Return to normalcy
Return to normalcy, a return to the way of life before World War I, was United States presidential candidate Warren G. Harding's campaign promise in the election of 1920. Although detractors believed that the word was a neologism as well as a malapropism, coined by Harding (as opposed to the more accepted term normality), there was contemporary discussion and evidence found that normalcy had been listed in dictionaries as far back as 1857. Harding's promise was to return the United States prewar mentality, without the thought of war tainting the minds of the American people. To sum up his points, he stated: