Your TR Source
President Roosevelt will read Thomas Nelson Page’s biography of Robert E. Lee with interest. He looks forward to seeing Thomas Nelson and Florence Lathrop Page soon.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-10-28
President Roosevelt promises to read Robert M. Hughes’s biography of General Joseph E. Johnston at once and remarks on his admiration for Johnston.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1906-05-19
Anne McLean Towler sends Theodore Roosevelt a biographical sketch she wrote of General Thomas J. Rusk, a prominent figure in Texas history. She would like to know if he has any suggestions of magazines to send it to that might be interested in publishing it.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-07-08
Anne McLean Towler sends Theodore Roosevelt a biographical sketch she wrote of General Thomas J. Rusk, a prominent figure in Texas history. She would like to know if he has any suggestions of magazines to send it to that might be interested in publishing it.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-06-30
While Charles W. Snyder believes that Robert W. Walker’s biography of Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, The Namesake, is the first biography of President Theodore Roosevelt’s eldest son to cover “all aspects of his life and career,” Snyder asserts that the best parts of the book by far are those that detail his service in both world wars. Snyder writes that the book is weighed down by many errors of grammar, spelling, and punctuation, and he criticizes Walker for speculating about how the elder Roosevelt would have approached American entry into World War II. Walker also emphasizes the younger Roosevelt’s frustrated desire to follow in the footsteps of his father all the way to the White House.
A photograph of Roosevelt during World War II standing in his jeep named “Rough Rider” supplements the review.
Biography dominates the “Reviews” section of this issue: five biographies are considered, including those of four Roosevelts and one of Gifford Pinchot. Charles W. Snyder finds H. Paul Jeffers’s examination of Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt’s life to be less than complete, and he notes that the work focuses on Roosevelt’s military career, especially his service during World War II. John A. Gable revisits the work of husband and wife biographers Edmund Morris and Sylvia Jukes Morris in his essays on their biographies of Theodore Roosevelt and Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt. Gable compares The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt with Theodore Rex, and he asserts that the endnotes in both works are worth reading. He notes that paperback editions of both of the Morris biographies have been issued to coincide with the release of Theodore Rex.
Gable reviews Char Miller’s Gifford Pinchot and the Making of Modern Environmentalism, and he describes the split in the environmental movement between the followers of Pinchot and John Muir. Gable highlights Pinchot’s career after his service in the Roosevelt administration, and he notes that Miller’s work has won two book awards for biography. “In Medal of Honor Revisited,” Gregory A. Wynn examines the arguments of two acclaimed military historians who take opposing views on Theodore Roosevelt’s Medal of Honor award. Wynn summarizes the arguments of Edward M. Coffman and Allan Reed Millett, and he finds more merit in Coffman’s assertions based on eyewitness accounts of Roosevelt’s actions in battle.