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Theodore Roosevelt

Icon of the American Century

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“The joy of living is his who has the heart to demand it.”

Theodore Roosevelt

executed: Magomedova Z.A. examined: Akhmedova Z.G.

Makhachkala 2001

Contents

1. Introduction page 3

2. Maverick in the Making , 1882 – 1901 page 3

3. Rough Rider in the White House , 1901 – 1909 page 7

4. The Restless Hunter , 1909 – 1919 page 10

5. Chronology of the Public Career of Theodore Roosevelt page 14

6. Source page 15

Introduction

The life of Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) was one of constant activity, immense energy, and enduring accomplishments. As the twenty-sixth
President of the United States, Roosevelt was the wielder of the Big Stick, the builder of the Panama Canal, an avid conservationist, and the nemesis of the corporate trusts that threatened to monopolize American business at the start of the century. His exploits as a Rough Rider in the Spanish-
American War and as a cowboy in the Dakota Territory were indicative of his spirit of adventure and love of the outdoors. Reading and hunting were lifelong passions of his; writing was a lifelong compulsion. Roosevelt wrote more than three dozen books on topics as different as naval history and African big game. Whatever his interest, he pursued it with extraordinary zeal. "I always believe in going hard at everything," he preached time and again. This was the basis for living what he called the
"strenuous life," and he exhorted it for both the individual and the nation.
Roosevelt's engaging personality enhanced his popularity. Aided by scores of photographers, cartoonists, and portrait artists, his features became symbols of national recognition; mail addressed only with drawings of teeth and spectacles arrived at the White House without delay. TR continued to be newsworthy in retirement, especially during the historic Bull Moose campaign of 1912, while pursuing an elusive third presidential term. He remains relevant today. This exhibition is a retrospective look at the man and his portraiture, whose progressive ideas about social justice, representative democracy, and America's role as a world leader have significantly shaped our national character.

Maverick in the Making , 1882 - 1901

Theodore Roosevelt was born on October 27, 1858, in a brownstone house on Twentieth Street in New York City. A re-creation of the original dwelling, now operated by the National Park Service, replicates the tranquility of Roosevelt's earliest years. His father, Theodore Roosevelt
Sr., was a prosperous glassware merchant, and was one of the wealthy old
Knickerbocker class, whose Dutch ancestors had been living on Manhattan
Island since the 1640s. His mother, Martha Bulloch, was reputedly one of the loveliest girls to have been born in antebellum Georgia. Together the parents instilled in their eldest son a strong sense of family loyalty and civic duty, values that Roosevelt would himself practice, and would preach from the bully pulpit all of his adult life.

Unfortunately the affluence to which the young Theodore grew accustomed could do little to improve the state of his fragile health. He was a sickly, underweight child, hindered by poor eyesight. Far worse, however, were the life threatening attacks of asthma he had to endure until early adulthood. To strengthen his constitution, he lifted dumbbells and exercised in a room of the house converted into a gymnasium. He took boxing lessons to defend himself and to test his competitive spirit. From an early age he never lacked energy or the will to improve himself physically and mentally. He was a voracious reader and writer; his childhood diaries reveal much about his interests and the quality of his expanding mind.
Natural science, ornithology, and hunting were early hobbies of his, which became lifelong.

In the fall of 1876, Roosevelt entered Harvard University. By the time he graduated magna cum laude, he was engaged to be married to a beautiful young lady named Alice Lee. The wedding took place on Roosevelt's twenty- second birthday. Amid the intense happiness he experienced during his first year of marriage, he laid the foundations of his historic public career. "I rose like a rocket," he said years later. Ironically, when he chartered his own path for public office--the White House in 1912--he failed bitterly.
When others had selected him--as they did for the New York Assembly in
1881, for the governorship in 1898, and for the vice presidency in 1900-- his election was almost a foregone conclusion. Politics aside, Roosevelt shaped and molded his life as much as any person could possibly do. He could not control fate, however. On Valentine's Day, 1884, his mother died of typhoid fever and his wife died of Bright's disease, two days after giving birth to a daughter, Alice Lee. Amidst this personal trauma,
Theodore Roosevelt was on the verge of becoming a national presence.

Between 1882 and 1884, Theodore Roosevelt represented the Twenty-first
District of New York in the state legislative assembly in Albany. An 1881 campaign broadside noted that the young Republican candidate was
"conspicuous for his honesty and integrity," qualities not taken for granted in a city run by self-serving machine politicians. This was the start of Roosevelt's long career as a political reformer.

Roosevelt's political alliance with Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts began in 1884, when the two were delegates to the Republican National
Convention in Chicago. In time, both men would become leaders of the
Republican Party. Their extensive mutual correspondence is an insightful record of shared interests and American idealism at the turn of the twentieth century. After serving in the United States House of
Representatives for six years, Lodge became a senator in 1893 and retained his seat for the rest of his life. Like Roosevelt, Lodge was an advocate of civil service reform (he recommended Roosevelt to be a commissioner in
1889), a strong navy, the Panama Canal, and pure food and drug legislation.
A specialist in foreign affairs, Lodge acted as one of Roosevelt's principal advisers during his presidency. Yet Lodge did not support many of
Roosevelt's progressive reforms—women's suffrage, for instance—and he refused to endorse his friend in the Bull Moose campaign of 1912.

Love of adventure and the great outdoors, especially in the West, were the bonds that sealed the friendship between Theodore Roosevelt and
Frederic Remington. "I wish I were with you out among the sage brush, the great brittle cottonwoods, and the sharply-channeled barren buttes,"
Roosevelt wrote to the western artist in 1897 from Washington. After the death of his wife Alice Lee in 1884, Roosevelt moved temporarily to the Bad
Lands in the Dakota Territory, where he owned two cattle ranches. In 1888,
Century Magazine published a series of articles about the West written by
Roosevelt and illustrated by Remington. In a May article, Roosevelt told the story of his daring capture of three thieves who had stolen a boat from his Elkhorn Ranch. Remington depicted their capture in this painting.

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