James Knox Polk

Eleventh president, 1845–1849

The life and career of James K. Polk reflected the country’s westward shift. His path followed the frontier as he moved from his birthplace in North Carolina to Tennessee as a child. After graduating from the University of North Carolina, he returned to Tennessee and began his career as a lawyer serve in the state legislature. Polk, like most Americans in the nineteenth century, favored western expansion and believed that settlers were destined to expand across North America. As president, he acquired more than a million square miles of territory for the United States, in part by fomenting the Mexican-American War. As one of the most consequential presidents in American history, the vast expansion of territory opened up the question of the future of slavery, an issue that sparked conflict during the period leading up the Civil War. Driven and determined, Polk took office with a limited agenda, accomplished all of it, and left office, as he planned, after only one term.

Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art; Museum Purchase, Gallery Fund The Corcoran Gallery of Art, one of the country’s first private museums, was established in 1869 to promote art and American genius. In 2014, the works from the Corcoran Collection were distributed to institutions in Washington, D.C