Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt was born on October 27, 1858, at 28 East 20th Street in New York City; his full name was Theodore Roosevelt Jr. His father, Theodore Roosevelt Sr., was a glass importer and philanthropist, and his mother, Martha Bulloch Roosevelt, known as “Mittie,” was raised on a Georgia plantation. He was the second of four children, with an older sister, Anna, and younger siblings Elliott and Corinne, and was nicknamed “Teedie” as a child.⁠[1][2][3]

The Civil War divided the family: his mother’s relatives were Southern, while his father supported the Union and helped Union soldiers and their families. On April 25, 1865, he watched Abraham LincolnAbraham LincolnAbraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States (1861–1865). Born to a frontier farming family in Kentucky, he had less than a year of formal schooling, taught himself law, and served in the Illinois legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives before winning the presidency as the Republican candidate in 1860. During the Civil War he preserved the Union, issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and pushed the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery through Congress. He was shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theatre in Washington on April 14, 1865, and died the next day.Open the full entry’s funeral procession from his grandfather Cornelius’s house with his brother Elliott and his friend Edith Kermit Carow.⁠[1][4]

He suffered from chronic asthma as a child and at 13 was found to be extremely nearsighted and began wearing spectacles; as a teenager he built up his body through gymnastics and weightlifting and became a lifelong advocate of exercise and the “strenuous life.” He was tutored at home and in the late 1860s and early 1870s traveled with his family through Europe and the Middle East, once living for five months with a German family.⁠[1][2]

In 1876 he entered Harvard College at 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, at first focusing on natural history and studying German, natural history, zoology, forensics, and composition, and he took up boxing and wrestling. His father died of stomach cancer on February 9, 1878, at 46, and he then switched to history and government with a view to public service. In June 1880 he received his bachelor of arts degree, ranking 21st in his class.⁠[2][4][1]

He met Alice Hathaway Lee through a Harvard friend in October 1879, and they married in Brookline, 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, on October 27, 1880, his 22nd birthday. From 1880 to 1882 he attended Columbia 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 without graduating; during that time he wrote The Naval War of 1812, published in 1882.⁠[1][2][4]

On November 8, 1881, he was elected to the New York State Assembly and was reelected in 1882 and 1883. In 1882 he briefly served as Republican minority leader before being removed for his independent positions. He worked with Governor Grover ClevelandGrover ClevelandGrover Cleveland (1837–1908) was an American politician and Democrat who served as President of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897, as the 22nd and 24th president, the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms.Open the full entry and served with Ansley Wilcox on a commission to restore the Niagara Falls area.⁠[4][1]

In 1883 Samuel Gompers took him on a tour of a New York cigar factory, after which he supported labor and health standards in the cigar industry.⁠[1]

In September 1883 he went to Dakota Territory to hunt buffalo and bought the Chimney Butte (Maltese Cross) Ranch, investing $14,000 of his inheritance in cattle ranching.⁠[4][1]

After the deaths of 1884 he left his daughter with his sister and moved to the Dakota Badlands, where he owned two ranches and about 1,000 cattle and worked as a rancher, hunter, and frontier sheriff; in 1885 he published Hunting Trips of a Ranchman. He returned East in 1886, and a harsh winter in 1887 destroyed most of his cattle.⁠[2][4]

His daughter Alice was born in New York City on February 12, 1884. On February 14 his mother died of typhoid fever, and within hours his wife, Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt, died of kidney disease (Bright’s disease) in the same house. In June 1884 he attended the Republican National Convention in Chicago as a delegate, where he first met Henry Cabot Lodge.⁠[4][2][5]

On November 2, 1886, he finished third in the New York City mayoral race. On December 2, 1886, he married his childhood friend Edith Kermit Carow in London, and they settled at Sagamore Hill in Oyster Bay, New York; the house, begun in 1884 and completed in March 1885, became the family’s full-time home in 1887.⁠[4][2][6]

He campaigned for the Republican Benjamin HarrisonBenjamin HarrisonBenjamin Harrison (1833–1901) was an American lawyer, soldier, and Republican politician who represented Indiana in the U.S. Senate and served as the 23rd President of the United States from 1889 to 1893.Open the full entry in 1888, and on May 7, 1889, President Harrison appointed him to the U.S. Civil Service Commission. There he pushed merit-based appointments and enforced the civil service laws despite clashes with party regulars; the Democrat Grover Cleveland reappointed him in 1893, and he served until 1895.⁠[4][2][5]

In 1895 Mayor William Strong appointed him president of the New York City Board of Police Commissioners, a post he held until 1897; he fought corruption and enforced the ban on Sunday liquor sales.⁠[4][2][7]

Having campaigned for William McKinleyWilliam McKinleyWilliam McKinley (1843–1901) was an American Republican politician who served in the U.S. House of Representatives and as Governor of Ohio before becoming the 25th President of the United States (1897–1901), leading the country through the Spanish-American War; he was assassinated in 1901.Open the full entry in 1896, he served from April 19, 1897, as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in McKinley’s administration and worked to strengthen the fleet. After the battleship Maine exploded in Havana harbor in 1898, he put the Navy on full alert and directed Commodore George Dewey to prepare for war with Spain, including bottling up the Spanish squadron in Asian waters and readying for a possible attack on the Philippines.⁠[4][1][2]

When the United States declared war on Spain on April 25, 1898, he was made lieutenant colonel of the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry, the “Rough Riders,” and he resigned as assistant secretary on May 6. The regiment included Ivy LeagueIvy LeagueThe Ivy League is an intercollegiate athletic conference comprising eight universities in the northeastern United States: Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and Yale University. It was formally established in 1954, with league competition beginning in the 1956–57 academic year. Its athletic framework emphasizes student status, academic standards, and financial aid based on need. The name is also commonly used collectively for the eight member institutions.Open the full entry men, cowboys, sheriffs, prospectors, police officers, and Native Americans.⁠[4][2]

On June 24 he and the Rough Riders fought at Las Guásimas in Cuba, and on July 1 he led the charge on foot up Kettle Hill and San Juan Hill near Santiago, a day he later called his “crowded hour.” The unit suffered heavy casualties but returned home as war heroes, and he became a national hero.⁠[4][2][1]

Republican leaders recruited him to run for Governor of New York. Aided by the state party boss Thomas C. Platt, he was elected on November 8, 1898, defeating Judge Augustus Van Wyck, the Tammany Hall Democrat, by a few thousand votes, and served as governor in 1899–1900.⁠[2][4][5]

As governor he refused to appoint party regulars as state insurance commissioner or public works commissioner and backed a bill to tax public service corporations, which caused a break with Platt.⁠[2]

After Vice President Garret Hobart died in office, Thomas C. Platt and the national party boss Mark Hanna arranged in 1900 to move him to the vice-presidential nomination to limit his reforms; he reluctantly agreed, hoping it would lead to a presidential run in 1904. The Republican convention nominated him by acclamation.⁠[2][8]

He campaigned for more than 21,000 miles, giving hundreds of speeches in 567 cities in 24 states and reaching more than three million people in person; the columnist’s character Mr. Dooley quipped, “’Tis Teddy alone that’s running, an’ he ain’t a runnin’, he’s a gallopin’.” He and McKinley were elected on November 6, 1900.⁠[2][8][4]

William McKinley was shot by the anarchist Leon Czolgosz in Buffalo, New York, on September 6, 1901, and died on September 14. That day Roosevelt took the oath as the 26th President of the United States at the home of Ansley Wilcox in Buffalo; at 42 he was the youngest person to become president. Mark Hanna had earlier called him “that damned cowboy.”⁠[4][1][2]

He pledged to continue McKinley’s policies but soon set his own course, aiming to expand constitutional and presidential power, to promote a “square deal” for immigrants, the poor, and city dwellers, and to build a strong navy to make the United States a world power.⁠[5]

On February 19, 1902, he ordered a federal suit under the Sherman Antitrust Act against the Northern Securities Company, a railroad combination led by J. P. Morgan, reviving a law that had been nearly dormant; in 1904 the Supreme Court ruled for the government and ordered the company dismantled. Over the next seven years his administration sued 43 other major corporations. He said he wanted to regulate trusts rather than break them up.⁠[4][9][10][1]

On February 14, 1903, he established the Department of Commerce and Labor, which absorbed functions of 13 other agencies; the Bureau of Corporations, formally set up that year, could investigate interstate businesses but had no regulatory power. The Elkins Act of 1903 ended railroad rebates to favored shippers.⁠[4][10][9]

The anthracite coal strike of 1902 threatened heating fuel for homes, schools, and hospitals. He brought mine owners and union leaders to the White House and threatened to seize the mines with federal troops, and both sides agreed to submit the dispute to a commission and accept its recommendations; the strike ended with a modest pay raise for the miners. It was the first time the federal government acted as a neutral arbitrator in a labor dispute. He called the settlement a “square deal,” the name he later gave to his domestic program.⁠[10][9][4]

In November 1902, on a hunt in MississippiMississippiMississippi is a state of the United States on the Gulf of Mexico; Jackson is both its capital and its largest city. It was admitted to the Union on December 10, 1817, as the 20th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 2,961,279.Open the full entry, he refused to shoot a bear cub that had been tied up, an episode that inspired the “Teddy Bear.”⁠[4]

In 1903 he helped Panama secede from Colombia, and the United States recognized the new country; on November 18, 1903, Secretary of State John Hay signed the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty giving the United States the Canal Zone, and construction began. He regarded the canal as his greatest accomplishment; it opened on August 15, 1914.⁠[10][4][1]

From November 8 to 26, 1906, he and Edith Roosevelt visited the Panama Canal Zone, making him the first sitting president to travel abroad.⁠[4][10]

Mark Hanna died before the Republican convention in Chicago, where Roosevelt was nominated unanimously on the first ballot, with Senator Charles W. Fairbanks of Indiana as his running mate. The Democrats, meeting in St. Louis, nominated Judge Alton B. Parker of New York and Henry G. Davis, an 81-year-old former senator from VirginiaVirginiaVirginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state whose capital is Richmond. It entered the Union on June 25, 1788, as the 10th state, and had a population of 8,631,393 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry. Roosevelt campaigned from his porch at Oyster Bay and received more than $2 million from wealthy donors, including E. H. Harriman, Henry C. Frick, and J. P. Morgan.⁠[11]

On November 8, 1904, he received 7,625,599 popular votes (56.4%) to Parker’s 5,083,501 (37.6%) and won the electoral vote 336 to 140, becoming the first candidate to win more than 300 electoral votes and the first president to win election after succeeding on his predecessor’s death. After the victory he pledged not to seek another term.⁠[12][4][8][11]

On December 6, 1904, in his annual message to Congress, he announced the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, declaring that the United States would block European intervention in Latin America and act as a police power to ensure that nations there met their international obligations. In 1905, without congressional approval, he forced the Dominican Republic to accept an American “economic advisor” who was in effect its financial director.⁠[4][10]

Japan and Russia went to war in February 1904 over rival interests in Manchuria and Korea. Through the efforts of U.S. Ambassador George von Lengerke Meyer in Russia and Minister Lloyd Griscom in Japan, both sides agreed to send delegates to Portsmouth, New HampshireNew HampshireNew Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by Quebec, Canada, to the north, Vermont across the Connecticut River to the west, Massachusetts to the south, and Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east; its capital is Concord. One of the original 13 colonies, it became the ninth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution on June 21, 1788, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 1,377,529.Open the full entry, in the summer of 1905; the conference opened in August, with Sergei Witte leading the Russian delegation and Jutaro Komura the Japanese. The Treaty of Portsmouth, signed on September 5, 1905, recognized Japan’s interests in Korea and southern Manchuria and gave it southern Sakhalin, while Russia paid no direct indemnity.⁠[13]

On December 10, 1906, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded him the Nobel Peace Prize “for his role in bringing to an end the bloody war recently waged between two of the world’s great powers, Japan and Russia.” He was the first American to receive a Nobel PrizeNobel PrizeThe Nobel Prize is an international award established under the will of Alfred Nobel, comprising five prizes in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace, awarded since 1901; its funds are managed by the Nobel Foundation, whose Board is based in Stockholm. The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, established in 1968, is not a Nobel Prize.Open the full entry and the first statesman to receive the Peace Prize; the award was controversial from the start, with critics on the Norwegian left calling him a militaristic imperialist.⁠[3][4][13]

He placed the entire prize of $36,734.79 in trust for a congressionally chartered foundation to promote industrial peace; Congress never put the plan into effect, and during World War I he had the funds returned and gave them to war-relief charities.⁠[13]

He built public support with a speaking tour of the West to pressure the Senate into passing the Hepburn Act of 1906, which gave the Interstate Commerce Commission power to regulate interstate railroad rates. After reading Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, he pushed Congress to pass the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act, which he signed on June 30, 1906. He used the term “muckrakers” in a 1906 speech.⁠[9][10][4]

On June 8, 1906, he signed the Antiquities Act, allowing presidents to create national monuments by proclamation.⁠[4]

In 1907 the Gentlemen’s Agreement with Japan restricted Japanese immigration and eased tensions over anti-Japanese feeling in CaliforniaCaliforniaCalifornia is a U.S. state on the Pacific coast; its capital is Sacramento and its largest city is Los Angeles. California was admitted to the Union on September 9, 1850, as the 31st state. Its population at the 2020 Census (April 1, 2020) was 39,538,223, the largest of any state.Open the full entry. On December 16, 1907, he sent the “Great White Fleet” of 16 battleships on a world cruise; it returned to Hampton Roads, Virginia, on February 22, 1909.⁠[10][4]

On May 13–15, 1908, he convened the Conference of Governors on conservation, which gave rise to the National Governors Association. Keeping his pledge not to run again, he backed William Howard TaftWilliam Howard TaftWilliam Howard Taft (1857–1930) was an American lawyer, judge and politician who served as the 27th president of the United States from 1909 to 1913 and as the 10th chief justice of the United States from 1921 to 1930, the only person to have held both offices.Open the full entry, who was elected president on November 3, 1908.⁠[4][11]

He left the presidency on March 4, 1909, after nearly seven and a half years. On March 23 he set off with his son Kermit on the SmithsonianSmithsonian InstitutionThe Smithsonian Institution is a museum, education and research institution created by the U.S. Congress in 1846 with the bequest of the English scientist James Smithson. Based in Washington, D.C., it runs museums such as the National Air and Space Museum and the National Museum of Natural History, as well as the National Zoo.Open the full entry-Roosevelt African Expedition, a year in East Africa that brought back large numbers of specimens for American museums, chiefly the Smithsonian.⁠[4][5]

In 1910 he went on to Europe for lectures and informal diplomacy, delivering “Citizenship in a Republic,” later known as “The Man in the Arena,” at the Sorbonne in Paris on April 23 and receiving honorary degrees from Cambridge and Oxford. Back home, he gave the “New Nationalism” speech at Osawatomie, 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, on August 31, 1910, and on October 11 he flew in an airplane at St. Louis, becoming the first former president to fly.⁠[4]

Believing that his successor, William Howard Taft, had abandoned reform, he announced on February 21, 1912, that he would seek the Republican nomination, reversing his earlier refusal to seek a third term. He won a series of preferential primaries, but at the Republican convention in Chicago in June, Taft’s backers refused to seat many of his delegates, and Taft was nominated on the first ballot.⁠[8][4][11]

His supporters left the Republican Party and formed the Progressive Party, nicknamed the “Bull Moose Party,” which nominated him for president and Governor Hiram Johnson of California for vice president on a platform called the “New Nationalism”; on August 6 he delivered his “Confession of Faith” speech to the Progressive convention in Chicago.⁠[11][4]

On October 14, 1912, as he was about to speak in Milwaukee, WisconsinWisconsinWisconsin is a state in the north-central United States; its capital is Madison and its largest city is Milwaukee. Wisconsin was admitted to the Union on May 29, 1848, as the 30th state, and the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted 5,893,718 residents.Open the full entry, he was shot by the saloon keeper John Schrank; his metal spectacle case and folded speech slowed the bullet, and he delivered a speech of nearly 90 minutes before seeking treatment.⁠[4][1]

In the election of November 5, 1912, the Democrat 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 won 41.9% of the popular vote and 435 electoral votes; Roosevelt finished second with 27.4% and 88 electoral votes, carrying six states—California, MichiganMichiganMichigan is a state of the United States nearly surrounded by the Great Lakes and made up of the Upper and Lower peninsulas; its capital is Lansing and its largest city is Detroit. It was admitted to the Union on January 26, 1837, as the 26th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 10,077,331.Open the full entry, MinnesotaMinnesotaMinnesota is a state in the north-central United States and the most northerly of the 48 contiguous states; its capital is St. Paul and its largest city is Minneapolis. It was admitted to the Union on May 11, 1858, as the 32nd state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 5,706,494.Open the full entry, PennsylvaniaPennsylvaniaPennsylvania (officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania) is a Middle Atlantic state of the United States; its capital is Harrisburg, and Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are its two great metropolitan areas. One of the original 13 states, it ratified the U.S. Constitution on December 12, 1787, the second state to do so. Its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 13,002,700.Open the full entry, South DakotaSouth DakotaSouth Dakota is a U.S. state bordered by North Dakota to the north, Minnesota and Iowa to the east, Nebraska to the south, and Wyoming and Montana to the west. Its capital is Pierre and its largest city is Sioux Falls. It was admitted to the Union on November 2, 1889, as the 40th state, and the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted 886,667 residents.Open the full entry, and Washington; Taft won 23.1% and 8 electoral votes; and the Socialist Eugene V. Debs won 6%. BritannicaEncyclopædia BritannicaEncyclopædia Britannica is a general English-language encyclopedia first published in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1768; the name also refers to its publisher, Chicago-based Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. (which presents itself as The Britannica Group). The print edition ended in 2012, and the company’s main businesses since then have been the online encyclopedia Britannica.com, digital education products for schools and libraries, and Merriam-Webster dictionaries.Open the full entry calls it the most successful third-party presidential candidacy of the twentieth century.⁠[11][4][7]

In 1913 he published his Autobiography, and on October 4 of that year he left for a speaking tour and scientific expedition in South America; in 1914 he and his son Kermit joined the Roosevelt-Rondon expedition down the uncharted River of Doubt in the Amazon, now called the Rio Roosevelt, a journey of about 1,500 kilometers. He injured his leg, contracted fever, lost about sixty pounds, and barely survived; he returned to the United States on May 7, 1914, and his health never fully recovered.⁠[4][5][1]

After World War I began in 1914 he urged the United States to prepare for war and criticized Woodrow Wilson’s pledge of neutrality. When the United States entered the war in 1917, Wilson on May 19 declined his offer to lead a Rough Rider division, and all four of his sons volunteered. In July 1918 his youngest son, Quentin, was killed in aerial combat over France, a loss that deeply distressed him.⁠[8][4][1]

He died in his sleep at Sagamore Hill at 4:15 a.m. on January 6, 1919, of a pulmonary embolism, aged 60. His son Archie sent word to the family: “The old lion is dead.” After a funeral at Christ Church on January 8, he was buried, as he had requested, without fanfare or eulogy, in Youngs Memorial Cemetery in Oyster Bay.⁠[4][5][1]

With his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee, he had a daughter, Alice (born 1884), who married OhioOhioOhio is a state in the Midwestern United States; its capital is Columbus. It joined the Union in 1803 as the 17th state, the first carved from the Northwest Territory, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 11,799,448.Open the full entry congressman Nicholas Longworth at the White House on February 17, 1906. With his second wife, Edith Kermit Carow, he had five children: Theodore Jr. (born September 13, 1887), Kermit (October 10, 1889), Ethel (August 13, 1891), Archibald (April 10, 1894), and Quentin (November 19, 1897).⁠[4][5]

On March 17, 1905, he attended the wedding of his niece Eleanor Roosevelt to Franklin D. Roosevelt, his fifth cousin, in New York City. Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt died at Sagamore Hill in September 1948, aged 87.⁠[4][5][6]

He wrote more than 30 books and about 150,000 letters. His works include The Naval War of 1812 (1882), Hunting Trips of a Ranchman (1885), The Life of Thomas Hart Benton (1887), Life of Gouverneur Morris (1888), the four-volume The Winning of the West (1889–1896), The Rough Riders (1899), The Strenuous Life (1900), African Game Trails (1910), his Autobiography (1913), and Through the Brazilian Wilderness (1914).⁠[5][2][4]

He worked with Gifford Pinchot, head of forestry, and Frederick Newell of the Reclamation Service. On June 17, 1902, he signed the Newlands Reclamation Act, funding irrigation projects in the arid West; on March 14, 1903, he proclaimed Pelican Island, FloridaFloridaFlorida is a U.S. state occupying mainly the Florida peninsula, with its capital at Tallahassee; its most populous city is Jacksonville. It entered the Union on March 3, 1845, as the 27th state, and had a population of 21,538,187 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry, the first federal bird refuge, beginning the National Wildlife Refuge system; on February 1, 1905, the U.S. Forest Service was established, with Pinchot at its head; and on June 2, 1905, he redesignated OklahomaOklahomaOklahoma is a U.S. state whose capital is Oklahoma City. It was admitted to the Union on November 16, 1907, as the 46th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 3,959,353.Open the full entry’s Wichita Forest Reserve as the nation’s first game preserve.⁠[9][4][10]

By the Miller Center’s count, he used executive orders to create 150 national forests, raising protected land from 42 million to 172 million acres, and established five national parks, eighteen national monuments, and 51 wildlife refuges.⁠[9]

In October 1901 he invited Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House, drawing strong criticism from the Southern press. He did little to protect Black suffrage in the South. After a 1906 shooting in Brownsville, TexasTexasTexas is a U.S. state in the south-central United States, with its capital at Austin and its largest city Houston. It was admitted to the Union on December 29, 1845, as the 28th state, and the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted 29,145,505 residents.Open the full entry, that killed one white man and wounded another, he dishonorably discharged three companies of Black soldiers, 160 men, without a trial.⁠[9]

Sagamore Hill served as the “Summer White House” for seven summers from 1902 to 1908. The 23-room Queen Anne, or shingle-style, house on the highest point of Cove Neck is now the 83-acre Sagamore Hill National Historic Site, administered by the National Park Service.⁠[6][14][15]

The Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora, North DakotaNorth DakotaNorth Dakota is a state in the north-central United States; its capital is Bismarck. It was admitted to the Union on November 2, 1889, as the 39th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 779,094.Open the full entry, was built and is operated by the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library Foundation, a nonprofit formed in 2014, and is open year-round. Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota and the 91-acre Theodore Roosevelt Island in the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., are named for him.⁠[16][17][10]

The Miller Center’s essay holds that he greatly strengthened the executive and was the first modern president, the first environmentalist president, and the first president to use the media to appeal directly to the public; he believed the president could use any power not specifically denied to him. The Theodore Roosevelt Center’s biography notes that he began as a supporter of laissez-faire capitalism and grew steadily more radical, so that by 1910 his economic views anticipated Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.⁠[8][5]

Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library: Official website: https://www.trlibrary.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[17]

Sagamore Hill National Historic Site: Official website: https://www.nps.gov/sahi/index.htm (opens in a new window).⁠[15]