American History Hit - Teddy Roosevelt: The Making of the Rough Rider President

Episode Date: May 2, 2024

Theodore Roosevelt is arguably the most masculine president in American history. So how was he influenced by the women around him? And how was he impacted by the deaths of two of them on the same day?In this episode, Edward O'Keefe introduces us to Theodore Roosevelt's mother, two sisters, and two wives: Mittie, Bamie, Conie, Alice and Edith.Edward O'Keefe, Prime Time Emmy award and Peabody winner, CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, is the author of 'The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt: The Women Who Created a President'.Produced by Sophie Gee. Edited by Aidan Lonergan. Senior Producer was Charlotte Long.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for $1 per month for 3 months with code AMERICANHISTORY sign up at https://historyhit/subscription/ You can take part in our listener survey here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Here he is, all five feet eight inches of taut muscle, razor-sharp jaw, piercing eyes, and dabber mustache. He's gilded-age masculinity in a top hat and tails as the 19th century transitions to the 20th. He is Theodore Roosevelt. TR, the man who would be president. And as it happens, Teddy was one of the most. surprisingly sensitive of them all.

Good day all. I'm Don Wildman, and this is American History Hit. President Theodore Roosevelt was known to be a man's man, a dynamo, the original, rough and ready, a determined statesman, brilliant writer, courageous explorer, and naturalist. He was also a visionary defender of liberty and justice for his people who became the 26th President of the United States. Roosevelt understood life was to be lived as a series of challenges. to be boldly confronted and overcome. But there is also complexity and nuance,

requiring preemptive calculation and care. He was a one-of-a-kind man, but he was also the kind of man deeply affected by the outlook and influence of strong women around him, which in our nation's androcentric history is too often a quality of greatness overlooked. The loves of Theodore Roosevelt,

the women who created a president, is a new book to be released the first week of May, 2014, that examines this less understood aspect of Theodore Roosevelt, giving credit where credit is due to the inner circle women of TR's life, his mother, his wives, his sisters, who guided and shaped this legend of a man who still means so much to so many Americans. It is authored by Edward O'Keefe, who joins us today. Hello, Ed. Well, hello, Don. Great to be with you. Nice to have you. If you mean to be a man who matters, listen to the women around you.

behind every great man. There are all those phrases. They seem especially true for Teddy Roosevelt. Why so? Well, in Theodore Roosevelt's case, it's five women. It's his mother, his two sisters, and his two wives. And I think that's the part of history that has been lost in Theodore Roosevelt. arguably TR is the most masculine president in the American memory. And it's a surprise, perhaps, to some, to see this incredible influence of these fabulous women in his life. Yeah. Let's just name them first off the bat here, the whole cast of characters. Martha Stewart Bullock Roosevelt, mother, Middy, known as, Anna Roosevelt Cowell's sister, known as Bamey, Kareen Roosevelt Robinson, sister known as Connie, and then his first wife Alice and his second wife, Edith. Five ladies, as you say, without exception, all of them exceptional people.

Speaks well of a man, doesn't it, that he was born of and most drawn to women of character and clarity. Let's first talk about his childhood and his relationships to his mother. Martha Roosevelt, how do you raise a boy to become TR? Exactly. That's the question, Don. And I think people are surprised to learn in the loves of Theodore Roosevelt that Middy, who has been really much maligned in history as completely inconsequential her son's development in life, that she is really quite essential to his formation. You know, Roosevelt as a child was not the Roosevelt we know from Mount Rushmore. He was not the chiseled hero of San Juan Hill or Kettle Hill. He was sickly. He has a boy. He's very asthmatic.

And you know, to say that he's asthmatic, this is 1850s, 1860s New York. I mean, it's smog and the sewage and horrible water conditions. Even though the Roosevelt's were wealthy, he was subjected to environmental catastrophe all around him. And he's living a life of the mind of books. He's really, he's kind of geeky naturalist, if you will, known for putting his foot on his knee in such a way that he draws comparisons to a stork when he's reading. So I don't think he's the lively, manly, TR of his adulthood, and it's his mother who really understands that his life is in danger. I mean, she and her mother who lives with her. So their grandmother actually lives with the Roosevelt's while the Civil War is raging, as well as his aunt. His father is away much of the

time. He's down in Washington, D.C., meeting with President Lincoln and trying to draw an allotment system where soldiers from the union can send money back to their families to support them while they were away during the Civil War. So B, as great as he is, and we can certainly talk about his great influence on T.R.'s life, he's gone. It's Midi, and Midi's mother, Midi's sister, and the contra of women in the household who are really raising Theodore Roosevelt. The unlikelyhood is that she's also, she's a Confederate. I mean, she's from Georgia in the midst of the Civil War in New York City. It's a crazy thing. She is a fish out of water, isn't she? Not just that. I think that it's another extraordinary thing to recognize about Middy. In the space of six years, she has four children.

She loses contact with two brothers who are fighting for the Confederacy. And she has a husband who's largely away much of the war. That will rack on anyone's nerves. She also, I think, provides a really important lesson to TR very young. She is living in a house divided. in a nation divided. Theodore Roosevelt is learning from his parents firsthand civic disagreement and what could be more of a disagreement than differing viewpoints on the civil war. Yet they still loved one another. They still respected one another and they still lived together with these opposing views,

teaching their children to disagree without being disagreeable. Right. There's also another aspect of his family background, which I think deserves recognition. The fact that he comes from such Dutch ancestry. His father is that whole line goes way back. The Dutch are famously throughout the ages empowering to women, right, compared to other cultures, for sure. Absolutely. And I think that this is something that's recognized in the relationship between Fee and Middy.

It's recognized in the relationship between Theater Roosevelt's grandparents, CVS Roosevelt. It was a remarkable figure. He's really responsible for reviving the Roosevelt family fortunes. But there's also that Quaker influence. the Dutch reformed Presbyterian influence, this feeling of nobles au liege, to whom much is given, much is required. And I think there's an equanimity and equality built into the relationship between husband and wife, because they need to work together to succeed in this new America. I'm not sure about the Dutch, but I know from my own Quaker background that there was a lot about

estates transferring, you know, generations when women would take a of estates as opposed to just the assumption of men. And that had a whole trickle-down vibe to a family. Big deal. That's a very not a commonly held view in the 19th century. I mean, that will influence Theodore Roosevelt when he writes in 1880, this incredibly effusive declaration of the quality between men and women. That is, of course, influenced by Alice Hathaway Lee, which we'll hear about a little bit later. But really, I mean, he in 1880, Theodore Roosevelt, writes about property ownership for women, the equality before the law, the fact that women should become doctors and lawyers, that they should, of course, have the right to vote, which is 40

years before the enactment of the 19th Amendment. It's a very reform-minded, progressive viewpoint at a young age. Well, he's writing that at Harvard. I mean, he's a college student writing in his senior thesis. He also believes that women should keep their maiden names in marriage. Right. And let's remember that this is the subject at this time. I mean, it's really from since the 1840s, the equality of women, suffrage of women, all of this, right down to how households run. That's what Americans are really thinking about in certainly the elite circles. It's a big, big subject that he's going to take on in his lifetime. Well, let's think about where the origin of all that comes from. Again, Midi. Right. Midi is a

fiery, independent woman. There's a great letter between Fee and Midi during the Civil War, right before the Civil War, actually, in which Thie says, do not become a strong-minded woman. Well, that's impossible. She is a strong-minded woman. I mean, Thie's brother will note of Thie and Middy that between your solemnity and her liveliness, you make an even match, right? It's the cliche. Opposites attract. Thee, who has been adored by history, as this quintessential example of manhood, the example from which Theodore Roosevelt drew, his strength to make his body as well as his mind. That is true. I mean, it's there. It's, and, you know, the fact that his father died when TR was 20 years old and Fee was only 46, of course is going to bring his father to a let, even more legendary status in his memory and mind because he was gone too soon. But it is Middy, who has this incredibly vivacious personality. She has coy turns of phrase. I mean, it's said of her, her brother says, She's a lively lassie, a black-haired lively lassie with a ready tongue.

I mean, if that doesn't sound like Theodore Roosevelt, I don't know what does. It is from Midi that TR derives his infectious personality, which of course will be the source of so much political and personal success. And it's also after the death of thee, Midi, who tells the family, we need to live for the living and not for the dead. That is a hard thing to learn, obviously. when you have tragedy early in your life, there are two paths forward. You can either move forward or you can stand still or move backward.

And it is from Midi that TR perhaps learned his most valuable trait, resilience. The will go on in the face of the inevitably terrible events that will occur in life. That's why your book is so necessary. There's a theme here about American society that's even larger than Theodore Roosevelt, that you can really trace the innovations and changes politically and culture. in this country to the emergence of women's rights as an issue. That's certainly one of the most important and less understood and recognized parts of the development of American culture. It's really fascinating. And a kind of microcosm of that is Theodore Roosevelt's political career.

1883 in the Assembly, he's a New York Assemblyman, he introduces a bill for corporal punishment for wife beaters. This was a huge issue among others at the time. The whole women's movement was confronting things on many different fronts, not just nationally and, you know, but also, you know, on the home front. Let's talk about his sisters. I too have sisters. Many of us do. Lucky men. A lucky one. I mention it every episode. I'm the youngest of four sisters. And it is a connect the dots with world leaders who have sisters and those who don't. Bami and Connie, Anna and Corrine are their actual names. Let's talk about them one at a time. Bami played an advisory role for him later and politically. How did she learn that business? Well, that's a great question, Don. Let's again go back to the beginning. Bami is born in 1855. Her brother, Theodore, is born in 1858. They're only three years apart. But Bami will throughout her life will almost be a substitute mother to TR. She is the one who moves him into his Harvard dorm and furnishes it. She's the one to whom he writes during college of his success, almost like you would to your parents. She is the one who really,

understands that politics are a passion for him and pushes him toward a profession that at that point is not very common among the elites. I mean, if you have money, you have power. What's the point of a vote or running for office? I mean, he's influenced by an uncle who serves in Congress, but it's really Bami who understands that Theodore is a special person and needs the support and guidance to really soothe his kind of impestuous personality. I'll also say one thing personally. We talked about the physical struggles that TR had with asthma growing up. Bami had a spinal defect that really prevented her from almost standing for a minute at a time. You know, The, the father will form the first orthopedic hospital in New York as a result of Bami's spinal defect.

And it is from his older sister that Theodore Roosevelt learns the will through pain. I mean, again, a common trait that we ascribe to TR, his almost supernatural ability to tolerate these strenuous life adventures. Where is he learning that? Bami, his older sister. But yes, you're right, Don, as they continue through life, Bami becomes, I like to say, what Robert F. Kennedy was to John F. Kennedy, this sibling and trusted advisor, this strategic political mind who could look around corners, make introductions, protect their siblings back,

and really watch out for those who had his best interests in mind and what decisions he need to make. Lest we think it's just a hovering sister, she has her own life. She becomes his press secretary eventually before there's even such a position. So Eleanor Roosevelt, the famous First Lady, puts it best, she says, of her aunts, because these were her aunts and knew them quite well, that you really went to Bami for advice. You went to Connie for empathy or sympathy. Connie was the more emotive, and she was a poet, she was a writer, she could be the one you went for for an emotional outpost. And with that sensitivity, Connie really understood that the personal

life of Theodore Roosevelt was fodder for the press, for a curious public that wanted to know more and was fascinated by this rambunctious family. The youngest president ever to ascend to the White House, has six children from two marriages. There's a, menagerie of animals moving all about the White House. I mean, Algonquin the pony is taking the elevator up to the second floor. Josiah the badger is being held out in the garden. You know, I mean, Emily the snake is wrapped around Alice's neck. I mean, Connie recognized that if these personal stories were leaked to the press, I mean, because she did it over Edith's objections. Edith wanted privacy, did not want the stories of her husband and her children necessarily out there

for public consumption. But Connie knew if those stories made their way to the press and thus the public that it would endear Theodore Roosevelt and his family. And not only that, it would put him in the pantheon of great presidents after his death, where she would fight very hard to preserve his legacy. I think one of the reasons that TR is considered one of the top five presidents to this day is not only because of his accomplishments, it's because his sister's Bami and Connie worked so hard immediately after his presidency to put him there. And by the way, one last thing I'll say, Don, of Bami. You know, Alice Roosevelt-Longworth, T.R.'s daughter will say of Bami that had Bami lived and been a man, she, not T.R. would have been president of the United States.

And that question was asked of Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1950s, long after T.R. was gone, said, Eleanor, do you agree with what Alice said about your father, that it would be Bami? not TR that was president? And she said, well, that very easily could have been so. So none of them Eleanor Roosevelt thought Bami, not T.R, would have been president in a different time. I'll be back with more American history after this short break. It's also this era, the era of the tail that wags the dog. You have the emergence of media in the Gilded Age, or coming up to the Gilded Age,

where these periodicals and these newspapers and all of that is beginning to be a story being told about America, the mirror to America. And those who are smart know how to manipulate that, how to use that to their best advantage. And those sisters are storytellers. They understand. This is a tale unfolding, and they know how to do it. Well, Doris Kearns-Goodwin captures this brilliantly in the bully pulpit. I, in the loves of Theodore Roosevelt, try to capture some of that imagination and storytelling that took place particularly with Connie. But you're right. You know, Bami is, again, this person who knows T.R. so well, knows who he needs to talk with in 1895 as he's struggling as the New York City Police Commissioner. He's one of multiple commissioners, so he doesn't have universal executive power.

And of course, he's always trying to reform something. He's always trying to change something, which quickly makes him unpopular in whatever job he has. And so she knows he needs a change. And once again, he thinks his political life is over. He's done. He's been run out of office or appointed office yet again. And it is Bami who says, I know you need to meet with. You need to meet with Bellamy Storer and his wife, is a congressman who was influential with McKinley. And that leads to T.R.'s involvement in the McKinley campaign, which leads to T.R.'s appointment as assistant secretary of the Navy. Every time you think he's down and out, Bami is the one who's there behind the scenes. When TR ascends to the presidency in September of 1901, it's Bami's house that holds

the first cabinet meetings. Her home is known by the press as the little White House. I mean, that's an extraordinary degree of influence. Well, you've got to make the connections, and that's what the women were doing. They still are. You know, it's that intuition that really that matters so much. So you've got a guy with a strong mother, super strong mother, two strong sisters, the Dutch ancestry, as I say, gilded age, expansive America, happening around you. T.R. marries his sweetheart, Alice Hathaway Lee, 1880. He's a college student. Love at first sight. I mean, that's the other thing about him. He's really hard on the sleeve, passionate guy. Alice is a athlete, a tennis player, competitive woman. Fair to call her an iconoclast.

Oh, absolutely. I think of her, you know, this is Audrey Hepburn or Kate Hepburn, right? She's just vivacious and living and beautiful and beguiling and athletic and all those things. It must have just been a bombshell in TR's life. And 1881, he's elected to the New York State Assembly out of the Upper East Side. I love this. It's the Silk Stocking District, they call it. He serves 82, 83, and 84. But in 1884, the events that play the defining role in TR's personal life, eventually, really, his professional destiny as well, happens on Valentine's Day, February 14th, 1884.

Take us through that day, would you add? Well, Don, let's take that American history hit. That is the moment. That's the crucible. Let's back up a little bit to February 11th. Alice Hathaway Lee, now Alice Hathaway Roosevelt, is pregnant with their first child. It's taken them some years to get pregnant. Later, it'll be confirmed that she did indeed undergo some sort of gynecological operation in order to allow her to become pregnant. So it's been a bit of a struggle. And finally, they're going to have their first child. She's right on the cusp of having the baby. And of course, Theodore Roosevelt believes in, he's a bit superstitious. He believes a bit in destiny, and he's got a poetic

aside to him. So he says, of course the baby is going to be born on February 14, 1884, the four-year anniversary to the day they announced their engagement in 1880. So he goes back to Albany. Somewhat inexplicably, okay, fine, men weren't in the delivery room at those days, but, you know, they've gone through a lot of trouble to get pregnant. She's on the cusp of having the baby. His mother is not feeling all that well. He goes back to Albany. He does his work. He gets a telegram that says that the baby has been born, a baby girl, and that Alice is only fairly well. He celebrates. He goes back to do his committee work, and then a second telegram arrives. And that second telegram has been lost to history, but we know his reaction from his fellow New York state legislatures.

Theodore Roosevelt's face was, quote, ashen. He went stark white and ran from the New York Assembly to the train station. Now, normally, The trip from Albany to New York City would take two, two and a half hours. There was a blinding, dense, precipitous fog that had descended over the city. The New York Times called it suicidal weather, that those inclined to atmospheric reverberations best not go outside because it was so dense and thick. You couldn't see your finger out in front of your face. This is the New York Times.

Five and a half hours, five and a half excruciating hours for TR to reach New York City. He runs from Grand Central to 6 West 57th, and there, Elliot Roosevelt, has said, There is a curse on this house. Mother is dying, and Alice is dying too. T.R. rushes upstairs to the third floor. He's with his wife until 2.30 in the morning on February 14, 1884, Valentine's Day, when he's called to the second floor, and his mother, Middy, his beloved mother, who has informed so much of his life, who really is responsible for saving Theodore Roosevelt as a child dies, succumbs to typhoid fever. He goes back up to the third floor, and for 11 hours, he refuses to let go of Alice.

He's holding her so tightly in his arms. They worry that he's going to be virtually cramped and stuck in that position, and yet she, too, at 1.30 in the afternoon, dies of Bright's disease, a kidney disorder related to the childbirth, and he has lost both his mother and his wife on Valentine's Day, the day he thought his daughter would be born. Oh, my Lord. I mean, I honestly have never heard of any other historical figure who went through this. I'm sure you could find it.

But it's extraordinarily unique situation. Overwhelming. And yet this is a man who hasn't even become president yet. That's how his career will go upward instead of downward. But in the meantime, this is a blow. of inordinate proportions. He X's the day out in his diary very famously, a very neatly drawn X, I must say, and writes the famous phrase. The light has gone out of my life. And what I find significant, what I explore in the loves of Theodore Roosevelt, is that's not just a dramatic

or metaphorical statement. Alice was known to him by the nickname Sunshine. It means a light, my sunshine, has gone out of my life. It is over. And he really truly believes it. I mean, he had to be handled like a child, they said, at the funeral, that he was so distraught, so depressed, that they worried for his life, that he might be so overcome with emotion. He might not be able to move forward. He does finish out his term in the assembly, but then he quits. He does not run for another term. He's politically defeated at the 1884 convention in Chicago, and he goes to the badlands of North Dakota, the future site of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library and basically says, I am done. I'm going to live. But what I will

later call the strenuous life as a rancher and a cowboy, you know, my life will be as a writer and a rancher, and I'm out. Yeah. The newborn, his little daughter, he hands over to who? His older sister. Yeah, Mamie. And raises this child until she's three years old, right? He doesn't see her until she's three. I mean, he's going back and forth to New York, and he's constantly, Bami is keeping him updated in the loves of Theodore Roosevelt, I was fortunate enough to discover 11 new letters that Greg Wynn, the president of the Theodore Roosevelt Association, found in a safe that had been locked there since 1954, unbelievably, never seen, never written about since 1954. Greg called it the greatest discovery of Roosevelt letters since his death in 1919. And there's a letter from TR to

Bami in April of 1885. And this is the dark year. We don't know. much about this year in history. We know what TR was doing. He was in the badlands recovering depressed, and he says to Bami that he's chased two strayed horses for 40 miles without gloves or a hat, which could kill you at that time in a blinding snowstorm, spends the night in a cave with a Texan cowboy and really believes they treated him first class, and he loves this consumptive life. It's the first hint that TR is coming out of his depression, and who's on the other end of that letter, Bami, updating them on politics, taking care of his baby, making sure that Stagamore Hill gets built, selling the house at 6th West 57th Street, buying a new townhome on Madison Avenue.

She's the one making sure there's a life to come back to in New York when he's ready. It's remarkable. The last woman in your cast is his second wife, Edith. They have a unique relationship. They've known each other pretty much all their lives, haven't they? Well, that's, yeah, down, that's the other incredible thing that Middy recognized. I described that kind of odd naturalist who lived the life of the mind and science. Well, guess what? He didn't have many friends because he's not the Roosevelt Rushmore we all know and love. He's an odd ball. And Middy invites Edith to join the Roosevelt's in homeschool taught by her sister Anna. And so really from three years old and onward, Edith is in the life of Theodore Roosevelt. That's extraordinarily rare that they would

know each other for 57 of his 60 years. This is a big scale relationship. I mean, she, she becomes the wife of a president, and she has everything guiding, everything about guiding him to that place, just as these other women have had their own role in that. She really becomes the first White House first lady, isn't she? She kicks open the door to the American century with TR, and I think it all dates back to that relationship that we talked about, Don, from three years old on. I mean, Edith is the diametric opposite of Alice, taciturn and reserved, habitually reserved. She had a harder life. Her father was an alcoholic. They watched the degradation of their family fortune very slowly and painfully over time. When TR or the Roosevelt's would come to visit,

she would hide her shabby toys because she was embarrassed. I mean, she have this extraordinary poem that Edith wrote at age 14, My Dreamcastles. Only one, one tiny, room locked they find, one thin curtain that they ne'er gaze behind. There, my lost ambition sleep, to the tear-wept slumber deep, long consigned, this my lonely sanctum is. She is a beautiful writer, but sad. You know, she's had a tough, hard childhood, and she must have felt a pang of jealousy watching this remarkable family that Roosevelt's go off on European tours and ever increasing in their fortune and love. And really, you know, what the story of the loves of Theodore Roosevelt is relative to Edith and Alice is, I like to say that Edith was T.R.'s first love and second wife. It's a story of

love found, love lost, and love found again. You know, Alice provides this. With Alice, T.R. rises like a rocket, right? He has his incredible first success. After her death, T.R. will not hold elected office, for 15 years. He only lived to 60. That's one-fourth of his life. And then Edith re-enters after those tragic events of February 14th, 1884. And at first, TR says, you know, I don't want to see Edith. I don't want to fall back in love.

That would dishonor Alice. But inevitably, they find their way back together and boom, that spark, that inevitable connection. And who knows, you know, they're older now. They're little wiser. they've both gone through tragedy in their life. I think they formed a partnership more respectful, and that's the foundation that becomes that success in the White House. And my goodness, I mean, how much time do you have? Edith does everything you can imagine, first to have a social secretary,

first person to redesign the White House in a meaningful way. She creates what becomes the West Wing. They nickname the White House, no longer called the executive mansion. She builds a colonial garden that will become the Rose Garden. She has 40,000 guests to the White House, and they will entertain musicians and poets and writers. That's exactly what Jackie Kennedy will later famously do in the Kennedy administration. I mean, she sets the stage for every First Lady to come, and she had no model to do it. That's all on top of raising six children and being TR's most trusted political advisor. T.R. said of Edith, whenever I go against her judgment, I regret it. You said that earlier, Don, right? Whenever you listen to the woman who might make the right decisions and whenever you don't, well, that's for you.

If you pay the consequences, it then resonates through to Franklin Roosevelt, which, of course, we'll be talking about later on with his relationship with Eleanor, these women that are the backbone of these men's lives who stand on their own. I mean, let's not forget that. They are great people individually as well. But it's an extraordinary story that. That is the mesh that holds this man's life together for sure. It's really also the story of letter writing, isn't it? That's where this all starts. These people wrote incredible letters. Doesn't it worry you that we don't do that anymore? I know, right?

I mean, all of these presidential libraries are now, I think the Obama Library is 95% digitally native, which means only 5% was on paper. I mean, you know, it's going to be interesting for historians. In a way, there'll be a more voluminous record of everything that was exchanged. But in another way, it's not these deep introspective thoughts. that you get in a letter where you have to sit and, right? I mean, the famous quote, I would have written a shorter letter if I had more time. I mean, I don't think we sit at an email and prepare to compose something for history

that's deeply, and the keeping of diaries. I mean, a lot of these come from diaries or contemporaneous interviews, oral interviews. You know, you mentioned FDR. I just have to say, Don, I love what FDR said about Edith. She said, she managed TR very cleverly without his being conscious of it. No slight achievement, anyone will concede. You know, that's the kind of power that FDR and Eleanor saw. They saw this dynamic relationship between TR and Edith.

In many ways, you can draw a very straight line between the square deal of TR and the new deal of FDR, but also in that really productive relationship between husband and wife, first lady, and president. Wow. It is essential stuff. I mean, it's really amazing lens through which to look at American history for sure. these family relationships. That's what I mean about the letters. I mean, in this case, the personal dynamics actually inform the political outcomes of this man's life. You have four sisters. I mean, I think if I had to boil the loves of Theodore Roosevelt down, I would say, look, it's a story about

family. We all have a mother or sisters or brothers or a mentor or a boss, somebody in our life that picks us up when we're down that propels us forward when we could have fallen backward. The myth of TR is a self-made man. He wasn't self-made, and he didn't do it alone, and that actually makes me like and love Theodore Roosevelt, admire him even more. Exactly, yes. He's a 100% human being. That's what's so appealing to the guy, but the women were behind it.

Award-winning journalist and Roosevelt historian Edward O'Keefe is the CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library Foundation, spent two decades in broadcast in digital media at ABC News, CNN, now this, during which time he received a primetime Emmy Award for his work with all kinds of things, including a Peabody Award for ABC coverage of 9-11. I'm reading a bio I should have started you out with there, but I was so excited to talk about PR. I'm sorry. That's okay. This is great. Remarkable career. I really appreciate it.

Thank you, Don. Great to be with you. Hey, thanks for listening to American History Hit. You know, every week we release new episodes, two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays. All kinds of content from mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements to some of the biggest battles across the centuries. Don't miss an episode. By hitting like and follow, you help us out, which is great.

But you'll also be reminded when our shows are on. And while you're at it, share it with a friend. American History Hit with me, Don Wildman. So grateful for your support.