Episode 13 - Theodore Roosevelt's Ghost

Kurt and Larry speak with Professor Michael Patrick Cullinane about his 2017 book, Theodore Roosevelt's Ghost: The History and Memory of an American Icon.  

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Michael Patrick Cullinane, welcome to the Talk About Teddy podcast.
Oh, it's great to be here, guys.
as well as TR would say, I'm delighted.
Yeah, we've been looking forward to this, for some time.
So, Michael, you have, uh, this background, academic background publishing in, American you actually host, uh, a podcast also on, the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era.

(00:25):
so, where does your interest in Roosevelt come about? Well, uh, well, I'm glad you mentioned imperialism because we know that TR certainly had a strong position on American power in the world.
He wanted to increase American power in the world. 8 00:00:40,846.999 --> 00:00:45,717 I think it's safe to say that, most accounts, TR was an imperialist. 9 00:00:45,717.1 --> 00:00:49,217 I mean, there's different guises in all that as well, and degrees.

(00:49):
But, you know, T.
R.
definitely believed that the United States should have a larger role to play in world affairs and believed in intervening in world affairs, and the first group of people that I studied, uh, were, were a group of Americans known as the anti imperialists.
And they were around at the end of the 19th century and they were opposed to American of places like the Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico, uh, but really the Yes.

(01:11):
.9The Philippines is a city. 15 00:01:12,757.1 --> 00:01:23,507 5, 000 archipelago with 10, 10 million people living in it, and the anti imperialists were opposed to America's of those islands.
Now, TR, um, sort of inherited the Philippines because the policies of McKinley are what dictated, uh, the acquisition of those islands to the United States, uh, but TR enthusiastically sought to, um, Well, he probably would have said civilize them.

(01:40):
I think what, what he very much meant to do was to bring the ideas and institutions of American democracy to the Philippines.
.999Um, of course there was a 15 year war that waged there and the people that were opposed to that policy really disliked TR's views.
They really got on with him.
I mean, not in all cases, but our politics now are so far removed from the difference between a policy disagreement and a personal dislike that I was fascinated by Roosevelt. 21 00:02:12,251.999 --> 00:02:21,886 How could Roosevelt be, you know, politically opposed to someone and break bread with them in the white house the day, the day after an argument, Yeah. 22 00:02:21,931.999 --> 00:02:27,762 So I would love if our politics could get back to what they were when, when TR was president.

(02:28):
Amen Yeah, yeah yeah, so what you've written with your 2017 book, Theodore Roosevelt's Ghost, The History and Memory of an American Icon.
.001this is not, uh, this is not a biography. 25 00:02:46,952.001 --> 00:02:56,222.001 This is not a straight academic historiography of, uh, of all of the hundreds of, works published on Roosevelt. 26 00:02:56,262.001 --> 00:03:07,77.001 So can you think of what caused this spark, uh, for you to, want to look at Roosevelt's history? Yes. 27 00:03:07,87.001 --> 00:03:15,477.001 So I remember exactly the moment that I, that I thought about this book and it was before I finished my PhD, which was about the anti imperialist movement.

(03:15):
.001I was watching the 2000 Republican presidential primary debates in Iowa, and there were 10 candidates on the stage. 29 00:03:25,927.001 --> 00:03:30,757.001 And the moderator asked this really great, but challenging question to the 10 candidates. 30 00:03:31,397.001 --> 00:03:40,447.001 Who's your favorite philosopher? And, you know, there was some pretty wishy washy answers, and the last two people to comment, well, the penultimate answer was from John McCain. 31 00:03:41,87.001 --> 00:03:46,747.001 And John McCain was a big fan of Theodore Roosevelt, and straight away he goes, Theodore Roosevelt, you know, and I, oh, that's a good answer.

(03:47):
.001Theodore Roosevelt, an American philosopher.
.001And, uh, and then George W. 34 00:03:51,287.001 --> 00:03:54,907.001 Bush was last, and his answer was, Jesus Christ. 35 00:03:55,567.001 --> 00:04:02,757.001 And I said, well, the right answer, you know, because you're going to win voters with that answer more than you are with the Theodore Roosevelt. 36 00:04:02,787.001 --> 00:04:10,437.001 But the Theodore Roosevelt answer was really interesting because I thought how many politicians have invoked Theodore Roosevelt over the years? And it turns out. 37 00:04:11,187.001 --> 00:04:27,877.002 every president, with the exception of one, a most recent president, not, not Biden, but Donald Trump, invoked Theodore Roosevelt in their political proclamations or in signing legislation or even invoking them as their, you know, their lodestar and political guide. 38 00:04:28,677.001 --> 00:04:29,847.001 Bill Clinton and George W. 39 00:04:29,847.001 --> 00:04:36,717.001 Bush both said that they, you know, that they kind of worshipped Theodore Roosevelt as their, their political guru and Sherpa. 40 00:04:37,87.001 --> 00:04:39,837.001 Um, so I wanted to figure out how. 41 00:04:40,747.001 --> 00:04:45,487.001 that were so different could find the same inspiration in a man like Theodore Roosevelt. 42 00:04:45,487.001 --> 00:05:01,277.001 And it turns out that it's not just politics, but it's pop culture and historians and, you know, there's all these various, um, takes on Theodore Roosevelt since his death in 1919 that I thought we needed what I've kind of taken to call it as a posthumous biography. 43 00:05:01,682.001 --> 00:05:08,672.001 You know, it's a, it's a history of his life after he died because we've really used and abused him an awful lot in those 100 years. 44 00:05:09,231.001 --> 00:05:16,741.001 Well, I know after he died, your book mentions the memorials that, the vast array of those. 45 00:05:16,771.001 --> 00:05:22,62.0005 Could you describe some of those for us? Mm of them are spectacular. 46 00:05:22,62.0005 --> 00:05:24,832.001 I mean, let me give you a couple of examples that might interest listeners. 47 00:05:24,882.001 --> 00:05:33,502.001 So, listeners will know that, um, just recently a statue of Theodore Roosevelt came down in front of the American museum of natural history. 48 00:05:33,502.001 --> 00:05:34,301.001 It was a hmm. 49 00:05:34,812.001 --> 00:05:35,932.001 that James Earl Frazer did. 50 00:05:35,932.001 --> 00:05:51,81.001 It was friends with Theodore Roosevelt and it was taken down because has, uh, on horseback, uh, flanked, by a Masai warrior, an African Masai warrior, and a native American, I'm guessing a chief based on the Yeah. 51 00:05:51,662.001 --> 00:05:58,37.001 Um, so, it does not do a good job of, uh, Telling the story of racial equality. 52 00:05:58,317.001 --> 00:06:05,207.001 It's got a white man on horseback and it's got, uh, an African and a Native American on, on this side and lower down. 53 00:06:05,337.001 --> 00:06:07,277.001 So they removed that statue. 54 00:06:07,737.001 --> 00:06:20,827.001 Um, the really interesting thing is about the outrage that people had about it coming down because of course, Theodore Roosevelt was not a Confederate and we've seen so many Confederate statues come down, right? He was, uh, you know, he believed deeply in the reconstruction constitution. 55 00:06:21,127.001 --> 00:06:24,257.001 So, uh, and he never, his family didn't own slaves. 56 00:06:24,287.001 --> 00:06:24,527.001 So. 57 00:06:24,832.001 --> 00:06:31,852.001 So this was curious, you know, and for me, I knew that Theodore Roosevelt never wanted a statue of himself. 58 00:06:31,852.001 --> 00:06:34,171 In fact, he told his wife and his son, Mm hmm. 59 00:06:34,352.001 --> 00:06:47,82.001 and if anyone ever wants the sources on that, I'm happy to drag those up because plenty of people have told me, oh, how do you know what Theodore Roosevelt would want? Well, his wife and his son say he never wanted a statue, but particularly never wanted a statue of him on horseback. 60 00:06:47,742.001 --> 00:06:55,951.001 Now, how interesting is that, that we've decided over and over again to reproduce memorials of Theodore Roosevelt Either his image, his, hmm. 61 00:06:56,372.001 --> 00:06:58,782.001 statue of him, or on horseback. 62 00:06:58,792.001 --> 00:07:03,621.001 And, and frankly, we don't really listen to what the dead want at all, or even No. 63 00:07:03,632.001 --> 00:07:04,652 want in some cases. 64 00:07:04,952.001 --> 00:07:10,901.001 So another really good example is if you visit Manhattan, you can visit the site of Theodore Roosevelt's birthplace, which is Mm hmm. 65 00:07:11,102.002 --> 00:07:11,502.002 Street.

(07:12):
.001That is a replica house, because Theodore Roosevelt's house was knocked down in, I think, 1905, 1906, something like that. 67 00:07:18,822.001 --> 00:07:22,522.001 And a, and a few years later, a commercial structure was erected there. 68 00:07:23,172.001 --> 00:07:26,262.001 only reason why the house was knocked down is because Theodore Roosevelt wanted it knocked down. 69 00:07:26,342.001 --> 00:07:32,162.001 In fact, there was a movement to try and save his house and create a sort of shrine to Theodore Roosevelt there. 70 00:07:32,552.001 --> 00:07:34,2.001 And he said, I don't want it. 71 00:07:34,292.001 --> 00:07:37,032 Uh, you know, and, and what, what happens? He passes away. 72 00:07:37,382.001 --> 00:07:42,542.001 And a few years later, uh, the Women's Roosevelt Memorial Association builds the thing that he didn't want. 73 00:07:42,802.001 --> 00:07:54,732 So We're really good at putting up things that we think replicate Mm embody or personify or portray a person, it's usually a reflection of what we want. 74 00:07:54,752.001 --> 00:07:59,732.001 And I think that's the kind of takeaway from the book is that we are really the agents of Roosevelt's memory. 75 00:07:59,742.001 --> 00:08:05,181 He's gone and we are, we're producing largely fictions in a lot of cases hmm. 76 00:08:05,242.001 --> 00:08:06,112.001 of the past. 77 00:08:06,981.001 --> 00:08:07,261.001 Yeah. 78 00:08:07,261.101 --> 00:08:26,376.902 Mm uh, little excerpt from the first part of your book it's a quote from, John Dewey, about, uh, everyone who goes into political life, um, gradually grows up a double, and that double consists of the acts of the original, uh, political party. 79 00:08:27,527.002 --> 00:08:33,847.002 individual reflected first in the imagination and then in the desires and the acts of other men. 80 00:08:34,637.002 --> 00:08:35,227.002 and that T. 81 00:08:35,227.002 --> 00:08:35,407.002 R. 82 00:08:35,407.002 --> 00:08:42,357.004 's double, is gonna grow immense over time because, he so captured that imagination, uh, of his countrymen. 83 00:08:42,787.004 --> 00:09:04,427.004 It, it dawned on me that maybe the only thing after he died that people actually, um, listened to was that his funeral be, simple, uh, But after that, it seems as if none of his desires, for memorialization or, or how he'd be remembered or legacy. 84 00:09:05,262.004 --> 00:09:12,752.0045 Is what he would have wanted right? Yeah, and don't want to be too despondent about that because I think you could. 85 00:09:12,752.0045 --> 00:09:19,742.0035 I think you can get down and say, Oh, well, we can't really get the exact truth and understand the past exactly as it was lived. 86 00:09:19,792.0035 --> 00:09:21,312.0045 But I think that's okay too. 87 00:09:21,622.0035 --> 00:09:26,592.0035 I think that ultimately we can, we can take away lessons as long as we say to ourselves with the degree of. 88 00:09:27,232.0045 --> 00:09:48,902.0045 Self awareness that this isn't exactly what it was, you know, that is gone in terms of TR I mean gosh There are so many lessons that we can take from his life and things that we can learn and applications of his legacy But we have to just realize that it's through our eyes that we're we're doing that and that it's really that we're the agents of those Actions not TR. 89 00:09:48,902.0045 --> 00:09:49,511.0045 I Yeah. 90 00:09:50,62.0045 --> 00:09:55,342.0045 I think it's great that you brought up the um I mean, John Dewey's pretty heavy, heavy stuff. 91 00:09:55,342.0045 --> 00:09:57,892.0045 So you gotta do a little bit of lifting, uh, even in reading Dewey. 92 00:09:57,892.0045 --> 00:10:05,942.0045 But another really good example is when, uh, James Earl Fraser, the same guy who made that statue in the, um, in front of the American Museum of Natural History. 93 00:10:06,862.0045 --> 00:10:11,752.0045 also cast the death mask and the, uh, casting of TR's hands. 94 00:10:11,992.0045 --> 00:10:23,427.0045 So when TR died, Kermit Roosevelt, his wife, allowed Frasier to go upstairs, or I think it was actually downstairs, into the north room where he was laying in state, and he put Placer of Paris on T. 95 00:10:23,427.0045 --> 00:10:23,597.0045 R. 96 00:10:23,637.0045 --> 00:10:26,997.0035 's face, and that's really the first memorial we have of T. 97 00:10:26,997.0045 --> 00:10:27,287.0045 R., 98 00:10:27,547.0045 --> 00:10:28,651.0045 and what's interesting is Yeah. 99 00:10:29,27.004 --> 00:10:37,901.0045 directly from the man itself, so you can't get more direct, and Mm people that saw the mask, they said, well, this isn't him, hmm. 100 00:10:38,17.0045 --> 00:10:43,272.0045 know, and there's a poet who wrote a famously It just lacks TR's soul. 101 00:10:44,31.0045 --> 00:10:44,361.0045 Yeah. 102 00:10:44,502.0045 --> 00:10:51,192.0045 interesting too, that people, people knew that there wasn't, you know, not that all these memorials aren't exactly the real thing. 103 00:10:51,512.0045 --> 00:10:54,902.0045 They require us to put our souls into them in order to interpret them. 104 00:10:56,972.0035 --> 00:11:00,291.0045 He was so multifaceted, even in his lifetime, yeah. 105 00:11:00,692.0035 --> 00:11:04,402.0045 he, he meant so many different things to so many people while he lived. 106 00:11:04,402.0045 --> 00:11:07,762.0045 It's not surprising that in his death that continues. 107 00:11:07,992.0035 --> 00:11:09,242.004 Yeah, that's absolutely right. 108 00:11:09,242.004 --> 00:11:09,472.0035 Yeah. 109 00:11:10,821.0045 --> 00:11:15,641.0045 Yeah, and I know in your book the memorials you mentioned weren't just statues. 110 00:11:16,471.0045 --> 00:11:19,481.0045 There were some I think he may have actually been pleased with. 111 00:11:19,491.0045 --> 00:11:22,821.0035 Things like nature preserves I think he would have enjoyed. 112 00:11:22,831.0045 --> 00:11:28,111.0035 You know, Theodore Roosevelt National Park later I think he would have thought that was a bully idea. 113 00:11:28,111.1035 --> 00:11:30,251.0035 Heh heh heh heh heh. 114 00:11:30,251.1035 --> 00:11:34,801.0045 Mm those are the memorials that require you to get involved, hmm. 115 00:11:34,952.0045 --> 00:11:39,2.004 just something that's that you look upon, but that you have to get outdoors. 116 00:11:39,2.004 --> 00:11:45,512.0045 And know, in terms of his legacy, I don't think there's any other president that loved the outdoors as much as he did. 117 00:11:45,992.0045 --> 00:11:52,372.0045 Um, so kind of without question, things that would get people Uh, involved in outdoors would certainly be a great one. 118 00:11:52,372.0045 --> 00:11:57,432.0045 I think there's a lot of, um, movies and films that he would have loved, actually, that depict him. 119 00:11:57,432.0045 --> 00:11:59,662.0045 I think A Night at the Museum is a great film. 120 00:11:59,932.0045 --> 00:12:02,582.0045 Um, and also, you know, that whole tongue in cheek. 121 00:12:03,22.0045 --> 00:12:07,142.004 There's a scene where, um, Ben Stiller is talking to Robin Williams. 122 00:12:07,142.004 --> 00:12:08,801.0045 You know, Robin Williams plays Mm hmm. 123 00:12:09,152.0045 --> 00:12:10,362.0045 Theodore Roosevelt character. 124 00:12:10,672.0045 --> 00:12:14,632.0045 And Robin Williams looks to Ben Stiller and says something like, You know, this is all make believe. 125 00:12:14,632.0045 --> 00:12:15,772.0045 I'm just made out of wax. 126 00:12:15,772.0045 --> 00:12:15,892.0045 Thanks. 127 00:12:16,91.0045 --> 00:12:16,321.0045 Mm hmm. 128 00:12:16,321.1045 --> 00:12:17,600.9045 Mm hmm. 129 00:12:17,872.0045 --> 00:12:22,372.0045 And that I think, you know, there's a, there's a humor behind that, that would have been appealing too. 130 00:12:22,402.0045 --> 00:12:26,472.004 So there's, there's, there's lots of things that I think we can take away in terms of legacy. 131 00:12:26,472.004 --> 00:12:29,142.0045 The book sets out five major areas. 132 00:12:29,262.0035 --> 00:12:30,322.0045 One is T. 133 00:12:30,322.0045 --> 00:12:30,632.0045 R. 134 00:12:30,642.0035 --> 00:12:32,22.0045 's Americanism. 135 00:12:32,367.0045 --> 00:12:47,217.0045 Um, another is his progressivism, is conservation, the, and one of the last ones, I think probably one of the most important ones, the TR was a preacher, you know, he was a great publicist and that is really what makes him someone that we remember nowadays. 136 00:12:47,547.0045 --> 00:12:55,267.0045 The reason why he was an effective president is because he was able to get his ideas to the American public and convince them that they were the right, the right ideas. 137 00:12:55,337.0045 --> 00:12:59,917.0045 So, um, so much to take away in terms of leadership there. 138 00:12:59,977.0045 --> 00:13:03,242.0045 Um, And I think the, you know, the cowboy image is another one. 139 00:13:03,472.0045 --> 00:13:13,972.0045 All of those images also have two sides to them, which is also going back to, you know, your, your point about him being multifaceted, you know, take the progressive for a moment, right? Progressive. 140 00:13:14,342.0045 --> 00:13:19,722.0035 I mean, that's a dirty word for some people, but for other people, it's, it's, it identifies their political identity. 141 00:13:19,772.0035 --> 00:13:25,92.0045 So TR straddled or maybe sat on that fence a little bit too. 142 00:13:25,92.0045 --> 00:13:28,522.0045 So when he died, socialists said, ah, he wasn't progressive enough. 143 00:13:28,522.1045 --> 00:13:28,536.9045 Right. 144 00:13:28,907.0045 --> 00:13:32,561.0045 And you know, diehard conservatives were like, ah, he was far too progressive for Mm hmm. 145 00:13:32,797.0045 --> 00:13:37,187.0045 has allowed him to transcend a lot of the political debates. 146 00:13:38,287.0045 --> 00:13:44,227.0045 you know, people can take parts of his progressivism and say it fits with their own political identity. 147 00:13:44,563.0045 --> 00:13:54,633.0045 Uh, I was going to ask if you could speak to the memorial associations that began to form, uh, immediately after his death in 1919. 148 00:13:55,673.0045 --> 00:13:56,223.0045 Yeah, sure. 149 00:13:56,223.0045 --> 00:14:10,283.0045 So I mean, three days after he dies in New York, um, there is a meeting of really a number of prominent men and uh, it is all men and they're called the Roosevelt Memorial Association. 150 00:14:10,283.0045 --> 00:14:13,153.0045 And they begin a fundraising campaign that's wildly successful. 151 00:14:13,823.0045 --> 00:14:19,183.0045 they raise millions of dollars within the first year to erect a national memorial to Roosevelt. 152 00:14:19,583.0045 --> 00:14:21,673.0045 And they, they have other ideas as well. 153 00:14:22,13.0045 --> 00:14:26,703.0045 A competing group emerges, uh, maybe only a few days later of women. 154 00:14:27,203.0045 --> 00:14:37,113.0045 And, uh, they are wildly successful, not in raising money, but creating a memorial that they believe is going to speak to Roosevelt's Americanism. 155 00:14:37,153.0045 --> 00:14:43,363.0035 So they, uh, within four years purchased the birthplace, or the site of the birthplace, in East 20th Street. 156 00:14:43,793.0045 --> 00:14:48,936.9045 And they, you know, their plan is, is a very political plan, interestingly, these, uh, these women, which are heh heh. 157 00:14:49,103.0045 --> 00:14:50,23.0045 New York socialites. 158 00:14:51,133.0045 --> 00:14:55,22.9045 And, and they want to make the, the house a memorial. 159 00:14:56,343.0045 --> 00:15:05,743.0045 a teaching grounds or a Mm hmm, yeah, yeah, oh, yeah, And there's a connotation in there too, that immigrants might have on American values. 160 00:15:05,793.0045 --> 00:15:11,673.0035 And they talked about, uh, making sure that there was no anarchists and communists in America. 161 00:15:11,973.0045 --> 00:15:16,433.0045 And they were worried that immigrants might be the most likely candidates for those sort of political ideologies. 162 00:15:18,358.0045 --> 00:15:32,718.0045 they're not successful in the long run because they're political, whereas the men's group is decidedly apolitical, and they want to focus on a memorial that is artistic in nature that can transcend a single generation. 163 00:15:32,728.0035 --> 00:15:42,48.0045 So while Americanism was a very popular idea in the 1920s, like this is the first Red Scare, you can imagine that that sort of patriotic ideology would have been very popular. 164 00:15:42,428.0045 --> 00:15:46,768.0035 The men said that, and they knew and they were cognizant that that would. 165 00:15:46,783.1045 --> 00:15:55,663.0045 and that they would need something that's more lasting, but it takes them forever to come up with a memorial plan that is suitable to the country. 166 00:15:55,663.0045 --> 00:15:59,673.0045 So yeah, yeah, is memorialized today. 167 00:16:00,173.0045 --> 00:16:09,933.0045 Theodore Roosevelt was meant to be memorialized, and the men's group sets up a competition to create a memorial in the Tidal Basin. 168 00:16:10,373.0045 --> 00:16:15,703.0045 And John Russell Pope wins that competition, and there's a huge, expansive memorial. 169 00:16:16,343.0045 --> 00:16:26,473.0045 marble, uh, field and, uh, 150 colonnades and a big 200 foot geyser that's supposed to spout up in the middle of the, the tidal basin. 170 00:16:26,473.0045 --> 00:16:29,943.0045 And, and basically it all comes together in about 1924. 171 00:16:30,183.0045 --> 00:16:32,13.0045 And that's the year that Woodrow Wilson dies. 172 00:16:32,13.0045 --> 00:16:38,563.0045 And of course, TR and Wilson did not get along and the politics of it all are basically laid bare before the American public. 173 00:16:39,293.0045 --> 00:16:40,613.0045 doesn't get the spot on the tidal basin. 174 00:16:41,293.0045 --> 00:16:49,153.0045 And so the Roosevelt Memorial Association needs to realign or, or, or rejig their efforts to find a more suitable space. 175 00:16:49,163.0045 --> 00:17:00,103.0035 And they settle on what was then known as Anal Osten Island, which is now known as TR Island, which is a 88 acre island in the middle of the Potomac, just due west of the Lincoln Memorial. 176 00:17:00,533.0045 --> 00:17:03,953.0045 And it's a, I think it's a wonderful spot for TR for a number of reasons. 177 00:17:04,333.0045 --> 00:17:12,33.0045 It's, uh, it's designed by Frederick Law Olmsted is one of the greatest landscape architects ever. 178 00:17:12,397.0045 --> 00:17:18,213.0045 yeah, yeah, he wanted to make a primeval forest on the, on the space there. 179 00:17:18,533.0045 --> 00:17:23,613.0035 And that seems to me in keeping with the idea of TR as an outdoorsman and a conservationist. 180 00:17:24,363.0045 --> 00:17:31,203.0045 course, in time, people, you know, as I was saying at the outset of this talk, people decide that they have a better idea. 181 00:17:31,423.0045 --> 00:17:39,203.0045 And so they put a statue there and they put a, you know, a grander memorial that, you know, probably undermined the idea that Olmsted had. 182 00:17:39,573.0045 --> 00:17:44,213.0035 Um, but what's great about it is it's not easy to get to and it makes people work. 183 00:17:44,213.1035 --> 00:17:46,653.0045 And I think that is something that is very Rooseveltian as well. 184 00:17:46,653.0045 --> 00:18:00,578.0045 You go there and you're rewarded you know, a bit of nature, but also a bit of how in the world did he get here? Um, and so these two groups eventually merged, the women's group and the men's group eventually merged in the 1950s. 185 00:18:00,638.0045 --> 00:18:09,848.0035 And they're also responsible then for other places like Sagamore Hill becoming a national memorial and, and other spots like Oyster Bay Memorial Park and others. 186 00:18:09,888.0045 --> 00:18:11,628.0035 So they're, I mean, they're really important. 187 00:18:11,638.0045 --> 00:18:16,118.0045 They are, they are the main agents of TR's memory in the world yeah, exist today. 188 00:18:16,408.0045 --> 00:18:19,778.0045 The Theodore Roosevelt Association mm hmm, is still around. 189 00:18:19,828.0035 --> 00:18:22,138.0035 Same, same congressionally chartered organization. 190 00:18:23,238.0045 --> 00:18:49,873.0045 Yeah, you have, a few pictures of some of the, the schematics of some of those really grand designs yeah, thrown around there in the early and mid twenties, uh, it, for the title base and what's going to become the Jefferson Memorial, um, Just, that's astonishing to look at the, the scale of some, some of those early designs, uh, and then see what, what they ended up mm hmm, getting, uh, on T. 191 00:18:49,873.0045 --> 00:18:50,43.0045 R. 192 00:18:50,43.0045 --> 00:18:59,903.0045 Island, uh, um, with the exception of, what is it, like a 16, 17 foot statue of yeah, presiding over the island. 193 00:19:00,513.0045 --> 00:19:28,213.0045 the Roosevelt family, um, his wife Edith, his children knew, as you said, how he felt about statues, particularly equestrian yeah, and, and didn't want to be, um, memorialized in marble, uh, and yet, was it just the persuasiveness of, Some of these memorialization groups that persuaded them little by little to support those kinds of efforts. 194 00:19:28,213.1045 --> 00:19:42,823.0035 How Just happenstance and how some of the original designs of these memorials didn't fit with their conception yeah, father either. 195 00:19:42,833.0045 --> 00:19:52,963.0035 So if we ignore the title basin for a moment and just go to the island where he's memorialized today, we forget that there were other designs for that space. 196 00:19:53,423.0035 --> 00:20:02,583.0025 So Olmstead does the landscape, uh, design, but there is an architect who designed what was, uh, it's called an armillary sphere. 197 00:20:02,913.0025 --> 00:20:08,43.0025 It looks like a bunch of rings, uh, that kind of, they're not in motion, but they look like they could be in motion. 198 00:20:08,453.0025 --> 00:20:13,3.0035 And there was like a little bronze flame in the middle of this giant armillary sphere. 199 00:20:13,873.0035 --> 00:20:16,343.0035 the, the kids didn't like that either. 200 00:20:16,343.0035 --> 00:20:21,683.0035 So Alice I think called them Donuts in Limbo when she saw them. 201 00:20:22,348.0035 --> 00:20:30,98.0035 And other, other kids were, were like, you know, this is, this is so abstract that it doesn't capture the essence of their father either. 202 00:20:30,98.0035 --> 00:20:37,578.0025 So when they see Paul Manship's design for the 16 foot statue, that's there now, uh, they didn't like that either. 203 00:20:37,833.0035 --> 00:20:43,203.0035 But they kind of were like at the end of their, their tether, you know, I mean, it had been years and nothing went up. 204 00:20:43,203.0035 --> 00:20:48,593.0035 So I think you resign yourself in some cases too, to say that nothing is really going to be perfect. 205 00:20:49,33.0035 --> 00:20:51,913.0035 And, you know, TR wouldn't have wanted these things perhaps. 206 00:20:51,913.0035 --> 00:20:53,863.0035 And we, and we know that pretty definitively. 207 00:20:54,903.0025 --> 00:20:56,233.0025 TR is not around anymore. 208 00:20:56,252.0045 --> 00:20:59,143.0035 No, he doesn't get much of a say now. 209 00:21:00,18.0035 --> 00:21:05,708.0035 With that said, there are some memorials that I think, you know, very much the family had a hand in. 210 00:21:06,208.0035 --> 00:21:17,398.0035 So, whether it's Sagamore Hill, which when you go to Sagamore Hill, I think you really oh, the essence of Theodore yes, it's his home, it's his stuff, it's arranged the way he would have liked it arranged. 211 00:21:17,398.0035 --> 00:21:21,48.0035 And, know, there's something about that that seems really genuine. 212 00:21:21,48.0035 --> 00:21:32,478.0035 I think the birthplace, although it's a replica, There's some really, you know, some really sincere elements of that that make you feel like you're going back in time to the 1850s in New York City. 213 00:21:32,598.0035 --> 00:21:36,738.0025 Um, which is a remarkable, you know, feat for any memorial to pull off. 214 00:21:37,198.0025 --> 00:21:42,898.0035 But, you know, you guys mentioned as well some of the things that either bear his imprinter or they bear his name. 215 00:21:42,928.0035 --> 00:21:51,772.0035 Like, um, you know, this, Island Bird Preserve, or there's Devil's Tower, the first national monument in mm hmm. 216 00:21:52,93.0035 --> 00:21:52,563.0035 monument. 217 00:21:52,993.0035 --> 00:21:58,993.0035 Um, all of those bear a little bit of TR, and I think they're, some of them are really special as well., 218 00:21:59,922.0035 --> 00:22:03,606.9035 Your book mentions a lot of the biographies that were written Mm hmm. 219 00:22:04,947.0035 --> 00:22:05,817.0035 almost like memorials to him. 220 00:22:06,537.0035 --> 00:22:10,627.0035 Um, and I know the family wasn't real pleased with some of those. 221 00:22:11,377.0035 --> 00:22:18,487.0025 Could you describe some of the biographies that came about as memorials to help shape T. 222 00:22:18,487.0035 --> 00:22:18,587.003 R. 223 00:22:18,587.003 --> 00:22:27,323.0035 's legacy and memory? Yes, so there's two things that are happening in 1920 around the time that TR, so TR dies in 1919. 224 00:22:27,663.0035 --> 00:22:34,368.0035 There's a revolution in biography that's happening at that moment where any amateur thinks that they can write a biography. 225 00:22:34,608.0035 --> 00:22:40,778.0025 And so there's loads of people that are coming out of the woodwork when he dies that said, Oh, I knew TR and this is the man as I knew him. 226 00:22:40,778.0025 --> 00:22:52,137.0035 So for example, his one, uh, uh, a New York city, uh, is he a pastor? I think Pat, but he's a, he's a clergyman, you know, writes about TR and how religious TR Yeah. 227 00:22:52,588.0035 --> 00:23:01,633.0035 And, you know, there's, uh, Owen Wister writes a book about, you know, my friend TR and, you know, just about everyone that knew him, you know, about him, you know, T. 228 00:23:01,633.0035 --> 00:23:01,763.0035 R. 229 00:23:01,763.0035 --> 00:23:02,713.0035 the intellectual, T. 230 00:23:02,713.0035 --> 00:23:02,863.0035 R. 231 00:23:02,863.0035 --> 00:23:03,833.0035 the cowboy, T. 232 00:23:03,833.0035 --> 00:23:04,103.0035 R., 233 00:23:04,113.0035 --> 00:23:04,893.0035 you know, whatever. 234 00:23:05,323.0035 --> 00:23:13,383.0035 And all of them, I mean, all of them aren't wrong in the sense that he was all of those things, but this is where perspective is really important. 235 00:23:13,383.0035 --> 00:23:21,68.0035 If you, if you add all these things together, you might wind up with something that's really wonderful, but they were all What we would call hagiographies. 236 00:23:21,138.0035 --> 00:23:21,717.0025 You Yeah. 237 00:23:22,548.0035 --> 00:23:24,558.0035 trying to make TR out as a saint. 238 00:23:24,898.0035 --> 00:23:29,868.0035 And that's a, that's a bad idea in biography because what you wind up doing is, is dehumanizing the person. 239 00:23:30,487.0035 --> 00:23:30,817.0035 Yeah. 240 00:23:30,848.0035 --> 00:23:35,638.003 biography tends to go through this sort of, um, these sort of ups and downs, like a rollercoaster. 241 00:23:35,638.003 --> 00:23:43,198.0035 So you often start out, especially with presidents, uh, hagiographies, you know, saintly version of the president. 242 00:23:43,198.0035 --> 00:23:48,418.0035 I mean, I remember when Gerald Ford died, everyone said, Oh, you know, Gerald Ford really saved the country. 243 00:23:48,628.0035 --> 00:23:59,708.0035 You know, but if you ask people in 1974, when Gerald Ford, when he pardoned Richard Nixon, they would not have said that was a good thing, but that was forgotten the day he died. 244 00:23:59,708.0035 --> 00:24:02,508.0035 Now, as time goes on, that changes again. 245 00:24:02,508.0035 --> 00:24:05,338.0035 So in the case of Theodore Roosevelt, there's about 10 years. 246 00:24:05,643.0035 --> 00:24:09,167.0035 Where you have biographers writing nothing but glowing Yeah. 247 00:24:09,803.0035 --> 00:24:12,963.0035 in 1931, there's an academic treatment of Roosevelt. 248 00:24:13,33.0035 --> 00:24:19,787.0035 Henry Pringle writes biography in which he characterizes Roosevelt as a juvenile delinquent and an Yeah. 249 00:24:20,553.0035 --> 00:24:28,23.0035 And it's so focused on that character trait of him being an egomaniac that it sheds almost all of the other material. 250 00:24:28,103.0035 --> 00:24:33,193.0025 I mean, and I can get why he wrote it too, because a decade, you have these glowing biographies. 251 00:24:33,233.0035 --> 00:24:35,552.9035 So it's so easy to just say, well, it's. 252 00:24:35,953.0035 --> 00:24:37,493.0035 Actually, TR was the opposite of that. 253 00:24:37,503.0035 --> 00:24:38,663.0035 And it sells a lot of books. 254 00:24:38,703.0035 --> 00:24:40,413.0035 It wins the Pulitzer Prize. 255 00:24:40,463.0035 --> 00:24:43,173.0035 And for a generation, that is the dominant view of TR. 256 00:24:43,347.0035 --> 00:24:43,677.0035 Yeah. 257 00:24:43,728.0035 --> 00:24:54,148.0025 So it really is not until the 1990s that we get really solid academic nuance in, um, sorry, 1970s, I should say. 258 00:24:54,428.0035 --> 00:24:57,458.0035 We get books like Edmund Morris The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. 259 00:24:57,488.0035 --> 00:24:59,178.0025 We get David McCullough's book, Morning on Horsebacks. 260 00:24:59,607.0035 --> 00:24:59,967.0035 Yeah. 261 00:25:00,238.0025 --> 00:25:06,327.0035 Uh, we get, uh, in the 2000s, we get My favorite biography, Kathy Dalton's strenuous Yes. 262 00:25:06,513.0035 --> 00:25:09,923.0035 Um, and we've had some fantastic biographies since then too. 263 00:25:09,923.0035 --> 00:25:23,217.0035 But what we've done is we've gone through the ups and downs of saint and sinner, and we've settled somewhere in the middle, which is actually a rather human portrait of a man who was at the end of the day, the human being, he had flaws and he Yes. 264 00:25:23,217.1035 --> 00:25:23,231.9035 Yeah. 265 00:25:23,233.0025 --> 00:25:24,853.0025 he had wonderful characteristics as well. 266 00:25:25,782.0035 --> 00:25:28,762.0035 I know Henry Pringle's biography of T. 267 00:25:28,762.0035 --> 00:25:29,52.0035 R. 268 00:25:29,712.0035 --> 00:25:31,502.0035 really angered Edith, T. 269 00:25:31,502.0035 --> 00:25:31,602.0035 R. 270 00:25:31,602.0035 --> 00:25:32,12.0035 's wife. 271 00:25:32,242.0035 --> 00:25:42,862.0035 And in Sylvia Jukes Morris's biography of Edith, she talks about the strong opinions that the whole family had in the 1920s and 30s about all the different biographies. 272 00:25:43,132.0025 --> 00:25:50,722.0035 I mean, Edith couldn't stand having Herman Hagedorn, um, like she said, the starry eyed mixture of fact and fiction. 273 00:25:51,202.0035 --> 00:25:54,436.9035 But I think my favorite reaction is Edith's to Herman Hagedorn. 274 00:25:54,597.0035 --> 00:26:02,267.0035 Pringle's book when she writes to Ethel and she quotes and says on each page is a sneer or a slap at father I cannot read it. 275 00:26:02,577.0025 --> 00:26:15,353.0035 I should like to burn it and mail the ashes back to its author do you really feel? Yes Well, you Herman Hagedorn. 276 00:26:15,583.0035 --> 00:26:25,742.9035 I, I wrote down a quote from Hagedorn who is amongst that, uh, First generation of,, hagiographies for, for certain. 277 00:26:25,812.9035 --> 00:26:33,802.9035 Um, he said in his, uh, boy's life of TR, which was, I believe, still written, uh, in the last year of Roosevelt's life. 278 00:26:34,152.9035 --> 00:26:40,242.9025 Um, one cannot explain him any more than you can explain electricity or falling in love. 279 00:26:41,602.9025 --> 00:26:42,992.9025 And I love, I love that quote. 280 00:26:42,992.9025 --> 00:26:47,7.9035 I think that is actually, that's, um, That's a great metaphor for TR. 281 00:26:47,37.9035 --> 00:26:49,897.9035 I mean, the energy is, it's hard to explain. 282 00:26:49,897.9035 --> 00:26:53,467.9035 And the, there's some things about, um, Hagedorn's work. 283 00:26:53,747.9035 --> 00:26:59,37.9035 I mean, Hagedorn is kind of like the high priest of Roosevelt memorialization because he's not just a writer. 284 00:26:59,377.9025 --> 00:27:05,907.9035 Um, you know, he, he made films, he collected, I mean, a lot of the reason why the Harvard collection is so big is down to one man. 285 00:27:07,117.9035 --> 00:27:09,687.9035 So I think we've got to give credit where credit is due. 286 00:27:09,697.9035 --> 00:27:14,817.9035 He was a major figure in the, uh, the memory of, of Theodore Roosevelt. 287 00:27:14,817.9035 --> 00:27:20,887.9035 And we owe, we actually owe a lot to him, but he was also a pretty bombastic and hyperbolic writer. 288 00:27:21,107.9035 --> 00:27:28,147.9035 And when he was, when he was, you know, really at the height of his career in world war one and just after world war one, was writing a lot of tripe. 289 00:27:28,527.9035 --> 00:27:29,417.9035 Um, but. 290 00:27:30,557.9035 --> 00:27:33,717.9035 TR, what I can say too, is he got better over time. 291 00:27:33,997.9035 --> 00:27:41,257.9025 When he writes, um, you know, Roosevelt's The Sagamore Hill, that's a much more yeah, book than A Boy's Life or yeah, Stuff. 292 00:27:41,327.9035 --> 00:27:49,267.9035 And, I think that's, what's really interesting is that he was quite tempered early on by, by other figures who were more mature. 293 00:27:49,277.9035 --> 00:28:05,232.9035 So in that first meeting of the Memorial Association in New York, three days after Roosevelt dies, Hagedorn says, And remember, Hagrid was a kind of small player in yeah He's not as well known as, we're talking about like, Elihu Root, you know, New York senator and Former Secretary of State is in the room. 294 00:28:05,233.0035 --> 00:28:08,632.9035 And, and Hagedorn says, We gotta talk about TR and Americanism. 295 00:28:08,632.9035 --> 00:28:10,172.9035 We need to stop the communists. 296 00:28:10,312.9035 --> 00:28:11,692.9035 And this is in 1919. 297 00:28:12,2.9035 --> 00:28:12,462.9025 That fits. 298 00:28:12,992.9035 --> 00:28:16,512.9025 And Root says to Hagedorn, you know, kind of like, sit down, young fella. 299 00:28:16,736.9035 --> 00:28:18,362.903 Yeah, we're not gonna do that at all. 300 00:28:18,362.903 --> 00:28:22,552.9035 We're gonna, you know, we're gonna have an artistic thing that's gonna last for generations to come. 301 00:28:22,992.9025 --> 00:28:30,522.9035 And I think what Hagedorn got back Certainly by the time he passed away in 1963, that you can't make anything for one time. 302 00:28:30,592.9035 --> 00:28:35,322.9035 Whatever you, whatever you make and do, you have to think long term when you're, at least when you're talking about memory. 303 00:28:35,486.9035 --> 00:28:50,756.9035 yeah, because it can't last and gosh, we've got, we've got so much going on at the moment with TR's legacy, whether it's presidential library, the library that's being built in Medora, uh, whether we're talking about, you know, Morris's papers, whether, yeah. 304 00:28:50,767.9035 --> 00:29:01,107.9035 just so much going on right now that I think we're at this inflection point where everyone needs to be thinking longterm because we will still be talking about Theodore Roosevelt a hundred years from now. 305 00:29:01,556.9035 --> 00:29:02,76.9035 Oh, yeah. 306 00:29:02,661.9035 --> 00:29:03,311.9035 Definitely. 307 00:29:03,781.9035 --> 00:29:15,781.9035 With Herman Hagedorn, you talked about him wearing out his shoe leather, tirelessly walking the corridors of the Senate office building, trying to organize a national celebration of TR's 100th birthday. 308 00:29:16,281.9035 --> 00:29:19,521.904 And he doesn't get the recognition that he deserves. 309 00:29:19,521.904 --> 00:29:25,921.9035 At times, we look at things that he did, taking the Rough Riders interviews and turning that into a novel. 310 00:29:26,251.9035 --> 00:29:34,691.9035 Rather than something historic, you know, a good, you know, historic piece, but yeah, he really deserves a lot of credit. 311 00:29:35,652.9035 --> 00:29:39,272.9035 I mean, the centennial, so the centennial is held in 1958. 312 00:29:39,672.9035 --> 00:29:45,552.9035 It's actually held for a year from 1957 to 1958, but you know, that is largely down to Hagedorn. 313 00:29:45,602.9035 --> 00:29:57,132.9035 And he was able to mobilize the president, that's Eisenhower at the time, uh, and a number of really key senators and in just about every state. 314 00:29:57,532.9035 --> 00:30:00,472.9035 Now that is, when you think about it, that is incredible. 315 00:30:00,887.9035 --> 00:30:11,977.9035 Um, and every one of those people, the, the politicians as well as Hagedorn and many of the other centenary staff were laser focused on making that year all about TR. 316 00:30:12,27.9035 --> 00:30:18,447.9035 And there are some major outcomes from that, that we still have, whether it's books, whether it's the name of certain places. 317 00:30:18,717.9025 --> 00:30:21,867.9035 And, uh, I mean, there's, there's a lot of memorialization that comes out of that. 318 00:30:21,877.9035 --> 00:30:22,327.9035 And. 319 00:30:22,772.9035 --> 00:30:28,651.8035 Hagedorn returned to his theme of Americanism, and he, he found a more receptive audience in the 1950s heh. 320 00:30:28,682.9035 --> 00:30:31,71.9035 were in the middle of a second Red Scare, Yeah. 321 00:30:31,72.0035 --> 00:30:32,921.8035 Heh heh heh heh heh. 322 00:30:32,932.9035 --> 00:30:45,332.9035 but, you know, communism was still a very dirty word in America in the 1950s, maybe it still is, and he, he latched onto that and conservation as the two core themes of Roosevelt's 100th anniversary. 323 00:30:46,772.9035 --> 00:30:53,612.9035 you probably can't overemphasize enough Hagedorn's role in, uh, keeping that memory and legacy alive. 324 00:30:54,762.9035 --> 00:31:01,601.9035 Really separate, uh, the Roosevelt Memorial Association and Herman Hagedorn during his life, I guess, but could you Yeah. 325 00:31:02,662.9035 --> 00:31:20,192.9035 some of those developments in the 1940s into the 50s, um, with, with academics, with, with papers Hagedorn maybe had a role in that started to revive, um, Roosevelt's legacy after being drug into the depths with Pringle's biography. 326 00:31:21,2.9035 --> 00:31:33,892.9035 Sure, yeah, and I, I just should say as well at the outset that, um, I'm the public historian for the Theodore Roosevelt Association, and this is the organization that's still, uh, around from, from 1920. 327 00:31:34,662.9035 --> 00:31:45,747.9035 When they, when they merge with the Women's Memorial Association in the late 40s and early 50s, they really refocus on a number of things, but academic pursuits is one of them. 328 00:31:46,227.9035 --> 00:31:57,577.9035 And the thing that counters the Pringle biography or offers an alternative view of Roosevelt is a project that starts in the late 40s and early 50s around TR's letters. 329 00:31:57,617.9035 --> 00:32:09,297.9035 Because what Pringle, what made him such an authority was that he had access to a lot of personal papers at Sagamore Hill and at the Library of Congress that previous biographers didn't have access to. 330 00:32:09,747.9035 --> 00:32:16,257.9035 But he didn't have access to everything, and particularly the post presidential years were absent from Pringle's biography. 331 00:32:16,747.9035 --> 00:32:30,587.9035 And Herman Hagedorn, as well as a bunch of other far sighted members of the Theodore Roosevelt Association, decided to start a letters project that would put together all of TR's most important letters. 332 00:32:31,212.9035 --> 00:32:39,172.9035 And that's not an easy thing, because TR, we estimate, wrote anywhere from 150 to maybe as much as 200, 000 letters during his lifetime. 333 00:32:39,271.9035 --> 00:32:39,561.9035 Yeah. 334 00:32:39,692.9035 --> 00:32:42,62.9025 then Mm the letters that come in to him as well, so. 335 00:32:42,902.9035 --> 00:32:50,802.9025 This is a, you know, this is an incredible project, and it's led by a chap called Elting Morrison, who was a professor at MIT. 336 00:32:51,232.9035 --> 00:32:54,871.9035 And he had written a brilliant biography of Admiral Sim, who was a World hmm. 337 00:32:54,872.0035 --> 00:32:55,271.8025 Yeah. 338 00:32:55,542.9035 --> 00:32:55,582.9035 pilot. 339 00:32:56,17.9035 --> 00:32:56,387.9035 genius. 340 00:32:57,107.9035 --> 00:33:08,547.9025 And, uh, he was, he was hired by the Theodore Roosevelt Association and worked with Harvard University where the Memorial Association's papers were being moved in the, in the 40s. 341 00:33:09,337.9035 --> 00:33:13,781.9035 they went through every letter they could find of Theodore Roosevelt Mm of hmm. 342 00:33:13,887.9025 --> 00:33:15,537.9035 from the Harvard archives. 343 00:33:15,647.9035 --> 00:33:21,307.9035 And they, they collected them in eight volumes and published them in the early 50s, from 1950 to 1954. 344 00:33:22,792.9035 --> 00:33:26,792.9035 And those letters change people's minds about Theodore Roosevelt. 345 00:33:26,832.9035 --> 00:33:28,178.6031667 So a really good Yeah. 346 00:33:28,178.6031667 --> 00:33:28,795.2028333 Yeah. 347 00:33:28,795.2028333 --> 00:33:49,962.9035 Mm one of America's most prominent professors of history at the time is a guy called Richard Hofstadter from Columbia university who would have written, um, you know, important books about the political tradition in America, about the age of reform and his views of Roosevelt start out in the late forties and early fifties as extremely negative. 348 00:33:50,322.9035 --> 00:33:54,472.9035 And they sort of morph into a much, much varied and more nuanced view. 349 00:33:54,751.9025 --> 00:33:54,911.9025 hmm. 350 00:33:55,102.9035 --> 00:34:07,827.9035 And we get a bunch of other historians like, um, uh, John Morton Bloom and, uh, and others that, that are writing about TR as part of a, a political tradition in America rather than an outlier. 351 00:34:08,287.9035 --> 00:34:24,187.9025 And that really brings him, uh, really brings him back from the precipice where he was with Pringle as just, uh, an outsized personality, a gnashing teeth and a egomaniac, you know, Yeah, or as one, as Kathy Dalton calls that the crazy Teddy view of Theodore Roosevelt. 352 00:34:24,207.9035 --> 00:34:30,797.9035 That's, not extinguished by the 1950s, but it's the TRA and its foresight to fund that letters project. 353 00:34:30,797.9035 --> 00:34:34,727.9035 It then leads to a revival in, in his image. 354 00:34:34,921.9035 --> 00:34:38,491.9035 yeah, dispels the arsenic and old lace, T. 355 00:34:38,491.9035 --> 00:34:38,811.9035 R. 356 00:34:39,557.9035 --> 00:34:39,917.9035 Right. 357 00:34:40,177.9035 --> 00:34:43,227.9035 Teddy Brewster charging up the stairs thinking they're San Juan Heights. 358 00:34:44,462.9035 --> 00:34:45,42.9035 Oh dear. 359 00:34:45,102.9035 --> 00:34:45,482.9035 Yeah. 360 00:34:45,483.0035 --> 00:34:45,520.4035 Yeah. 361 00:34:45,520.4035 --> 00:34:45,557.8035 Yeah. 362 00:34:46,201.9025 --> 00:34:51,671.9015 In your book you devoted quite a few pages to the influence and success of Dr. 363 00:34:51,671.9025 --> 00:34:54,861.9025 John Cable, who was the executive director of the T. 364 00:34:54,861.9025 --> 00:34:55,61.9025 R. 365 00:34:55,61.9025 --> 00:34:55,291.9025 A. 366 00:34:55,831.9025 --> 00:34:59,457.9025 Um, would you tell us about his work? Yes. 367 00:34:59,477.9025 --> 00:35:05,17.9025 So John Gable is incredibly important and it's a great regret that I never got a chance to meet the man. 368 00:35:05,137.9025 --> 00:35:09,317.9025 John Gable died, I believe it's 2004, I might be off by a year. 369 00:35:10,397.9025 --> 00:35:16,192.9025 Died rather suddenly, but he became the He became the Herman Hagedorn of the next generation. 370 00:35:16,192.9025 --> 00:35:20,802.9025 So Yeah, the directorship of the Theodore Roosevelt Association in 1975. 371 00:35:20,892.9025 --> 00:35:29,392.9015 And I think the association, it's safe to say it was kind of on the ropes, having lost Herman Hagedorn and a bit of direction and enthusiasm in those intervening years. 372 00:35:29,697.9025 --> 00:35:35,207.9025 And John Gable, really, with the help of Ethel Roosevelt, uh, Derby, and, um, and P. 373 00:35:35,207.9025 --> 00:35:43,877.9025 James Roosevelt, you know, two prominent yeah, they, they come up with a new strategic plan for the association that sees it into the next generation. 374 00:35:43,937.9025 --> 00:35:47,917.9015 So, John Gable is responsible for the Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal. 375 00:35:48,327.9025 --> 00:35:51,777.9025 Which is an academic, uh, an academic, uh, peer reviewed journal. 376 00:35:52,257.9025 --> 00:36:04,947.9025 And, uh, he's responsible for increasing membership and making sure effectively that I wouldn't say negative depictions, but a historical depictions of Roosevelt were, were targeted. 377 00:36:04,957.9025 --> 00:36:11,147.9025 And he, he solicited a network of friends. 378 00:36:11,148.0025 --> 00:36:16,847.9015 I mean, a really good example is, uh, Edmund Morrison, who became a close friend of John Gable. 379 00:36:17,227.9025 --> 00:36:30,737.9025 Edmund Morris, uh, was, uh, writing the, uh, Rise, the Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, which eventually mm hmm, Prize, and kind of, kind of takes us to the other side of Pringle, you know, a very, uh, Sort of the great man biography of Theodore Roosevelt. 380 00:36:31,897.9025 --> 00:36:43,307.9015 Gable would write to Edmund Morris and say, you know, have you looked at this aspect of, of And, oh, you can find elements of, uh, of this story you're trying to tell here. 381 00:36:43,841.9015 --> 00:36:45,827.9025 yeah, with a number of others as well. 382 00:36:45,827.9025 --> 00:36:51,37.9015 You know, he was, he became a reference for anyone interested in Theodore Roosevelt. 383 00:36:51,57.9025 --> 00:36:57,802.9025 And that's so important because it, it yeah, It channeled a lot of the ideas that people were having through John Gable. 384 00:36:58,102.9025 --> 00:37:00,152.9025 And, and, you know, Gable was an academic himself. 385 00:37:00,152.9025 --> 00:37:01,362.9025 He studied at Brown. 386 00:37:01,532.9025 --> 00:37:04,552.9025 He wrote a mm TR and the Progressive Party. 387 00:37:04,841.9015 --> 00:37:05,681.9015 hmm. 388 00:37:05,702.9025 --> 00:37:12,962.9015 uh, you know, he's probably, uh, one of the most instrumental people in, in keeping TR's legacy alive after Herman Hagedorn. 389 00:37:12,962.9025 --> 00:37:14,972.9025 And, you know, it's not just, uh, academics. 390 00:37:14,972.9025 --> 00:37:19,782.9025 He, um, he's responsible for birthday parties for TR at the White House. 391 00:37:20,902.9025 --> 00:37:25,922.9025 he's responsible for overseas ventures like the, uh, Roosevelt Study Center in Middleburg. 392 00:37:26,442.9025 --> 00:37:30,862.9025 Um, you know, so he's a, he's a really important player in that world. 393 00:37:30,922.9025 --> 00:37:38,232.9015 And I think, um, I think we owe a lot to both of them actually, in terms of their legacy is still felt in that TR universe. 394 00:37:40,557.9025 --> 00:37:52,292.9025 You had mentioned, in your book about how, uh, academic treatments often, uh, Um, precede the popular culture, uh, depictions, whether it's in movies, uh, or, uh, or other forms. 