2020 TR Symposium

Allies in the Arena: Theodore Roosevelt’s Circle

The 15th Annual Theodore Roosevelt Symposium will be offered virtually through Zoom. Conversations with speakers Patricia O’Toole, Deborah Davis, and Matthew Oyos will be moderated by Theodore Roosevelt Humanities Scholar Clay Jenkinson, and a virtual tour of Roosevelt’s badlands will be included.

Although Theodore Roosevelt was one of the strongest and most charismatic of American presidents, he could not have accomplished all that he did without his circle of friends and advisers. For a leader who loved to hold forth, and who was never afraid to charge into the arena or fight for the right, Roosevelt was a surprisingly good and careful listener. He prized his circle of friends and advisers. Join us as we explore Roosevelt’s relations with such friends as Leonard Wood, Booker T. Washington, and others.

Speakers

Patricia O’Toole

Patricia O’Toole is a biographer whose books include When Trumpets Call: Theodore Roosevelt after the White House, The Five of Hearts: An Intimate Portrait of Henry Adams and His Friends, and The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made. She is now at work on a book about TR and the Progressives and the first great fight for an American social safety net. Her work has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She is also professor emerita at Columbia University’s School of the Arts. She lives in Camden, Maine, where she serves on the board of the Camden International Film Festival, one of the world’s leading documentary festivals.

Deborah Davis

Deborah Davis is the author of 10 books, including My Love Story, which she co-wrote with music legend Tina Turner; Strapless: John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X; Party of the Century: The Fabulous Story of Truman Capote and His Black and White Ball; Gilded: How Newport Became the Richest Resort in America; The Oprah Winfrey Show: Reflections on an American Legacy; Guest of Honor: Booker T. Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, and the White House Dinner that Shocked a Nation, which won the prestigious Phillis Wheatley Award for best work of History in 2013, and was nominated for an NAACP Image Award; Fabritius and the Goldfinch, which Amazon named one of the Best Books of 2014, and The Trip: Andy Warhol’s Plastic-Fantastic Cross-Country Adventure, the story of Warhol’s kaleidoscopic road-trip to Hollywood and back in 1963.

Matthew Oyos

Matt Oyos was born and raised in South Dakota. A boyhood trip to Theodore Roosevelt’s ranchlands first sparked an interest in the twenty-sixth president. That early exposure became an academic pursuit during graduate work at the University of Nebraska and Ohio State University, and then during a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of North Carolina. Matt assisted with the centennial publication of The Rough Riders and has written many articles and chapters on Roosevelt. In 2018, he published In Command: Theodore Roosevelt and the American Military, which received the Theodore Roosevelt Association Book Prize. Matt is a professor of history at Radford University and resides in Abingdon, Virginia, with his wife and two children.

Schedule

All times are in Mountain Daylight Time.

Thursday, September 17

7:00 p.m. Keynote conversation with Patricia O’Toole – “The Inner Circle: Roosevelt’s Confidants, Experts, and Friends”

Friday, September 18

6:30 p.m. Conversation with Deborah Davis – “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner: TR, Booker T. Washington, and the Dynamics of Race”

7:45 p.m. Conversation with Matthew Oyos – “Comrades in Arms: Theodore Roosevelt’s Military Circle”

Saturday, September 19

9 a.m. Virtual Field Trip in Roosevelt’s Badlands

Connection Info

Participation in the symposium will be through Zoom. Participants will not need to have a Zoom account to register and log in. The link and instructions will be sent with your registration confirmation.