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Theodore Roosevelt writes to his sister Anna Roosevelt updating her on the status of things at home. He has had a nice visit with his daughter Alice and has bought a boat.
1887-05-16
President Roosevelt requests his sister-in-law Emily Tyler Carow tell Mr. Bovet that while he sympathizes with the movement to preserve the Alps, as president, he cannot sign a petition that is essentially a request for action by another government. Roosevelt updates Carow on the family’s summer activities in Oyster Bay.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-08-13
Surveyor of Customs Clarkson sends Nevada N. Stranahan, collector of the Port of New York, a report of recent violations of the navigation laws in the Port of New York.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-08-28
S.B.M. Young tells President Roosevelt about his vacation on Colonel Robert Means Thompson’s houseboat The Everglades. He would like to talk business with Roosevelt before accepting the appointment of superintendent of Yellowstone Park.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-02-28
A Republican elephant and Ohio Senator Joseph Benson Foraker sit in an “Ohio Rep. Convention” boat as Foraker says, “Get into the boat!” Ohio Senator Marcus Alonzo Hanna holds a broom as he points toward a “Roosevelt sentiment” wave. Hanna says, “We’d better sweep it to one side at present.”
Inspired by the legend of King Canute and his efforts to sweep back the tide, cartoonist Charles M. Payne drew a typically handsome and politically prescient portrayal of the advance run-up to the 1904 Republican presidential convention.
Secretary of State Elihu Root rolls up his sleeves and reaches for a large shovel in “Panama” with “engineering difficulties,” “politics,” “yellow Jack,” and “red tape” in it. Meanwhile, Secretary of War William H. Taft uses a megaphone on a crowded “seeing the Philippines” boat.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-07-10
For this film, the Roosevelt Memorial Association compiled footage from Theodore Roosevelt’s 1913-1914 trip to South America during which he combined a series of lectures with an expedition in the Amazon Valley of Brazil to collect zoological specimens. The Roosevelt group was combined with a group of Brazilian scientists under the leadership of Colonel Rondon to explore the course of the uncharted Rio da Dúvida, the River of Doubt. In 1926, G. M. Dyott, an English explorer, was asked by the Roosevelt Memorial Association to retrace Roosevelt’s voyage down the River of Doubt and to film his trip in order to supplement the footage from the 1914 trip.
Library of Congress Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound
1928
On Oyster Bay, Theodore Roosevelt rows alone away from shore. In the second sequence, his son Archie and an unidentified boy beach the boat as Theodore Roosevelt looks on.
Library of Congress Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound
1914-1915
Boat sailing near Venice, Italy.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1908
President Roosevelt and Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt stand on deck with a group of people including uniformed officers. Eleanor Butler Roosevelt records in her scrapbook that she was unable to learn anything more about the event.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1901-1908
Eleanor Butler Alexander walks toward a boat for a trip to Loch Lomond. As a girl, Eleanor spent summers in Scotland.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1895-1899
Henry Martyn Alexander, grandfather of Eleanor Butler Roosevelt, commuting by boat from Seabright, New Jersey, to New York.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
Unknown
President Roosevelt writes to his son Kermit, who is visiting Medora, North Dakota. Roosevelt asks after people he knows there, then updates Kermit on the family activities that summer at Oyster Bay.
1906-08-18
A Russian man stands on a rowboat, using an axe labeled “Nat’l Assembly” to battle an octopus labeled “Bureaucracy.” The octopus wears a crown and royal robe, and its tentacles are labeled “Graft, Exile, Oppressive Taxation, Despotism, Religious Intolerance, Cossackism, Incompetence, [and] Greed.”
In cartoonist J. S. Pughe’s centerspread Puck cartoon, the embattled man is beset by many identified dangers, all parts of the same autocratic monster. The caption calls him a Slav, where it might have called him a Russian just as easily; and the crown and “Cossack” reference suggest that Russia, and not the Slavic lands and peoples, were the object of attention.
However, the ambiguity might have been intentional, because the Slavic peoples and tribes and countries on the periphery of Russia at this time were chafing, and in the process of escaping, the imperial hand of the Czar in faraway St. Petersburg.
At center, two masked men recklessly drive an automobile down a country road, frightening every man, woman, and beast, and chasing them out of the roadway. Other vignettes depict scenes of summer activities, including swimming at the beach, hunting, fishing, excursion boating, and courting.
Beginning in the mid-1880s, Puck devoted one special issue, and many cartoons and short stories in other issues, to “Mid-Summer” themes. On these pages, politics took a subordinate place to humorous cartoons on social subjects, such as in this double-page spread by Ehrhart.
President Roosevelt is shown sailing a ship, sitting on a seat labeled “2nd Term.” Senator Hanna has dropped a megaphone labeled “Managership” and is being thrown overboard as the boom, labeled “My Boom – Teddy,” hits him. Caption: Teddy-“Why, Mark, must you be going?”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904
In a reply to Arthur Hamilton Lee, Theodore Roosevelt describes the activities and achievements of the Roosevelt family, including the impending birth of his grandchild to Theodore Roosevelt Jr. and Eleanor Butler Roosevelt. Roosevelt expresses relief at the end of his public speaking career and is more preoccupied by his interest in natural history than in politics, including his upcoming article, “Revealing and Concealing Coloration in Birds and Mammals.” Roosevelt then goes on to discuss politics, including his approval of the current British king, expresses frustration with the American people, and discusses President Taft.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-06-27
William Loeb encloses President Roosevelt’s check to be spent on the school boat.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-03-26
President Roosevelt comments on General Hamilton’s two-volume publication, A Staff Officer’s Scrap-book during the Russo-Japanese War. Roosevelt wishes he could see Hamilton to discuss the book. He expresses particular interest in Hamilton’s description of a gruesome play performed by Japanese soldiers. He wonders how industrialization in Japan will impact “the qualities which give them such an extraordinary soldierly capacity.” He notes that Kuroki will be visiting and that he will speak to Kuroki Tamemoto about Hamilton’s book. Roosevelt comments that he is pleased that the ships are doing well at target practice and that the fleet is satisfactory.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1907-05-08
President Roosevelt promises his cousin William Emlen Roosevelt that he will look over the survey so they can discuss it. He sincerely thanks Emlen for taking Archibald B. Roosevelt out boating.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-09-24