395 00:37:52,782.9025 --> 00:37:58,242.8035 Uh, could you talk a little bit about, how Mm hmm. 396 00:37:59,313.9035 --> 00:38:05,233.9035 determine how Roosevelt is portrayed in various movies over time? Yeah, sure. 397 00:38:05,233.9035 --> 00:38:07,763.9035 I mean, um, I'll give you a really great example. 398 00:38:07,763.9035 --> 00:38:16,583.9035 One of my favorite examples of this is when the United States is facing the prospect of war with Germany after 1939. 399 00:38:17,353.9035 --> 00:38:25,423.9035 So Franklin Roosevelt is of course left with the decision to Stay neutral at the outset of the war and, uh, and does so. 400 00:38:25,483.9035 --> 00:38:28,823.9035 And there's a movie released called the Monroe Doctrine in 1939. 401 00:38:29,63.9035 --> 00:38:30,973.9025 Now it's a, it's a movie that most people won't know. 402 00:38:30,973.9035 --> 00:38:46,162.9035 So you can't, you're not going to easily find this, but it's a, it's a 20 minute reel to reel that is, uh, the features, uh, obviously president Monroe, who is the, uh, well, not the author, but the, the, the sort of the one whose name is affixed to Yeah. 403 00:38:46,623.9035 --> 00:38:51,273.9035 And basically the Monroe Doctrine, of course, is the idea that the United States will stay out of European. 404 00:38:51,618.9035 --> 00:38:56,612.9035 Matters and Europeans need to stay out of Western Hemispheric Yeah. 405 00:38:56,828.9035 --> 00:38:58,988.9035 no longer colonize the Western Hemisphere. 406 00:39:00,218.9035 --> 00:39:08,908.9025 the film ends with TR, who of course is the TR corollary, or the Roosevelt corollary, is the corollary to the Monroe Doctrine. 407 00:39:08,928.9025 --> 00:39:09,552.9035 Which Yeah. 408 00:39:09,898.9025 --> 00:39:16,248.9035 TR expanded the meaning of the Monroe Doctrine to say that not only should Europeans stay out of the Americas, but the Americas is. 409 00:39:16,858.9035 --> 00:39:21,818.9035 Are going to be monitored and policed basically by the United States by force if necessary. 410 00:39:22,452.9035 --> 00:39:22,652.9035 Yeah. 411 00:39:23,238.9035 --> 00:39:30,318.9025 it showed that TR was a part of this long tradition of out of European affairs in Europe, keeping out of American affairs. 412 00:39:30,708.9035 --> 00:39:36,798.9035 And in 1939, that movie made so much sense to people because, you know, Franklin Roosevelt is saying the same thing. 413 00:39:36,799.0035 --> 00:39:39,928.9035 We're going to stay out of war and let's hope that this ends soon. 414 00:39:40,778.9035 --> 00:39:46,418.9035 Two years later after Pearl Harbor and after the United States gets, you know, into the war. 415 00:39:46,798.9035 --> 00:39:50,52.9035 There's another film that's released called Teddy and the Rough Riders, Yeah. 416 00:39:50,118.9035 --> 00:39:53,228.9035 again a 20 minute short released by the same studio. 417 00:39:53,228.9035 --> 00:40:03,52.9035 The same actor is playing Roosevelt, but instead this time he's an interventionist and we have the historical narrative of the Spanish American war where the United States has to get involved, right? Mm hmm. 418 00:40:03,68.9025 --> 00:40:06,788.9035 Uh, have to get involved to save Cuba from, you know, the terrible Spanish. 419 00:40:06,798.9035 --> 00:40:24,508.9025 And now it makes sense that Franklin Roosevelt, Is saving the world from Nazism and Japanese autocracy, right? So, I mean, these are the reason why these are so good examples is because the format is the same, the studio is the same, the actor is the same, and yet the narrative couldn't be any more different. 420 00:40:24,878.9035 --> 00:40:29,8.8035 So my point about film in particular is that it always follows. 421 00:40:29,628.9035 --> 00:40:31,658.9035 times that we're living in to an extent. 422 00:40:32,428.9035 --> 00:40:51,688.9035 I do think that film has gotten pretty absurd now, and we've got so many depictions of TR and whether it's on the or whether it's on, you know, uh, there's so many, you know, like we said, the night at the museum, it's gotten a little bit abstract, but still the serious films, you can see that there's some relationship to the context in which they're made. 423 00:40:53,93.9035 --> 00:40:59,33.9035 Reminded of like, uh, the 1970s depiction at the conclusion of, of our involvement in Vietnam. 424 00:40:59,43.9025 --> 00:41:00,462.9035 You've got the wind and the Yeah. 425 00:41:00,722.9035 --> 00:41:01,162.9035 Mm hmm. 426 00:41:01,413.9025 --> 00:41:04,92.9035 pretty outlandish, um, Oh, yeah. 427 00:41:04,933.9035 --> 00:41:06,193.9035 of, of Roosevelt. 428 00:41:06,228.9035 --> 00:41:09,42.9035 follow, that doesn't even follow history No. 429 00:41:09,308.9035 --> 00:41:09,728.9035 about. 430 00:41:10,518.9035 --> 00:41:12,468.9035 Theodore Roosevelt in the film invades Morocco. 431 00:41:12,468.9035 --> 00:41:13,998.9035 I mean, he never did that in real life. 432 00:41:14,172.9035 --> 00:41:14,527.8035 Ha ha ha. 433 00:41:14,718.9035 --> 00:41:20,878.9035 this is really, it's, it's an abstraction, but there's that connection to the Mayaguez incident in 1975. 434 00:41:20,878.9035 --> 00:41:25,588.9025 It's the last, most people see it as the last battle of the, of the Vietnam War. 435 00:41:25,938.9035 --> 00:41:37,198.9025 And again, America is this bombastic interventionist foreign policy, Yeah, that they're trying to relate TR to, uh, basically the, the Johnson and Nixon administration. 436 00:41:37,557.9035 --> 00:41:53,637.9035 going along with that, I know not just, you mentioned presidents have used TR and invoked him in many of their speeches and policies, but also commercial marketing has used TR quite a bit, from even before his death. 437 00:41:54,97.9035 --> 00:41:59,387.9035 So, please tell us some of the ways that companies have used TR to promote their products. 438 00:41:59,387.9035 --> 00:42:02,428.9035 Ha, there's so many ways. 439 00:42:02,488.9035 --> 00:42:08,188.9035 I mean, presidents are, say this, some presidents are really good spokespeople for companies. 440 00:42:08,228.9035 --> 00:42:13,577.9035 Some presidents, you know, you might turn off consumers if you, if you put their Yup. 441 00:42:13,578.0035 --> 00:42:17,977.9035 Uh huh. 442 00:42:17,977.9035 --> 00:42:24,633.9025 Yup x6 uh, in the 1910s and 20s. 443 00:42:25,823.9035 --> 00:42:32,33.9035 Uh, there are a number of strange advertisements, like for cigarettes, TR didn't smoke. 444 00:42:32,393.9035 --> 00:42:36,93.9035 Um, a number of whiskeys, presidents, almost every president has a whiskey. 445 00:42:36,103.9035 --> 00:42:38,83.9035 Even if you're a bad president, you get a whiskey. 446 00:42:38,493.9035 --> 00:42:45,338.9035 Um, but, um, So there's a number of, including, there's a absolutely delicious Hudson Valley, uh, Roughriders whiskey that you can buy nowadays. 447 00:42:45,338.9035 --> 00:42:46,138.9035 I think I should be getting. 448 00:42:46,538.9035 --> 00:43:14,747.9035 Paid something for that plug, but um, I mean computers there's a there's a tv station about wellness that uses quotes from theodore roosevelt, uh, you can check out cadillac in 2015 Had a integrated what we would call a guerrilla marketing campaign where they ask people to dare greatly, which is a quote from Theodore roosevelt, they read out a big speech from that citizenship in a republic speech that roosevelt gave in 1910 Yeah. 449 00:43:14,918.9035 --> 00:43:17,918.9035 for You In some of these, you never even see the car. 450 00:43:17,918.9035 --> 00:43:18,938.9035 You never see the Cadillac. 451 00:43:18,958.9035 --> 00:43:22,968.9035 You just the brand at the end and it's associated with Roosevelt. 452 00:43:22,988.9035 --> 00:43:25,753.9035 So, I Those, those were really well done. 453 00:43:26,608.9025 --> 00:43:34,108.903 yeah, some of these are exceptional and Oh, yeah, you remember them and that is, that is the purpose is that you remember them. 454 00:43:34,108.903 --> 00:43:38,338.9035 And TR is a, is a character in, in all of these that you can remember. 455 00:43:38,338.9035 --> 00:43:43,338.9035 Easily identifiable, trustworthy, right? Which is key to, uh, branding. 456 00:43:43,748.9035 --> 00:43:46,148.9035 So that, that makes him pretty powerful. 457 00:43:46,178.9035 --> 00:43:50,508.9035 And, um, and a lot, I can't say my favorite, my favorite one is Schlitz. 458 00:43:51,77.9035 --> 00:43:51,617.9035 yes. 459 00:43:52,28.9025 --> 00:44:02,38.9035 I, do you guys remember Schlitz? I mean, most people nowadays probably don't remember Schlitz, but Schlitz was the king of beers before Budweiser was the king of beers in the 1950s and sixties. 