Christmas

Commissioner McIlhenny wishes Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt a Merry Christmas.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1910-12-25

Sister M. Sebastian wishes Theodore Roosevelt and his family a merry Christmas. Sebastian is rejoiced to hear Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt is feeling better and prays she will live to a ripe old age. Sebastian prays for Theodore Roosevelt and wants him to go down in history as the greatest President, remembered for years to come.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-12

Theodore Roosevelt wishes Belle Roosevelt a merry Christmas and updates her on the status of things at home. Roosevelt is still very discouraged about America’s late entry into, and lack of preparedness for, the war.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1917-12-25

President Roosevelt wishes Dora Watkins a merry Christmas, and tells her that he thinks of her often.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-12-26

President Roosevelt thanks his sister-in-law Emily Tyler Carow for the book that Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt got him on her behalf. The Roosevelts have had their “usual type of Christmas,” though with fewer toys as the children get older. Soon they will go to the Pine Knot cabin with friends. Roosevelt has much to worry him in his work, but the incidents “will all go downstream.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-12-26

President Roosevelt congratulates Librarian of Congress Herbert Putnam and wishes him a merry Christmas.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-12-24

President Roosevelt sends his sister Corinne Roosevelt Robinson $10, which he asks her to forward as a gift to the aged former servant of the Roosevelt family, Dora Watkins. Roosevelt wishes he could be with Corinne and her family over the Christmas holiday season.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-12-22

President Roosevelt tells Governor Higgins that he will help however he can with the matter in question, and has taken up the issue with Secretary of State Elihu Root. He wishes the governor and his wife Kate a merry Christmas and happy new year.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-12-20

President Roosevelt wishes Nevada N. Stranahan a merry Christmas and is glad to hear his health is improving. Roosevelt leans on him both personally and as a public official in his position as collector of customs at the Port of New York.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-12-17

William Loeb sends Reverend Dr. Schick a $10 donation on behalf of President Roosevelt for his Christmas fund for the poor, and he asks for confirmation of receipt.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-12-17

Anna Roosevelt Cowles asks her brother President Roosevelt to sign a photograph for their brother-in-law Joseph W. Alsop. Alsop chose the photo because it gives a view of the back of Roosevelt’s head.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-02-15

Senator Lodge expresses his admiration for President Roosevelt’s love of Charles Dickens’s works, and sends him a first edition of David Copperfield as a Christmas present.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-12-24

Reverend Schick thanks President Roosevelt for his contribution to the church’s Christmas poor fund.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-12-18

Maria Storer wrote to President Roosevelt to recommend the appointment of Mr. Joseph Grew as a candidate for third secretary at the embassy in Vienna.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-12-25

Elihu Root wishes President Roosevelt a merry Christmas. He hopes Roosevelt will “go slow” on an unspecified “license proposition.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-12-24

Finley Peter Dunne thanks President Roosevelt for the interest in his son and for a previous visit.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-12-23

Jacob Gould Schurman sends an editorial from the Springfield Daily Republican on President Roosevelt’s recent address to Congress. Schurman hopes to serve Roosevelt’s cause in any way he can and believes he will keep the Republican party moving “forward and upward.” Includes typed transcription.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-12-21

Yick Nam Quan is sending an embroidered curtain and other gifts to the Roosevelts and wishes them a merry Christmas and happy New Year.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-12-21

Ensign Roper asks President Roosevelt to contribute to the Salvation Army’s Christmas food bank.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-12-06

The distinctive teddy bears make a visit to Senator Joseph Benson Foraker, who is dressed up in Christmas pajamas. There is a picture on the wall that says, “Yours Truly Dick” along with a toy soldier with the numbers “23 + 2” on it.

comments and context

Comments and Context

When cartoonist Clifford Kennedy Berryman of the Washington Post drew an innocent observational cartoon about President Roosevelt refusing to shoot a captured bear on a Mississippi hunt, the subsequent fame of the drawing resulted in Berryman (and other cartoonists) adopting a little bear as a “mascot” in their drawings, and the creation of the plush-toy Teddy Bear still beloved by thousands of children.