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
Harold Jefferson Coolidge Sr. United States President Thomas Jefferson, through his maternal grandparents, Thomas Mann Randolph Jr. and Martha Jefferson Randolph. His paternal uncle was Thomas Jefferson Coolidge, the Boston businessman and U.S. Minister to France. Harold's great-uncles were Thomas Jefferson Randolph, George Wythe Randolph, Andrew Jackson Donelson, and his grandfather, Joseph Coolidge, was a distant relative of President Calvin Coolidge. Through his mother, Harold was the nephew of John Lowell Gardner II. His mother and uncle John were the grandchildren of merchant Joseph Peabody, one of the wealthiest men in the United States at the time of his death in 1844. Coolidge attended