Teichmann, Howard

Obituary of Alice Roosevelt Longworth, the first born and last to die of Theodore Roosevelt’s children. The obituary details her celebrity status during her father’s presidency, her wedding to Congressman Nicholas Longworth, and his career in the House of Representatives. The notice also examines Alice Longworth’s decades long position as a Washington, D.C. power broker and socialite, and it notes her friendship with presidents, journalists, and celebrities. Her work in compiling an anthology of American poetry, her relationship with Eleanor Roosevelt, and her efforts to memorialize her father are also covered. The obituary notes her love of reading, acerbic wit, and sense of humor.

Four photographs accompany the article: the first shows Alice in 1904; the second shows the entire Roosevelt family, Theodore and Edith Roosevelt and all of their children and Alice’s husband, Nicholas Longworth, at the White House; the third shows Alice with her sister Ethel Derby and her brother Archibald Roosevelt at Theodore Roosevelt Island in Washington, D.C.; and the fourth is of Alice late in life.

A listing of the officers of the Theodore Roosevelt Association and the members of its executive, finance, and Theodore Roosevelt birthplace committees is included in the article.

John A. Gable reviews two biographies of Alice Roosevelt Longworth: James Brough’s Princess Alice: A Biography of Alice Roosevelt Longworth and Howard Teichmann’s Alice: The Life and Times of Alice Roosevelt Longworth. Gable asserts that Teichmann has written the better book of the two, and he conveys that preference by quoting three passages from his work. Gable says that for literary quality, neither book matches Longworth’s own memoir, and he says that both books are at their best when they “let Mrs. Longworth do the talking.” Because Longworth is still alive, Gable says that the last word on Princess Alice has not yet been written. 

 

Nicholas LaBella reviews and endorses Kevin Brownlow’s The War, the West, and the Wilderness which studies silent films dealing with World War I, nature documentaries, and the American West.  Brownlow argues that Theodore Roosevelt was an important figure in the early years of the silent film industry either as a subject or an inspiration for a film. LaBella notes the importance of Roosevelt’s African safari to the genre of nature films.

 

The sixtieth annual meeting of the Theodore Roosevelt Association (TRA) was held at Sagamore Hill National Historic Site on October 27, 1979. The article details the various reports given by the leadership of the TRA covering topics such as the state of the association’s finances, the election of officers and committee members, and the surge of interest in Theodore Roosevelt as evidenced by the many new books published about him in 1978-1979. The meeting concluded with talks by historians Edmund and Sylvia Morris about their biographies of Theodore and Edith Roosevelt.

Photographs of the Old Orchard Museum at Sagamore Hill, site of the annual meeting, and of Edmund and Sylvia Morris accompany the article.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal