Teedie & Bamie

An intimate account of Theodore Roosevelt and Anna Roosevelt Cowles, and the forgotten lifelong partnership that shaped his political career and progressive legacy.

More than a century after his death, Theodore Roosevelt remains one of the most influential—and unforgettable—presidents in our nation’s history. His face adorns Mount Rushmore and his legacy is invoked from America’s national parks to its foreign military interventions. Yet without older sister Anna “Bamie” Roosevelt Cowles, Teddy’s life and legacy might be completely different. Teedie & Bamie reveals how Bamie helped transform the sickly infant “Teedie” into the formidable TR of popular memory. Drawing on hundreds of never-before-used letters, historian David Welky follows the collaboration between two siblings, as Bamie steered Theodore into public service, molded his agenda, tended his political network, and bolstered his national reputation. From the Victorian drawing rooms of Civil War–era New York to the White House in the early twentieth century and beyond, Teedie & Bamie is the story of a fascinating yet forgotten relationship that left an indelible mark on US history.