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Police Commissioner Roosevelt responds to Professor Frederick Jackson Turner’s review of his fourth volume (most likely referring to The Winning of the West), explaining that he was not able to conduct a more thorough historical investigation because he was busy with other work. He argues that his judgment was sober in relation to his views of Thomas Jefferson.
1896-11-04
Civil Service Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt discusses Professor Frederick Jackson Turner’s review of two volumes of The Winning of the West. Although Roosevelt planned to write about the Yazoo land claims in the fourth volume, Turner’s criticism has led him to believe that he did not put enough emphasis on the proceedings of the different land companies in his previous volumes. Roosevelt asks where he can find descriptions of land companies in the Canadian archives. He notes that he was not able to use the Draper manuscripts for the first two volumes, although he has since been able to obtain copies of the originals.
1895-04-02
Civil Service Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt was pleased to discover that Professor Frederick Jackson Turner was the reviewer for The Winning of the West. Roosevelt agrees that there are new fields for research in Western history, although he “has always been more interested in the men themselves than in the institutions through and under which they worked.” He admires Turner’s pamphlet and hopes that Turner will write a serious work on the subject. Thanking Turner for his references to the Canadian Archives, he notes that the land companies were perhaps “more important on paper” than in their actual effects. Roosevelt mentions that he is a busy man and that he is tempted to “get entirely out of political life.”
1895-04-10
Alexander Konta writes of the “scantiness, unreliability and confusion of the records of the past” and modern technologies being used for commercial rather than historical value. He proposes the Modern Historic Records Association be created in an effort to combine efforts at the local, state, and national level to preserve the historic record, including the voices of men of importance. He hopes that Theodore Roosevelt might look kindly on this idea and will consider joining in the planning of such an undertaking.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-07-14
Police Commissioner Roosevelt informs Oswald Garrison Villard that the volume in which he discussed Harmer has already been sent out, although he may add an appendix to the volume he is publishing. He asks where he can find the correspondence of Henry Knox.
1896-03-02
Olaf T. Hagen writes to Lawrence C. Merriam regarding the research plan and historical preparation necessary for Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
Theodore Roosevelt National Park
1949-06-23