Morris, Edmund

Dr. John Allen Gable, Executive Director of the Theodore Roosevelt Association, offers an address at Richland College giving an overview of the five phases he sees in the historiography of Theodore Roosevelt. Moving from the early hero-worship of Roosevelt in the years after his death, Gable sees historical opinion vary between critical perspectives of Roosevelt and more favorable representations, frequently moving in conjunction with the issues of the era the author is writing in. The most contemporary era, Gable believes, is a revival of Roosevelt’s reputation and scholarship. Further developments in the field of Roosevelt studies, Gable believes, will come from a stronger holistic understanding of the various facets of Roosevelt’s personality. Throughout his address Gable relies on a number of instances from Roosevelt’s life to illustrate his points, including the Venezuela Crisis, the Storer Controversy, and the 1912 Assassination Attempt.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association

Creation Date

1981

Creator(s)

Gable, John A.

Dr. John Allen Gable, Executive Director of the Theodore Roosevelt Association, offers an address at Richland College giving an overview of the five phases he sees in the historiography of Theodore Roosevelt. Moving from the early hero-worship of Roosevelt in the years after his death, Gable sees historical opinion vary between critical perspectives of Roosevelt and more favorable representations, frequently moving in conjunction with the issues of the era the author is writing in. The most contemporary era, Gable believes, is a revival of Roosevelt’s reputation and scholarship. Further developments in the field of Roosevelt studies, Gable believes, will come from a stronger holistic understanding of the various facets of Roosevelt’s personality. Throughout his address Gable relies on a number of instances from Roosevelt’s life to illustrate his points, including the Venezuela Crisis, the Storer Controversy, and the 1912 Assassination Attempt.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association

Creation Date

1981

Creator(s)

Gable, John A.

Advertisement for Colonel Roosevelt, the final volume of Edmund Morris’s trilogy on the life of Theodore Roosevelt. The ad features an illustration of Roosevelt, the front cover illustrations for all three volumes, and six endorsement excerpts from newspapers and magazines.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

2010

Creator(s)

Random House (Firm)

William N. Tilchin charts the path to publication of the translation of a French booklet about Theodore Roosevelt by Leon Bazalgette. The 1905 tract was translated by Roosevelt biographer Edmund Morris and offered to John A. Gable, editor of the Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal (TRAJ), in 2001. Tilchin describes the rediscovery of the translation by Gregory A. Wynn and the subsequent enlistment of the French Roosevelt scholar Serge Ricard to assist in the publication and contextualization of the translation. The front cover illustrations from works by Ricard and Morris supplement the text.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

2020

Creator(s)

Tilchin, William N., 1950-

Serge Ricard recounts his involvement with the Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal in publishing Edmund Morris’s translation of Leon Bazalgette’s 1905 booklet about Theodore Roosevelt. Ricard provides biographies of Bazalgette and another French scholar, Albert Savine, who published a longer study of Roosevelt in 1904. Ricard highlights Bazalgette’s other biographies of notable Americans, Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau, and he notes that Savine translated four of Roosevelt’s books into French.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

2020

Creator(s)

Ricard, Serge

Serge Ricard provides three pages of corrections, clarifications, and explanations of Edmund Morris’s translation of Leon Bazalgette’s booklet Theodore Roosevelt. Ricard admits that “Morris knew French very well,” and he applauds his translation. Most of his comments and corrections are minor, and he makes it plain when he feels Morris has mistranslated Bazalgette’s writing. Ricard supplies excerpts from both Roosevelt’s writings and from others to clarify a point or to supply a quotation that escaped Morris.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

2020

Creator(s)

Ricard, Serge

The Theodore Roosevelt Association (TRA) announces that this issue of its journal is dedicated to the memory of Edmund Morris, author of a three volume biography of Theodore Roosevelt. The TRA also encourages its members to purchase a copy of its book, Spotlighting TR: Selections from the Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal, 2007-2014, as a gift for the holiday season. A text box lists the President and Executive Directors of the TRA, along with those responsible for assembling its journal, guidelines for submitting manuscripts, and information regarding the governance of the TRA.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

2019

Creator(s)

Theodore Roosevelt Association

William N. Tilchin discusses the significance of Edmund Morris’s three volume biography of Theodore Roosevelt on the heels of Morris’s death in May 2019. Tilchin cites a letter to him from John A. Gable, a former Executive Director of the Theodore Roosevelt Association (TRA) in which Gable claims that Morris’s The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt completely upended Roosevelt’s historical standing. Tilchin also quotes from Roosevelt’s address to the American Historical Association in 1912, and he asserts that Morris’s work meets Roosevelt’s challenge that good history should be well written and considered as literature. Tilchin’s essay serves as an introduction to a chapter from Morris’s second volume, Theodore Rex.

The covers of all three volumes of the Roosevelt trilogy join a photograph of Morris with Tweed Roosevelt, and an excerpt from Gable’s letter to Tilchin in illustrating the essay.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

2019

Report on the 2014 annual meeting of the Theodore Roosevelt Association (TRA) held in New York City. The report covers the events of the weekend, highlighting the various authors and speakers in attendance, and it notes the conferring of four TRA awards, including the annual Bertha B. Rose Award and USS Theodore Roosevelt Junior Officer Leadership Award. The TRA also gave awards to documentary filmmaker Ken Burns and the former Superintendent of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, Valerie Naylor.

Eleven color photographs accompany the text which is followed by a fourteen page album of eighty-four color photographs of the meeting venues, speakers, guests, and award winners.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

2015

William N. Tilchin examines the history of the Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal (TRAJ) with an emphasis on the work of John A. Gable, the long-time executive director of the Theodore Roosevelt Association (TRA) and the founder and editor of the TRAJ. Tilchin explains that Gable founded the TRAJ as a way to grow the membership of the TRA and to provide an outlet for the study of Theodore Roosevelt. Tichin notes that Gable succeeded in both tasks, and he explains the changes he has made to the TRAJ during his tenue which began in 2006. The changes include requiring peer review of submitted manuscripts, publishing regular columns like “Presidential Snapshots” and “The Material Culture of Theodore Roosevelt,” and updating the design and layout of the journal.

The article includes nineteen front cover illustrations from the TRAJ as well as six pages of excerpts from articles, reviews, and speeches. A text box with the mission statement of the TRA appears at the end of the article.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

2015-10-03

Gregory A. Wynn addresses the role that the Theodore Roosevelt Association (TRA) and the Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal (TRAJ) have played in shaping the historiography of Theodore Roosevelt. Wynn dwells on the work and contributions of John A. Gable, a long-time editor of the TRAJ in both fostering scholarship on Roosevelt and producing his own. Wynn highlights the work of Roosevelt biographers such as Edmund Morris, Kathleen Dalton, and Henry F. Pringle, and he identifies deficits in the study of Roosevelt that need to be addressed such as his presidency and his intellect.

A photograph of Wynn, the front cover of Dalton’s biography, and an excerpt of a letter from Gable to Wynn accompany the address.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Gregory A. Wynn charts the history of three rhinoceros inkwells connected to Theodore Roosevelt. One belonged to Roosevelt and has a prominent place on his desk at Sagamore Hill and two others were gifts from Roosevelt to John Callan O’Laughlin and Lawrence F. Abbott, both of whom accompanied Roosevelt on parts of his African safari and European trip in 1909-1910. Wynn notes the manufacturers of the inkwells, their provenance, and he situates them in the context of Roosevelt’s love of big game hunting.

A photograph of Wynn and three photographs of the inkwells supplement the text.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Twelve topics are covered in the seven pages of this edition of the “News and Notes” section. Highlights include the establishment of a commission to celebrate the centennial of Theodore Roosevelt’s tenure as Governor of New York state; the publication of Edmund Morris’s biography of Ronald Reagan; the visit by C-SPAN to Sagamore Hill National Historic Site; and the establishment of a Theodore Roosevelt Association (TRA) chapter and police award in New Orleans, Louisiana. The section also notes the Gold Medal conferred upon Anna Curtenius Roosevelt by the Society of Women Geographers, plans for the 1999 annual meeting of the TRA, and the death of Thomas P. DiVita, a volunteer at Sagamore Hill. Some details from Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt’s funeral instructions, an excerpt from Edward Wagenknecht’s The Seven Worlds of Theodore Roosevelt, and the announcement of a premiere of a play about Theodore Roosevelt, Teddykins: An American Hero, complete the section.

A list of the members of the New York state commission marking Roosevelt’s tenure as governor and an advertisement for the Chicago Clothing Store of Sandpoint, Idaho, appear in the section.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

1999

History of the Theodore Roosevelt Association (TRA) that traces the TRA back to the days following the death of Theodore Roosevelt in January 1919. The present day TRA came into being in 1956 following the merger of three Roosevelt memorial organizations. The history notes the TRA’s work in securing historic sites related to the life of Roosevelt, such as his birthplace and home, and the acquisition of additional sites to serve as memorials. It also looks at efforts to preserve historic documents about Roosevelt, and it notes the work of the TRA’s public speaking contests and police awards.

The second page of the article features two photographs from the TRA’s meeting at the White House with President Ronald Reagan on October 27, 1982.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

1999

Report on the results of a poll taken by the C-SPAN television network of presidential historians and C-SPAN viewers. The report highlights the rankings accorded Theodore Roosevelt–ranked fourth by historians and third by viewers–and it traces the evolution of Roosevelt’s reputation through the decades from its low point in the 1930s. The report also discusses the rankings of other presidents and highlights some of the historians who participated, in particular those who are associated with the study of Roosevelt. The report includes a listing of the top ten presidents in both the historians and viewers polls, and it includes a list of most of the presidential historians involved in the study.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

2000

Creator(s)

Unknown

Gregory A. Wynn presents an item from his Theodore Roosevelt collection, an obscure pamphlet, Roosevelt: Lover of Books, that was published by the Syracuse, New York, public library in 1920. The pamphlet includes a variety of lists, including books and book introductions written by Roosevelt, and references to famous authors found in Roosevelt’s writings. The pamphlet also includes a section, “T.R.’s note book,” that provides brief reviews of other authors and their work taken from Roosevelt’s books. A text box with the mission statement of the Theodore Roosevelt Association appears in the column.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

2014

Creator(s)

Wynn, Gregory A.

Philip J. Roosevelt and John A. Gable recount the life and work of P. James Roosevelt, the only Roosevelt family member to have been President of the Theodore Roosevelt Association (TRA). They note his love of sailing and yacht racing, his devotion to his Christian faith and missionary work, and his assumption of many leadership roles in the TRA. Roosevelt and Gable also highlight his support of the Roosevelt family genealogical project and his leadership of Youngs Memorial Cemetery. Two photographs of P. James Roosevelt appear in the section.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

1999

Creator(s)

Roosevelt, Philip J.; Gable, John A.

Fourteen topics across eleven pages comprise this edition of the “News and Notes” section. The section covers some of the Theodore Roosevelt Association’s (TRA) annual awards, including police awards, and the public speaking contests in and around New York City. It highlights the passing of Sarah Alden Derby Gannett, a grand daughter of Theodore Roosevelt, author Michael Teague, and Teddie R. Bell Kaltenbacher, a girl famously named after Roosevelt. “News and Notes” also provides updates on the effort to secure Roosevelt the Medal of Honor, the schedule for the “Theodore Roosevelt: Icon of the American Century” exhibit of the National Portrait Gallery, and production of the index for volume XXII of the TRA Journal.

Six photographs, three from the police award ceremonies, two from the speaking contests, and one of the Gannett family, supplement the text.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

1999

Report on the 2011 annual meeting of the Theodore Roosevelt Association (TRA) held in Medora and Dickinson, North Dakota. The report highlights the various venues for the meeting including Dickinson State University, Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and Medora, and it notes the winners of three awards conferred by the TRA. Thirty-eight photographs comprise most of the report, including twenty-six of the various guests, dignitaries, and speakers as well as twelve photographs of the North Dakota Badlands.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Creation Date

2012

Creator(s)

Theodore Roosevelt Association

Stacey A. Cordery reviews the final volume of Edmund Morris’s trilogy of the life of Theodore Roosevelt, Colonel Roosevelt. Cordery contends that with his final volumes on Roosevelt, Morris has restored his reputation as a biographer which had been damaged by his inventive biography of Ronald Reagan, Dutch. Cordery praises Morris for his “marvelous prose” and his ability to set a scene, but she balks at some of the language he employs, especially references to sexuality and race. Cordery asserts that Morris handles politics poorly, and that he pays insufficient attention to the women in Roosevelt’s life, especially his wife Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt. Cordery believes that Morris has not adequately incorporated the latest in Roosevelt scholarship, but she recognizes that his work has made Roosevelt known to legions of readers and elevated his place in American culture. 

The front cover illustrations for all three volumes of Morris’s trilogy appear in the review.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal