Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born at 9 p.m. on January 30, 1882, at the family home, “Springwood,” in Hyde Park, New York. He was the only child of his parents’ marriage and had a half brother, James Roosevelt Roosevelt (1854–1927), from his father’s first marriage.⁠[1]

His father, James Roosevelt, was a New York landowner and businessman who, as a widower, married Sara Delano, twenty-six years his junior, in 1880. Franklin grew up on the family estate and was schooled at home by tutors until his teens.⁠[2]

In September 1896, at age 14, Roosevelt entered Groton School, a preparatory boarding school in MassachusettsMassachusettsMassachusetts (officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts) is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States; its capital and largest city is Boston. One of the original 13 states, it ratified the U.S. Constitution on February 6, 1788, the sixth state to do so. Its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 7,029,917.Open the full entry, where he remained until 1900. He played football, managed the baseball team and admired his distant cousin Theodore RooseveltTheodore RooseveltTheodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) was an American Republican politician, writer, naturalist, and soldier who served as the 26th President of the United States from 1901 to 1909 and received the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize for mediating an end to the Russo-Japanese War.Open the full entry.⁠[1][3][2]

Roosevelt entered Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private research university in Massachusetts, established by the Massachusetts Bay Colony legislature in 1636 and named in 1639 for early benefactor John Harvard. Its principal campuses are in Cambridge and the Allston and Longwood neighborhoods of Boston. It includes Harvard College, graduate and professional schools, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Two governing boards share oversight. Alan M. Garber was president as of October 2026, and the endowment stood at $56.9 billion at the end of fiscal 2025.Open the full entry in 1900 and earned a bachelor’s degree in history in just three years, in 1903. He became editor of the student newspaper, the Crimson, and took part in crew, and after graduating he returned for a year of graduate work.⁠[3][2][1]

His father, James Roosevelt, died in New York City on December 8, 1900, at age 72.⁠[1]

On March 17, 1905, Roosevelt married his distant cousin Eleanor Roosevelt (Anna Eleanor Roosevelt), a niece of Theodore Roosevelt; President Theodore Roosevelt gave the bride away.⁠[3][2]

A few months before his marriage, Roosevelt began law school at Columbia UniversityColumbia UniversityColumbia University, formally Columbia University in the City of New York, is a private research university in New York City and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1754 by royal charter from King George II as King's College, it is the oldest institution of higher education in New York State and the fifth oldest in the United States. It was renamed Columbia College in 1784 and adopted the university name and moved to Manhattan's Morningside Heights in 1896. It has 17 schools and four affiliated colleges, with 35,978 students enrolled in fall 2025. Legal scholar Jennifer L. Mnookin became president on July 1, 2026.Open the full entry. After passing the bar examination in 1907 he left without taking a degree, and that autumn he became an apprentice lawyer with the Wall Street firm Carter, Ledyard and Milburn, practicing in New York City for three years.⁠[2][3][1]

In 1910 Roosevelt won a New York State Senate seat as a Democrat from Dutchess County, a region dominated by Republicans, and was reelected in 1912, though he served only a few months of the second term. In the state senate he opposed Tammany Hall’s choice for a U.S. Senate seat.⁠[2][1]

Having backed Woodrow WilsonWoodrow WilsonWoodrow Wilson (1856–1924) was an American scholar and politician who served as president of Princeton University and governor of New Jersey and was the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921, leading the country through World War I and proposing the League of Nations.Open the full entry in 1912, Roosevelt was appointed assistant secretary of the Navy in 1913 and served under Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels until 1920. He was a strong advocate of a “big Navy” and backed U.S. entry into World War I.⁠[3][2]

In 1920 the Democrats nominated Roosevelt as the running mate of presidential candidate James M. Cox; they lost to the Republicans Warren G. HardingWarren G. HardingWarren G. Harding (1865–1923) was an American newspaper publisher and politician who served as lieutenant governor of Ohio and as a U.S. senator before becoming the 29th president of the United States in March 1921; he died in office in August 1923.Open the full entry and Calvin CoolidgeCalvin CoolidgeCalvin Coolidge (1872–1933) was an American lawyer and politician who served as governor of Massachusetts and, from 1921, as vice president of the United States; he succeeded Warren G. Harding as the 30th president in August 1923, was elected to a full term in 1924 and served until 1929.Open the full entry.⁠[1][3]

On August 10, 1921, while vacationing on Campobello Island, New Brunswick, the 39-year-old Roosevelt developed acute symptoms of poliomyelitis; he never regained the use of his legs. He was the first U.S. president to serve with a significant physical disability.⁠[1][3][4]

He established a foundation at Warm Springs, Georgia, to help polio patients and inspired and directed the March of Dimes program, which eventually funded an effective vaccine. With the help of his wife and the political journalist Louis Howe he returned to politics, nominating Alfred E. Smith for president at the 1924 Democratic convention.⁠[3][2][5]

In 1928, as Alfred E. Smith ran for president, he arranged for Roosevelt to succeed him as governor of New York. Smith lost to Herbert HooverHerbert HooverHerbert Hoover (1874–1964) was an American mining engineer, humanitarian and politician who led food relief for Europe during and after World War I, served as U.S. secretary of commerce from 1921 to 1928 and was the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933, a term dominated by the Great Depression.Open the full entry, but Roosevelt won the governorship and was reelected in 1930.⁠[3]

During the Great Depression his state administration supported lower taxes for farmers, public power utilities, public works jobs and relief for the needy, measures that established his reputation as a liberal reformer.⁠[2]

In 1932 Roosevelt won the Democratic presidential nomination in Chicago and flew there to accept it in person; to secure delegates he promised John Nance Garner the vice-presidential nomination.⁠[3][6]

That November he defeated Herbert Hoover by seven million votes, receiving nearly 23 million popular votes and 472 electoral votes to Hoover’s 59.⁠[3][7]

Roosevelt took office on March 4, 1933. At the time about 13 million people were unemployed and most banks were closed.⁠[3][5]

On March 6 he declared a national “bank holiday” to end a run by depositors, and Congress passed his banking plan in an emergency session, under which federal inspectors decided which banks would reopen, be reorganized or close. On March 12 he gave the first of his radio “fireside chats” to explain the plan, and in the following weeks Americans returned nearly $1 billion to bank vaults.⁠[8]

During the “Hundred Days,” Congress passed legislation to reform banking and finance, aid agriculture and revive industry. The Civilian Conservation Corps put 300,000 young men to work in 1,200 camps; the Agricultural Adjustment Act offered cash incentives to farmers who agreed to cut production; the Tennessee Valley Authority built dams and power plants across a valley of some 40,000 square miles; the National Industrial Recovery Act created the Public Works Administration, run by Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes with a budget of over $3 billion, and the National Recovery Administration; and the Glass-Steagall Act created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and separated commercial from investment banking.⁠[8][9][5]

Roosevelt continued the “good neighbor” policy toward Latin America begun by Herbert Hoover: the last American troops left the Caribbean, the United States abrogated the Platt Amendment, which had given it a right to intervene in Cuba, and it supported the 1933 Pan-American Conference resolution that no country had a right to intervene in another’s internal or foreign affairs. When Mexico nationalized its oil industry in 1938, he rejected calls for intervention and had the State Department negotiate compensation.⁠[10][5]

In 1933 the United States established official relations with the Soviet Union; the Miller Center’s essay judges that the step neither expanded trade nor deterred Japanese expansion.⁠[10]

The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 created the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to regulate financial markets.⁠[8]

In 1935 the New Deal took a more liberal turn. The Works Progress Administration was created, and by 1937 three million Americans were receiving WPA checks for building schools, hospitals and airports.⁠[9][8]

The Social Security Act created programs including old-age insurance and unemployment insurance, though agricultural workers and domestic servants were excluded from old-age insurance. The Wagner Act (National Labor Relations Act) guaranteed unions the right to organize and bargain collectively and created the National Labor Relations Board; union membership swelled to more than 13 million during World War II.⁠[8]

Between 1935 and 1939 Congress passed five Neutrality Acts forbidding American involvement in foreign conflicts.⁠[10]

In 1936 the Republicans nominated Alf Landon, a two-term governor of KansasKansasKansas is a state of the United States bordered by Nebraska to the north, Missouri to the east, Oklahoma to the south, and Colorado to the west; its capital is Topeka and its largest city is Wichita. It was admitted to the Union on January 29, 1861, as the 34th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 2,937,880.Open the full entry, with Frank Knox as his running mate, and the newly formed Union Party backed Representative William Lemke. Roosevelt won reelection by a wide margin.⁠[6][5]

In early February 1937 Roosevelt proposed adding a new justice to the Supreme Court of the United States for every sitting justice over the age of 75, up to six. Despite large Democratic majorities the bill stalled; in late March the Court began upholding New Deal-style legislation, in what has been called “the switch in time that saved nine,” and by July Roosevelt lacked the votes to pass the bill.⁠[8][3]

That year, in a speech in Chicago, he warned of the need to “quarantine” aggressors.⁠[10]

From the fall of 1937 the economy slid back into recession: industrial production fell 33 percent, national income dropped 12 percent, nearly 4 million people lost their jobs and total unemployment rose to 11.5 million. Roosevelt then asked Congress for a $5 billion relief program, which passed in the spring and summer of 1938.⁠[8]

After Adolf Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, Roosevelt kept the United States neutral while aiding Britain, France and China. That fall he won a revision of the neutrality law allowing belligerents to buy American arms on a “cash and carry” basis.⁠[3][10]

In 1940 the United States loaned Britain fifty mothballed destroyers in return for the use of eight British military bases.⁠[10]

No president had exceeded the two-term precedent set by George WashingtonGeorge WashingtonGeorge Washington (1732–1799) was the first president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. Earlier he commanded the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War and presided over the Constitutional Convention of 1787.Open the full entry. In 1940 Roosevelt decided to run for an unprecedented third term; the Republicans nominated Wendell L. Willkie of Indiana, a corporate lawyer and president of a utility company. Roosevelt won 55 percent of the popular vote and the electoral votes of 38 states.⁠[4][6]

In March 1941 Roosevelt signed the “lend-lease” bill, enabling Britain and other Allies to keep receiving American arms and supplies despite their finances. Congress’s initial appropriation of $7 billion eventually grew to more than $50 billion.⁠[3][10]

In August 1941 Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston ChurchillWinston ChurchillSir Winston Churchill (1874–1965) was a British Conservative statesman and writer who served as Prime Minister in 1940–1945 and 1951–1955, led Britain through the Second World War and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953.Open the full entry issued the Atlantic Charter, a joint statement of their nations’ war goals.⁠[10]

On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, HawaiiHawaiiHawaii is a U.S. state consisting of a group of volcanic islands in the central Pacific Ocean; its capital is Honolulu, on the island of Oʻahu. Hawaii was admitted to the Union on August 21, 1959, as the 50th state. Its population at the 2020 Census (April 1, 2020) was 1,455,271.Open the full entry, badly damaging but not destroying the Pacific fleet, whose aircraft carriers were at sea. Congress declared war on Japan on December 8; three days later Germany and Italy declared war on the United States.⁠[10]

During the war the American Federation of Labor and the CIO pledged not to strike, the government rationed gasoline, shoes and food, women joined the workforce in unprecedented numbers, and African Americans moved from the rural South to industrial jobs in the North; the NAACP grew, and the Supreme Court struck down the white primary.⁠[8]

After Pearl Harbor the Roosevelt administration relocated more than 110,000 Americans of Japanese descent to prison camps; the Supreme Court validated the policy, and the U.S. government admitted the constitutional violations only in the 1980s.⁠[8]

The Miller Center’s essay judges that World War II, not the New Deal, ended the Great Depression.⁠[8]

On January 1, 1942, twenty-six nations signed “The Declaration of the United Nations,” forming an alliance against the Axis powers and affirming the ideals of the Atlantic Charter; Roosevelt named the coalition the “United Nations” and hoped it would outlast the war to promote world peace and cooperation.⁠[3][10]

Allied forces invaded North Africa in 1942 and Sicily and Italy in 1943. At the Casablanca conference in January 1943 Winston Churchill convinced Roosevelt that the Allies should next invade Italy, while Joseph Stalin wanted a major assault on France.⁠[3][10]

In 1943 Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin met in Tehran, Iran, where Roosevelt and Churchill promised to invade France in 1944 and Roosevelt secured Stalin’s agreement to join the proposed United Nations.⁠[10]

On June 6, 1944, Allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy, France.⁠[3][11]

In 1944 Roosevelt let it be known that he would run for a fourth term and received all but 87 of the votes of the 1,075 delegates at the Democratic National Convention. He decided against running again with Vice President Henry Wallace and chose Senator Harry S. TrumanHarry S. TrumanHarry S. Truman (1884–1972) was an American politician who served as a U.S. senator from Missouri and as vice president in 1945, succeeding Franklin D. Roosevelt on his death that year and serving as the 33rd president of the United States from 1945 to 1953, a period spanning the end of World War II and the early Cold War.Open the full entry of Missouri. The Republicans nominated Governor Thomas Dewey of New York. Roosevelt won almost 54 percent of the popular vote to Dewey’s 46 percent and carried the Electoral College 432 to 99.⁠[6]

In 1945 Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin continued their discussions at Yalta in the Crimea. The meeting was extremely tense, and Roosevelt was weak and ill. A Declaration of Liberated Europe was signed there, which Moscow read as giving the Soviets a free hand to set up governments in Eastern Europe.⁠[10]

On April 12, 1945, while at the Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia, Roosevelt suffered a cerebral hemorrhage (a massive stroke) and died two and a half hours later without regaining consciousness. He was 63. Germany surrendered weeks later.⁠[1][3][9]

The funeral train reached Hyde Park on the morning of April 15, 1945, and Roosevelt was buried in the Rose Garden of the family estate, now part of the Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site.⁠[1][11]

His wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, was born in 1884 and died in 1962. The couple had six children, five of whom survived infancy: Anna Eleanor (1906–1975), James (1907–1991), Elliott (1910–1990), Franklin Delano Jr. (1914–1988) and John Aspinwall (1916–1981); another son, Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., was born on March 18, 1909, and died on November 8, 1909.⁠[12][3]

His mother, Sara Delano Roosevelt, was born in 1854 and died at Springwood on September 7, 1941, at age 87.⁠[1]

The anniversary of Roosevelt’s birth became an annual celebration used to honor friends and raise money to fight polio.⁠[4]

The Miller Center’s essay judges that the New Deal did not end the Depression and that its benefits reflected the biases of the era, with white men generally receiving more than women, Black Americans or Latinos; but it marked a major turning point in the nation’s political, economic, social and cultural life, expanded the power of the presidency and the federal government, and began roughly 30 years of Democratic dominance from 1936. The essay also judges that Roosevelt’s leadership left the United States the world’s leading economic, political and military power.⁠[9]

The Miller Center’s foreign affairs essay states that the Roosevelt administration knew for much of the war that the Nazis were killing Jews, though it likely could not grasp the scale, and that Roosevelt’s policy was to win the war first in order to end the killing; many years later critics argued that the United States could and should have done more to help European Jews.⁠[10]

Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum: Official website: https://www.fdrlibrary.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[3]

Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site: Official website: https://www.nps.gov/hofr/ (opens in a new window).⁠[13]