Birthday profile

Madelyn Dunham

Madelyn Dunham, American grandmother of Barack Obama (died 2008)

Born
October 26, 1922
Died
November 2, 2008
Zodiac sign
Scorpio
Birth year
1922

About Madelyn Dunham

Madelyn Lee Payne Dunham was an American banker and the maternal grandmother of Barack Obama, a former President of the United States. She and her husband Stanley Armour Dunham raised Obama from age ten in their Honolulu apartment. She died on November 2, 2008, two days before her grandson was elected president. In April 2008, Madelyn Dunham appeared briefly in her first campaign ad for her grandson, saying that Obama had "a lot of depth, and a broadness of view". In Seattle, she eventually became vice-president of a local bank and Stanley Dunham worked in a bigger furniture store (Standard-Grunbaum Furniture).

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when Madelyn Dunham was born

Madelyn Dunham was born in 1922. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1922

  • #1 song"Chicago" – Fred Fisher
  • Top movieNosferatu
  • Best-selling bookUlysses – James Joyce

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentGene Sarazen wins the U.S. Open at age 20
  • Top headlineMussolini marches on Rome and seizes power in Italy
  • Technology milestoneBBC begins radio broadcasts
  • Defining fadCrossword puzzles
  • Notable inventionWater skiing invented in Minnesota
  • World population1.90 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderWarren G. Harding
  • Sports championNew York Giants (World Series)
  • U.S. population110.0M

1922 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Madelyn Dunham's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19222026
Gas$0.25$3.45/gal
Average home$5,600$435,000
Average income$3,270$67,500
Movie ticket$0.15$11.95
Postage stamp$0.02$0.73
Population110.0M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, WikiTree, Find a Grave, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.