enormous weight," he would later write, "and ought not to be used indiscriminately." Coolidge was aware of his stiff reputation; indeed, he cultivated it. "I think the American people want a solemn ass as a President," he once told Ethel Barrymore, "and I think I will go along with them." Some historians would later