Your TR Source
Alden Stevens provides a brief biographical look of Theodore Roosevelt’s life, giving particular focus to his experience with and impact on conservation in the United States.
1958-10-27
Chronology of the daily life of Theodore Roosevelt from January 1884 to December 1891. Notable events include the deaths of Alice Lee Roosevelt and Martha Bulloch Roosevelt, Roosevelt’s time on his ranch, the completion of Sagamore Hill, Roosevelt’s engagement and marriage to Edith Kermit Carow, Theodore “Ted” Roosevelt’s birth, the “Great-Dieup” of cattle in North Dakota, and the founding of the Boone and Crockett Club.
Theodore Roosevelt Association
1985
Chronology of the daily life of Theodore Roosevelt between January 1879 to December 1883. Notable events include Theodore Roosevelt’s engagement and marriage to Alice Hathaway Lee, his appointment to the New York State Legislature, and his first visit and buffalo hunt in North Dakota.
Theodore Roosevelt Association
1985
Chronology of the daily life of Theodore Roosevelt from January 1871 to December 1878. Notable events include the Roosevelt family’s trip to Europe and Egypt, Roosevelt’s entrance to Harvard, the death of Theodore “Thee” Roosevelt, Roosevelt’s trip to Maine, and Roosevelt meeting Alice Hathaway Lee.
Theodore Roosevelt Association
1985
In six letters to his sister Anna Roosevelt Cowles, dating from April to September of 1885, Theodore Roosevelt describes various aspects of his life as a rancher in the Dakota Badlands, touching on subjects such as the weather, working on cattle roundups, and hunting. Roosevelt notes the long hours spent in the saddle tending to cattle herds, inquires about Cowles’s health, and always asks after his infant daughter, though never by her given name of Alice. Roosevelt mentions his ranch hands Wilmot S. Dow and William Wingate Sewall in some of the letters and even highlights his favorite horse Manitou.
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
1885
Louis B. Livingston chronicles the relationship between Theodore Roosevelt and the Marquis de Mores during their time together as cattle ranchers in the Dakota Badlands. Livingston focuses on the controversy as to whether the two seriously contemplated a duel to settle their differences, and he charts their divergent paths once they left the West after the ruin of their ranches. Livingston details de Mores’s obsession with antisemitism which he argues helped precipitate the notorious Dreyfus Affair in France, and he documents Roosevelt’s outspoken opposition to antisemitism during his political career.
Six photographs supplement the article, including two of de Mores and three of Roosevelt during their ranching years. A text box with the mission statement of the Theodore Roosevelt Association appears at the end of the article.
Wallace Finley Dailey, curator of the Theodore Roosevelt Collection at Harvard University, recreates an exhibit on Theodore Roosevelt’s involvement with Harvard from his days as a student to his work as an overseer. The exhibit was displayed at Harvard in 1977, 1980, 1996, 2005, and 2012. The exhibit in article form consists of twenty-five photographs, including thirteen of Roosevelt, and numerous documents including letters, certificates, diary and notebook entries, and publications by and about Roosevelt. The accompanying text identifies each photograph and document, noting its source and providing context.
William N. Tilchin describes a seminar at Boston University on February 24, 2011, in which students were invited to look at, handle, and discuss items from the university’s Theodore Roosevelt Collection. The article includes Tilchin’s address at the start of the event which summarized Roosevelt’s life and career, and in which he highlighted four aspects of Roosevelt’s presidency: public relations, progressivism, environmentalism, and foreign policy. Tilchin also asserts his view that Roosevelt ranks second only to Abraham Lincoln among the presidents, and he encouraged the attendees to consider joining the Theodore Roosevelt Association.
Three documents on display at the seminar–a contract, a campaign poster, and a letter–appear in the article along with three photographs of some of the students in attendance.
The “Book Review” section features two works that examine aspects of Theodore Roosevelt’s outdoor life. Michael L. Manson finds that the third edition of R.L. Wilson’s Theodore Roosevelt: Hunter-Conservationist deals mostly with Roosevelt’s use of, fondness for, and collection of firearms. Manson praises contributions to the work by Lowell E. Baier and John Milius, and he finds the book beautiful with its many photographs and illustrations. Becoming Teddy Roosevelt highlights the friendship between Roosevelt and William Wingate Sewall who would mentor, tutor, and guide a young Roosevelt in the woods of Maine and who would try his hand as a cowboy on Roosevelt’s Elkhorn Ranch.
The section features illustrations of both books’ covers along with an advertisement from The Chocolate Lady of Oyster Bay, New York.
The Theodore Roosevelt Association (TRA) announces that it is suspending its plans to build a Theodore Roosevelt museum, and that it is searching for a new Executive Director. The TRA also plans a “Theodore Roosevelt Strenuous Life Weekend” in August 2009 to commemorate the 130th anniversary of Theodore Roosevelt’s ascent of Mount Katahdin in Maine. The announcement highlights Roosevelt’s relationship with William Wingate Sewall and Wilmot S. Dow of Maine who would work as ranch hands for Roosevelt in the Dakota Badlands, and it notes that the weekend events will be guided by the actor Joe Wiegand.
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
2009
Lowell E. Baier describes the importance of Theodore Roosevelt’s Elkhorn Ranch to the formation of Roosevelt’s environmental awareness, and subsequently to the emergence of the nation’s conservation movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Baier provides a brief history of the conservation movement in the United States before Roosevelt’s emergence as its leader, and he argues that the conservation effort stemmed in part from the nation’s desire to preserve parts of its frontier past. Baier quotes Roosevelt biographer Edmund Morris in emphasizing the importance of the Elkhorn to Roosevelt’s environmental beliefs, and he highlights efforts to secure the protection of lands directly across the Little Missouri River from the Elkhorn ranch house.
A photograph of Roosevelt with two of his ranch hands and three historic photographs of the Elkhorn Ranch buildings populate the essay along with two contemporary color photographs of the site. The essay also features illustrations of Roosevelt’s cattle brands, sketches of the Elkhorn ranch buildings by Frederic Remington, and a large map showing the various units of Theodore Roosevelt National Park and surrounding lands.
James F. Vivian provides a look at Theodore Roosevelt’s time in the North Dakota Badlands with a collection of newspaper accounts, ranging from 1898 to 1915, drawn from interviews with Roosevelt’s friends, fellow ranchers, cowboys, and acquaintances. Vivian provides an introduction and an afterword to the article, as well as an introduction to each of its twelve sections. The accounts include reminiscences from the likes of William Sewall, Arthur T. Packard, and the brothers Sylvane Ferris and Joseph Ferris. Vivian contends that these interviews “corroborate the content and quality” of the work done by Hermann Hagedorn in his book Roosevelt in the Bad Lands.
Ten photographs appear in the article, including three of Roosevelt’s contemporaries, Frederick Herrig, James W. Foley, and Arthur T. Packard, along with two photographs of the museum dedicated to Roosevelt onboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt. An illustration by Frederic Remington of Roosevelt’s capture of the boat thieves, and a text box with a listing of the members of the executive committee of the Theodore Roosevelt Association supplement the text.
John A. Gable, editor of the Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal, reviews three works and Richard H. Collin a fourth in the “Book Reviews” section. Gable examines a history of Theodore Roosevelt’s tenure as Police Commissioner of New York City, a biography of Alice Roosevelt Longworth, and a reissue of Hermann Hagedorn’s classic study of Roosevelt’s time in Dakota, Roosevelt in the Bad Lands. Collin studies a work on the relationship between Roosevelt and the naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan. Gable lists sixteen changes introduced to the New York City Police Department (NYPD) by Roosevelt, and he finds Jay S. Berman’s study important as the first book solely devoted to Roosevelt’s years with the NYPD despite his misgivings about its use of academic language and police jargon.
Gable focuses on Hagedorn’s research and on his relationship to the Roosevelt Memorial Association rather than on the content of the book, but he quotes David McCullough in arguing that Roosevelt in the Bad Lands remains valuable to those wanting to know about Roosevelt’s time in the West. In reviewing Carol Felsenthal’s Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Gable quotes from newspaper reviews, compares the book to previous biographies, and asserts that it is the best overall study of “Princess Alice” done to date. Collin highlights episodes, mostly negative, from Mahan’s career, and argues that Richard W. Turk’s study of the Roosevelt-Mahan relationship is deeply flawed by its lack of knowledge of Roosevelt, factual errors, and a weak bibliography. A photograph of USS Theodore Roosevelt appears in the Collin review.
Photograph showing President Roosevelt with his “Tennis Cabinet” on the White House lawn on March 1, 1909, when a farewell luncheon was held for the group. Shown from left to right behind Theodore Roosevelt are military aide Archie Butt, Third Assistant Secretary of State William Phillips, Commissioner of the Bureau of Corporations Herbert Knox Smith, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Beekman Winthrop, Chief of U.S. Forest Service Gifford Pinchot, Comptroller of Currency Lawrence O. Murray, U.S. District Attorney Henry L. Stimson, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Herbert Livingston Satterlee, Associate Justice William H. Moody, U.S. District Attorney John Carter Rose, Secretary of the Navy Truman Handy Newberry, G. W. Woodruff, French Ambassador J. J. Jusserand, William Walter Heffelfinger, Postmaster General George von Lengerke Meyer, Commission of Indian Affairs Francis E. Leupp, John Avery McIlhenny, Secretary of the Interior James Rudolph Garfield, U.S. Marshal Seth Bullock, Solicitor General Henry Martyn Hoyt, U.S. Marshal John R. Abernathy, Luther S. Kelly, Secretary of State Robert Bacon, Commissioner of Labor Charles Patrick Neill, William Wingate Sewall, Commissioner General of Immigration Daniel J. Keefe, First Assistant Secretary of State James Callan O’Laughlin, James Bronson Reynolds, Henry S. Pritchett, and secretary William Loeb. In the foreground is the Alexander Phimster Proctor sculpture, “Stalking Panther,” which was presented to Roosevelt by his “Tennis Cabinet” at the luncheon.
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs
1909-03-01
Hermann Hagedorn uses quotes from various friends, family, and colleagues of Theodore Roosevelt to demonstrate that he had an active Christian faith that he nurtured with Bible study and regular church attendance. He employs these quotations to counter the argument that Roosevelt was not a Christian and because Roosevelt himself seldom spoke openly about his faith.
Reverend George E. Talmadge, the Rector of Christ Church in Oyster Bay, New York, provides a view of Theodore Roosevelt the parishioner. He provides a number of anecdotes about Roosevelt’s participation in Sunday services and his support of church ministries. Talmadge discusses Roosevelt’s religious roots in the Dutch Reformed Church, his work with the Boy Scouts, and the death of Quentin Roosevelt.
Ray H. Mattison describes the methodology used to try to discover the exact location of Theodore Roosevelt’s Elkhorn Ranch. Mattison includes a historical background of the ranch, from its original construction and occupation by Roosevelt, William Wingate Sewall and Wilmot S. Dow, through its later abandonment and deconstruction. The primary method used by Mattison to determine the site of the Elkhorn was through a comparative study of photographs between those taken by Roosevelt in 1886 and contemporary photographs Mattison took in 1949. Additionally, Mattison interviewed a number of “Old Timers,” who were familiar with the Elkhorn Ranch, and who were able to corroborate the conclusions he came to based on the photographs.
1950-01
Ray H. Mattison gives a historical summary of the construction and use of Theodore Roosevelt’s Elkhorn Ranch, and discusses the buildings present there. Mattison draws from a number of sources, including books, letters, photographs, and interviews to try to give a complete picture of the ranch and its activities.
1960-05
The cultural resources survey, created sometime after 1977, includes information on site access, a description, environmental surroundings, archaeological excavations and types of artifacts found, and a list of published works on the Elkhorn Ranch site.
Midwest Archeological Center
Unknown
A form nominating the Elkhorn Ranch Site and Maltese Cross Cabin in Theodore Roosevelt National Park for entry onto the National Register of Historic Places. The form includes basic information about these sites, including name, location, and managing agency, as well as descriptions of the physical appearance of the sites and statements describing their historical significance.
Midwest Archeological Center
1976-12-22
Regional Archeologist Beaubien writes to Russell Reid, Superintendent of the State Historical Society of North Dakota, to tell him of the discoveries that his archaeological dig made at the Elkhorn Ranch site, including evidence of several of the buildings. Beaubien is working on a preliminary report of his findings, and would like to include a picture of a painting of the Elkhorn Ranch. He wonders if Reid would be able to get him prints of this photograph, and if he knows the history of the painting.
Midwest Archeological Center
1958-06-19