Journalists

Theodore Roosevelt introduces Douglas Robinson to Walter Wellman, who Robinson knows by reputation.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1912-02-02

Theodore Roosevelt introduces Julian LaRose Harris to Cleveland H. Dodge. Roosevelt tells Dodge that Harris is the editor of Uncle Remus’s Magazine, which he praises for “standing up valiantly for decency, uprightness, and justice” in spite of difficult circumstances. Roosevelt asks that Dodge meet with Harris.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-12-21

Theodore Roosevelt introduces Julian LaRose Harris to Robert J. Collier. Roosevelt tells Collier that Harris is the editor of Uncle Remus’s Magazine, which he praises for “standing up valiantly for decency, uprightness, and justice” in spite of difficult circumstances. Roosevelt asks that Collier meet with Harris.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-12-21

William Penn Nixon details Mary H. Krout’s career as a member of the Inter-Ocean editorial staff, including her time as a correspondent in the Pacific and London. He attests her work is accurate, and she is “a forcible and brilliant speaker.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-04-25

On June 18, 1910, Theodore Roosevelt returned to New York City after a fifteen-month tour abroad, having travelled through Africa and western Europe. An elaborate city celebration drawing a million people marked his homecoming. Aboard the ocean liner Kaiserin Auguste Victoria ex-President and Mrs. Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt were met by a revenue cutter, the Manhattan, carrying the Roosevelt children. Roosevelt then went aboard a larger cutter, the Androscoggin, and officially became a guest of the city. After boating up the Hudson River along the New Jersey shore to West Fifty-Ninth St., the Androscoggin moved back along the Manhattan shore to Battery Park, followed by a water parade of almost one hundred vessels. Roosevelt was greeted by Mayor William J. Gaynor at the Park, where both briefly spoke to an assembled crowd, with notables seated on a flag-draped stand expanded for the occasion to hold 600 people. Battery ceremonies were followed by a parade up Broadway and Fifth Avenue to the Fifty-Ninth St. plaza, where it dispersed. In the parade Roosevelt, Mayor William J. Gaynor, and chairman of the city’s welcoming committee, Cornelius Vanderbilt, together rode in an open carriage, preceded by Roosevelt’s regiment of Rough Riders, First United States Volunteer Cavalry. Also in the parade were approximately 2000 other veterans of the Spanish-American War. On the film are views of the open harbor, with various vessels assembled for Roosevelt’s visit, including the Kaiserin Auguste Victoria, the Androscoggin, and the Manhattan; Roosevelt alone on the lookout station of what appears to be the Androscoggin as it moves into port; street scene in which photographers scramble to get clear view of carriages as notables pass through street cordoned off with greenery; Roosevelt and Vanderbilt move toward Battery speakers platform, beside which is visible the stand erected for Roosevelt’s family and dignitaries; Roosevelt and Mayor Gaynor, who steps forward to greet Roosevelt, ascend platform; men mill around base of platform; side view of Roosevelt speaking from written notes, with Gaynor behind him; scenes of crowds and tents in what appears to be Central Park south; parade moves toward camera and passes in front of decorated stands; Roosevelt, standing in carriage, pauses in front of stands; shots of mounted police, mounted band, carriages, marching band.

Collection

Library of Congress Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound

Creation Date

1910

President Cleveland is at the center, hounded by newspaper reporters who try to run the government. Puck suggests that they should resolve to leave the running of the government to those elected to do so. In the surrounding vignettes are instances where people should make resolutions to stop doing the things that most annoy those around them, such as bringing crying infants to the theater, trying to get change for large bills at the train station during rush hour, or leaving the door open after exiting a building.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1895-01-02

A “Sensation Press” reporter stands on the shore near “Gray Gables,” Grover Cleveland’s summer home at Cape Cod, pointing to a sea serpent labeled “3d Term Twaddle.” Caption: The latest and most improbable feat of the sensation-newspaper man’s imagination.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1895-07-31

Print shows General Nelson A. Miles, oversized, sitting at a desk, holding in his left hand a book titled “How to Become President [by] Gen. Miles.” Around him are many newspaper reporters and photographers, representing such newspapers as “The Yellow Yawp, Daily Whoop, The Scare, The Blow, Morning Bluff, Daily Slush [and] Staats Klatsch [with a reporter that looks like Oswald Ottendorfer].” On the wall in the background is a telephone labeled “To the Administration” that is covered with cobwebs.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1899-03-15

Theodore Roosevelt, pictured with three reporters.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace National Historic Site

Creation Date

1910

President Roosevelt addresses journalist Ernest Harvier’s editorial in The Sunday Democrat involving his handling of an incident related to Maria Longworth Storer.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1906-04-18

Business card of Henry S. Brown, Washington correspondent of the New York Herald.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1901

Police Commissioner Roosevelt writes a letter of introduction to The Atlantic Monthly for Lincoln Steffens.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1895-08-06

Editorial criticizing a San Franciscan correspondent of the Oakland Tribune for saying Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was at a party trying to ascertain everyone’s presidential preferences.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1912

A large group of politicians and journalists appear as knights on a crusade against graft and corruption. Many carry large pens like a lance. Periodicals mentioned are “Colliers, Harper’s Weekly, Life, Puck, [and] McClure’s” Magazine. Caption: Marching embattled ‘gainst the Saracens of Graft.

Comments and Context

This cartoon by Carl Hassmann, which resembles a poster, could indeed be a historian’s guide to the leading crusading Muckrakers of the day (circa 1906, the high-water mark of reform before the Progressive Era and certainly in journalism and books). The double-page cartoon is a panegyric to the movement, a paean to the personalities.

Hassmann addresses not an issue or controversy of the week, but pulls back to portray the army of reformers and crusaders fighting corruption, exposing corporate scandals, fighting for reform. It is interesting to note that fewer than five years before this cartoon, there was no such crusade sweeping across America, and many of the names were yet unknown to the public. This surely was a period of change.

President Roosevelt was saddened by Jacob A. Riis’s note but is pleased to complete the request.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1902-08-16

Theodore Roosevelt has thought about Joseph Pulitzer but did not write about him because he does not have Edward Sandford Martin’s ability to “tell the truth and be severe without being offensive.” He asks if Friday afternoon works for their meeting.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-11-10

Thomas C. Day tells Theodore Roosevelt he would never respond to an attack from Delavan Smith, publisher of the Indianapolis Daily News. Day has the “heartiest contempt” for publishing men like Smith and Joseph Pulitzer. Day plans to publish his own article about Panama in The Outlook soon.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-09-22

Theodore Roosevelt writes Ambassador Whitelaw Reid how “the average modern journalist . . . takes a view that is literally incomprehensible” in twisting statements made by Reid about Roosevelt into “an attack.” Roosevelt thanks Reid for the “high compliment” and “mighty nice letter.” Roosevelt writes that Rollo and Mrs. Ogden spent a night with the Roosevelts and hopes that the Reids will have the chance to do the same.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-07-28

Theodore Roosevelt received S. Edward Young’s messages. However, he understood that the conference was being held next year. He does not want to give another speech at the moment. When he does address the Federation of Churches, Roosevelt does not want journalists admitted.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-04-18

Theodore Roosevelt tells Frank Basil Tracy that he has read Tracy’s history, The Tercentenary History of Canada from Champlain to Laurier, 1608-1908, and liked it. Roosevelt also thought the piece in the Courier-Citizen about Henry Cabot Lodge was “first-class.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-01-05