Your TR Source
Charles N. Elliot sends Theodore Roosevelt John Burroughs’ book about his Western trip with Roosevelt and requests that Roosevelt write a brief appreciation of the author for inclusion.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1911-09-14
President Roosevelt praises William De Witt Hyde’s book From Epicurus to Christ and says he has sent copies to Secretary of State Elihu Root and George Otto Trevelyan. He encloses a poem of Walt Whitman’s that he had not seen before.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-11-08
President Roosevelt praises Martha Baker Dunn’s essays and also thanks her for sending him the Walt Whitman poem, which he had never seen before. They seem to have similar taste in poetry. He has sent her work, along with that of William De Witt Hyde, to George Otto Trevelyan to “show him that there are Americans who write things worth reading.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-11-09
President Roosevelt does not think it is advisable for Edwin Arlington Robinson to go to England, because he thinks that America’s literary men are “always hurt by going abroad.” Roosevelt asks Richard Watson Gilder to find out how Robinson is doing. He wants to give Robinson a government position.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-03-31
Mark Sullivan praises the speech President Roosevelt gave at the Abraham Lincoln celebration in Kentucky. Professor Abbott of the New York Law School thought it one of the three best pieces ever written about Lincoln. Sullivan includes two newspaper clippings that also praise Roosevelt’s speech.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1909-02-15
William De Witt Hyde thanks President Roosevelt for appreciating his book and returns the selections of Walt Whitman’s poems.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-11-11
Martha Baker Dunn does not have plans to visit Washington at present. Dunn describes recent works she has read and passes on a poem by Walt Whitman.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-11-05
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.
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
2020
The Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal presents a 1905 booklet, Theodore Roosevelt, written by the French scholar Leon Bazalgette and translated by Roosevelt biographer Edmund Morris. Bazalgette composed the booklet as an “examination of the works of Theodore Roosevelt,” and he divides Roosevelt’s books into three categories: history, politics, and nature. Bazalgette examines numerous works in each category, and he explains how the books and writings reflect the thoughts and beliefs of Roosevelt. Bazalgette asserts that Roosevelt’s time in the West as a cowboy was the most important period of his life, and he admits that he likes Roosevelt’s writings from and about this period and place the best. Bazalgette quotes extensively from Roosevelt’s western trilogy, and he highlights passages Roosevelt wrote about bird songs.
The translation of the booklet is followed by a brief biography of Bazalgette written by Morris, along with a list of Roosevelt books cited by Bazalgette. Two text boxes at the conclusion of the work list the mission and vision statements of the Theodore Roosevelt Association (TRA) along with a listing of its social media platforms.
John Burroughs gives his impressions of Theodore Roosevelt in a letter written shortly after Roosevelt’s death in 1919. Burroughs describes visiting Yellowstone National Park with Roosevelt and bird watching at the President’s retreat in rural Virginia, Pine Knot. He notes episodes like the controversy over the “nature faker” naturalists and the feeding of bears in Yellowstone. Burroughs remarks on Roosevelt’s character and on his personality, and he asserts that Roosevelt was not impulsive, but that he did have an oversize personality that would dominate any room he entered.
A photograph of Pine Knot appears on the second page of the article.
Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal
1993-1994
The combined “Books” and “Book Notes” sections contain four lengthy reviews, a brief review essay, and a notice about five works related to the life of Theodore Roosevelt. It also includes a short excerpt from Roosevelt’s writings on conservation and a report by Wallace Finley Dailey on the status of the Theodore Roosevelt Collection at Harvard University. Christopher Volpe praises Edward Renehan’s biography of John Burroughs and highlights Burroughs’s friendships with Roosevelt and the poet Walt Whitman. Volpe notes that Burroughs was a very popular figure as a nature writer in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, but that he fell into obscurity after his death in 1921.
John A. Gable admires the cartoons and commentary found in J. David Valaik’s Theodore Roosevelt, An American Hero in Caricature which reproduces forty-seven caricatures of Roosevelt found in the pages of Puck magazine. Gable also favors Caleb Carr’s historical novel, The Alienist, which revolves around Roosevelt’s tenure as Police Commissioner of New York City. Gable, deeply skeptical of fictional portrayals of Roosevelt, finds Carr’s treatment “entirely accurate,” and he notes how other characters that people the novel have roots in real persons.
James G. Lewis reviews Char Miller’s Gifford Pinchot: The Evolution of an American Conservationist and notes that the work challenges the established view of the relationship between Pinchot and John Muir. Lewis says that Miller is “writing revisionist environmental history” by providing a nuanced portrait of Pinchot. Some of the selections as well as some of the commentary found in Mario R. Di Nunzio’s Theodore Roosevelt: An American Mind are questioned by the anonymous reviewer.
Wallace Finley Dailey, Curator of the Theodore Roosevelt Collection at Harvard University, provides a detailed update on manuscript and book additions to the collection; the use of the collection holdings by numerous authors; and the adoption of new computer based cataloging technology. Dailey also discusses fundraising efforts, exhibitions using the collection materials, and donations from members of the Roosevelt family. Photographs of Burroughs, Pinchot, Carr, and Valiak appear in the sections along with a view of the Theodore Roosevelt Gallery at Harvard.
In his article for Ladies’ Home Journal, Theodore Roosevelt describes the benefits of reading and provides advice on how to get people of any age interested in reading “serious literature.” Roosevelt elaborates on his reading habits and book selection processes, which stem from both his current mood and educational desires.
1915-04
Gustavus Lane Monroe quotes from Walt Whitman’s poems “For You O Democracy” and “Song of Myself,” and argues that President Roosevelt epitomizes Whitman’s ideal man. “It may be that through him Democracy will attain to its perfection.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-01-05
John Burroughs expounds on his recent travels. People have been very interested in his trip to Yellowstone with President Roosevelt.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1903-05-05
Herschel V. Jones suggests that President Roosevelt consider publishing his works as limited editions. He recommends Houghton, Mifflin & Company and Little, Brown & Company as publishers. Jones concludes with a request for a signed first edition of Roosevelt’s newly published book, The Deer Family.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1902-03-05
Sir Charles Philips Trevelyan explains to Governor Roosevelt that a line of poetry recalled by Bucky O’Neill was from “The Battle of the Lake Regillus.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1899-08-17