Wharton, Edith, 1862-1937

President Roosevelt is amused at some of the political attacks against him. He agrees to Senator Lodge’s suggestions for personnel changes in the Spanish Treaty Claims Commission, but is unsure how to handle the “whisky business” regarding the Pure Food and Drug Act. Roosevelt is facing a number of requests that he run for reelection, but is not concerned with what most people think.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-09-21

Theodore Roosevelt mentions an anecdote from Edith Wharton and asks if it is any wonder that England tends to fall back under the stress of modern life.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-06-06

President Roosevelt sends Brander Matthews an excerpt of a letter that Edith Wharton sent Henry Cabot Lodge. The excerpt focuses on Wharton discussing George Otto Trevelyan’s history of the American Revolution with a soldier who participated in the South African War.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-06-07

Corinne Roosevelt Robinson thanked Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt for her note but has not yet thanked Theodore Roosevelt for his “much valued letter.” She cherishes Roosevelt’s thoughts about her poetry. Henry Cabot Lodge, Edith Wharton, and Jacob A. Riis also praised her work. Corinne thinks one of her recent poems has “lyric charm” and may send it in for publication. Her son, Theodore Douglas Robinson, is working hard on his campaign and appreciates Roosevelt’s words.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1911-08-03

George Cabot Lodge writes to President Roosevelt about an enclosure, a section of a letter from Edith Wharton who was staying with the Marlboroughs at Blenheim.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-06-06

Joseph R. Ornig chronicles Theodore Roosevelt’s work as a writer of histories, biographies, natural histories, essays, letters, and journalism. Ornig highlights some of these works, such as Roosevelt’s The Naval War of 1812 and The Winning of the West, by describing Roosevelt’s research, his aims, the books’ reception, and the time it took to complete them. Ornig also examines why Roosevelt wrote so much, citing the need to make money, articulating a reform agenda, and organizing his thoughts, and he notes those who acted as mentors to the literary Roosevelt like Henry Cabot Lodge and Owen Wister. Ornig also notes that Roosevelt assumed the role of mentor to many aspiring writers like the poet Edwin Arlington Robinson.

Eleven illustrations accompany the essay, including three of Roosevelt writing and two examples of his hand writing.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

In his review of Hermione Lee’s biography of Edith Wharton, Harry N. Lembeck describes in detail her home in Lenox, Massachusetts, known as The Mount. Lembeck also discusses her relationships with her friend Walter Berry, her lover William Morton Fullerton, and fellow writer Henry James. Lembeck highlights her relationship with Theodore Roosevelt which centered on their mutual love of books and reading, their dislike of Woodrow Wilson, and their desire to see the United States abandon its neutrality and enter the Great War in Europe. Lembeck also highlights some aspects of Wharton’s writing that had been previously ignored.

Seven photographs supplement the text, including five of The Mount. One shows Wharton with two of Roosevelt’s sons, Quentin Roosevelt and Archibald B. Roosevelt. A text box with the mission statement of the Theodore Roosevelt Association also appears in the article.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Two books are reviewed and two books are revisited in this edition of the “Book Reviews” section. John A. Gable examines The Letters of Edith Wharton and focuses on what the letters reveal about Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, Theodore Roosevelt’s sister, and Ethel Roosevelt Derby, the president’s daughter. Gable provides portraits of each, and he notes that Edith Wharton “regarded [Theodore] Roosevelt with an awe bordering on worship.” Perry D. Floyd asserts that Garrett and Roosevelt falls short as a biography of the last twenty years of lawman Pat F. Garrett’s life in part because there was not much a relationship between Garrett and Roosevelt. Floyd says that the available evidence cannot support the book’s title.

The column offers extended quotes from Lewis L. Gould and Gable taken from their reviews of Carol Felsenthal’s biography Alice Roosevelt Longworth, and it features a notice (which acts as an advertisement) about the reissue of the Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia. The notice quotes from William Allen White’s foreword to the 1941 edition.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal

Edmund Morris argues that “the more one analyzes Theodore Roosevelt in the harsh light of historical research, the more authentic an American hero he becomes.” Morris looks at different episodes in Roosevelt’s life, such as his service during the Spanish-American War, to make his case, and he compares Roosevelt’s life to heroic figures from mythology and literature such as Hercules, Beowulf, and King Lear.  

 

Homer Davenport’s famous cartoon, “He’s good enough for me,” featuring Uncle Sam and Theodore Roosevelt is on the first page of the article.

George Cabot Lodge thanks President Roosevelt for his letter. Lodge is glad the president liked Edith Wharton’s anecdote. Lodge and his wife, Mathilda Elizabeth Frelinghuysen Lodge, are grateful for Ethel Roosevelt’s help with the babies.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-06