The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt
The Women Who Created a President
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
A spirited and poignant family love story, revealing how an icon of rugged American masculinity was profoundly shaped by the women in his life, especially his mother, sisters, and wives.
Theodore Roosevelt wrote in his senior thesis for Harvard in 1880 that women ought to be paid equal to men and have the option of keeping their maiden names upon marriage. It’s little surprise he’d be a feminist, given the women he grew up with.
His mother, Mittie, was witty and decisive, a Southern belle raising four young children in New York while her husband spent long stretches away with the Union Army. Theodore’s college sweetheart and first wife, Alice—so vivacious she was known as Sunshine—steered her beau away from science (he’d roam campus with taxidermy specimens in his pockets) and towards politics. Older sister Bamie would soon become her brother’s key political strategist and advisor; journalists called her Washington, DC, home “the Little White House.” Younger sister Conie served as her brother’s press secretary before the role existed, slipping stories of his heroics in Cuba and his rambunctious home life to reporters to create the legend of the Rough Rider we remember today. And Edith—Theodore’s childhood playmate and second wife—would elevate the role of presidential spouse to an American institution, curating both the White House and her husband’s legacy.
A dazzling and lyrical look at the making of one of America’s most remarkable presidents, The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt celebrates five extraordinary yet unsung women who opened the door to the American Century and pushed Theodore Roosevelt through it.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The women in Theodore Roosevelt's life strongly influenced his political career, historian O'Keefe argues in his elegant debut study. Roosevelt's mother, sisters, and first wife Alice all had a guiding hand in his early political ambitions, according to O'Keefe; moreover, the 1884 deaths (on nearly the same day) of Alice and his mother were such a blow that he left politics altogether, spending the next 15 months on his cattle ranches in the Dakota territory. An unexpected 1885 run-in with his childhood sweetheart Edith drew him back east, and his involvement with the Republican Party renewed, in O'Keefe's telling, thanks to prompting from Edith, who as his wife went on to steer Roosevelt through his rapid ascent to the White House. Calling Edith "the first modern first lady," O'Keefe contends that she defined the role with her careful management of her husband's career and, after his death, his legacy. O'Keefe's frequent quotations from diaries and letters provide a charmingly intimate view of his subjects. (Describing how Roosevelt addresses Alice in correspondence, he writes: " ‘Pretty,' ‘sweet,' ‘baby'—which became ‘baby wife' after the couple wed—alternate with ‘queen,' ‘purest queen,' ‘my pure flower,' ‘my pearl,' and ‘my sweet, pretty queen.' ") Roosevelt admirers and readers interested in women's exercise of political power will enjoy this one.