460 00:44:02,48.9035 --> 00:44:03,968.9035 They were kind of on the decline in two. 461 00:44:04,678.9035 --> 00:44:17,58.9025 sort of stop that skid, they brought in TR and they had this ad where they said TR a consignment of Schlitz sent to Mombasa when he was visiting Africa they made a big deal out of this. 462 00:44:17,58.9035 --> 00:44:21,188.9035 And later on they had Sorrel Book, who was an actor from Dukes of Hazard. 463 00:44:21,208.9035 --> 00:44:22,407.9025 He was boss hog Yup. 464 00:44:23,538.9035 --> 00:44:24,958.9035 advertising him as TR. 465 00:44:24,968.9025 --> 00:44:27,968.9035 He was the actor and for Schlitz malt liquor. 466 00:44:28,128.9035 --> 00:44:31,343.9035 And, uh, Anyway, none of this ever happened here. 467 00:44:31,343.9035 --> 00:44:32,93.9035 Never drank Schlitz. 468 00:44:32,103.9035 --> 00:44:32,767.9035 He never Now. 469 00:44:32,768.0035 --> 00:44:35,794.6035 Oh, yeah. 470 00:44:35,794.6035 --> 00:44:37,307.9035 Yeah. 471 00:44:37,307.9035 --> 00:44:38,821.2035 Yeah. 472 00:44:38,821.2035 --> 00:44:40,334.5035 Yeah. 473 00:44:40,334.5035 --> 00:44:49,343.9025 Yeah, and TR, there are some really serious, know, books and articles about this, but there's no evidence. 474 00:44:49,543.9025 --> 00:44:55,113.8035 So, I mean, this, there's any number of ways you can imagine they've used them. 475 00:44:55,993.9035 --> 00:44:58,143.9535 That's why that needed the pigskin covers. 476 00:44:58,153.9535 --> 00:45:03,73.9525 It's just easier to clean all the, the malt liquor when you spill it all over your book collection. 477 00:45:06,218.9535 --> 00:45:24,488.9535 You know, you said the, uh, those, those themes for classifying TR that have been used for memorialization, the Americanism, the, the cowboy myth, the progressivism, conservation, preacher of righteousness, man of letters, um, that that has been pretty consistently used. 478 00:45:24,588.9535 --> 00:45:26,898.9535 but, uh, more in the 21st century. 479 00:45:26,898.9535 --> 00:45:31,918.9535 You said there's been, his portrayals become more of a, an abstraction. 480 00:45:32,288.9525 --> 00:45:35,593.9535 Uh, can you talk to that a little bit? Yeah, sure. 481 00:45:35,593.9535 --> 00:45:46,663.9535 I mean, I think, um, I think we've gotten some of the best biographies out there about Roosevelt now, and we have a pretty good idea of who he is, and now I think we're starting to just toy around with his image a little bit. 482 00:45:47,923.9535 --> 00:45:59,823.9535 I think that's, nothing wrong with that as long as we start saying, well, you know, this is an abstraction rather than, um, let me give you an example from, um, you know, that has a real relevance to today. 483 00:46:00,113.9535 --> 00:46:01,473.9535 Obviously, uh, yeah. 484 00:46:01,738.9535 --> 00:46:16,928.9525 Gender norms in TR's time were pretty straightforward, uh, men and women, and obviously now, you know, transgender, uh, identities, and queerness, and, uh, this is all very, a very modern or contemporary thing. 485 00:46:17,248.9535 --> 00:46:23,363.9535 And I think, although TR didn't grapple with, uh, gender as being any more than male or female. 486 00:46:24,213.9535 --> 00:46:27,603.9535 are people that are looking at things like masculinity and femininity. 487 00:46:27,613.9535 --> 00:46:36,623.9535 And there's a, there's a troop of, um, theater actors in Brooklyn that have done this play called Rose of Elvis, which mashes together Theodore Roosevelt and Elvis. 488 00:46:37,313.9535 --> 00:46:41,383.9535 it's an all female cast that plays around with the, it really bends gender. 489 00:46:42,553.9535 --> 00:46:47,793.9535 I mean, this is where the contemporary meets the past on a really hot topic in America right now. 490 00:46:48,803.9535 --> 00:46:53,163.9535 what you come up with is a really bizarre treatment of the past. 491 00:46:54,403.9535 --> 00:46:56,23.9535 Something that is still very compelling. 492 00:46:56,238.9535 --> 00:47:08,708.9535 So that's what I mean about it being abstract, is that, you know, because we, we see everything through our own time, we lead with that, and that means that it's not really true, and as long as you go, well, that's not really true, that's okay. 493 00:47:09,18.9535 --> 00:47:12,388.9535 As soon as you start saying that, actually was a woman. 494 00:47:12,518.9535 --> 00:47:15,338.9535 Well, you might have some, some disagreement there. 495 00:47:15,338.9535 --> 00:47:18,408.9535 But, you know, some of the movies are the same. 496 00:47:18,508.9535 --> 00:47:30,93.9535 You know, The Simpsons, um, there's a great episode called, uh, Smell the Roosevelt, like Smell the Roses, where, uh, Theodore Roosevelt takes Bart along on a ride and sort of schools him on, on life. 497 00:47:30,503.9535 --> 00:47:34,523.9535 And it is, you know, it's kind of nonsense, but it's, it's fun. 498 00:47:34,523.9535 --> 00:47:37,53.9535 And you, you kind of get the lesson for our time in that. 499 00:47:37,73.9535 --> 00:47:51,653.9535 So that, that happened in art a long time ago when art went abstract, right? I mean, when, when Picasso drew a woman, she had a square eye, right? I mean, so we're kind of there now we're getting the essence of these things, but it's through a much different lens. 500 00:47:52,638.9525 --> 00:48:10,878.9535 I guess that reminds me of, of Hamilton, right? Uh, that, that Yeah, with, genders and, and racial, depictions and, and, I don't know if that opened the door for, what did you say the name of it was? Rosa Velvez? I, I had not even heard of that yet. 501 00:48:11,102.9535 --> 00:48:11,942.9535 I hadn't either. 502 00:48:12,578.9535 --> 00:48:13,818.9535 Something to look up. 503 00:48:13,933.9535 --> 00:48:14,403.9535 a look. 504 00:48:14,482.9535 --> 00:48:29,163.953 Yeah, you need to spend some time with it because it's not a, it's not an easy play to get into, but Hamilton's great example because of course, I'm pretty, well, I'm pretty sure Alexander Hamilton didn't know hip hop, right? So I mean, yeah, that's where we are. 505 00:48:29,163.953 --> 00:48:30,293.9535 We see it through our own eyes. 506 00:48:30,762.9535 --> 00:48:31,42.9535 yeah. 507 00:48:31,982.9535 --> 00:48:40,772.9535 And it gets people interested in the historical person and they may take that beyond what they've seen and research more. 508 00:48:42,368.9535 --> 00:48:50,988.9535 I, I think we forgot really to, uh, to talk about when we were getting into those, the early years after Roosevelt's death. 509 00:48:51,18.9535 --> 00:48:56,748.9535 the role of, of family in, uh, shaping t's memory, particularly Edith. 510 00:48:56,808.9535 --> 00:48:57,552.9535 Uh, yeah. 511 00:48:57,708.9535 --> 00:49:07,78.9535 a little bit about her? What was her role in shaping Roosevelt's memory and legacy? Yeah, I mean, Edith is pretty central to this. 512 00:49:07,398.9535 --> 00:49:21,338.8535 She, early on, tries to stop people from publishing letters that they have from Roosevelt, but for fear that they'll be taken out of context and, you know, they might depict Roosevelt in a negative way. 513 00:49:22,328.9535 --> 00:49:25,648.9535 So she's very conscious of that. 514 00:49:25,668.9535 --> 00:49:36,197.8535 And also Herman Hagedorn is not yet, um, quite her confidant in, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, mm hmm. 515 00:49:36,208.9535 --> 00:49:37,408.9535 Island that knew TR. 516 00:49:37,998.9535 --> 00:49:42,338.9535 And Edith kind of shot him down and said she didn't think it was a good idea and told neighbors not to speak to him. 517 00:49:43,68.9535 --> 00:49:58,658.9535 So, she was instrumental, and when it comes to Pringle, she thought that Pringle's biography that, because he was looking at archives and, uh, and correspondence, she, you know, she thought his biography was going to be a strong contender for the best of all the biographies, but she was let down there. 518 00:49:59,78.9525 --> 00:50:04,478.9535 So, she's kind of a gatekeeper, uh, and so is her eldest son, Theodore Roosevelt Jr. 519 00:50:05,443.9535 --> 00:50:09,473.9535 he's very much a gatekeeper as well until his death in 1945. 520 00:50:09,873.9535 --> 00:50:14,983.9535 And he lives on the grounds of Sagamore Hill next door to his mother for a number of years. 521 00:50:15,3.9535 --> 00:50:17,803.9525 So, um, they're not the only ones. 522 00:50:17,873.9535 --> 00:50:21,833.9525 Ethel Roosevelt, Dar BTR's youngest daughter, is very much a gatekeeper as well. 523 00:50:21,833.9525 --> 00:50:24,183.9535 She's, she's, Uh, very much responsible for Dr. 524 00:50:24,183.9535 --> 00:50:28,263.9535 John Gable's appointment as the director of the Theodore Roosevelt Association. 525 00:50:28,753.9535 --> 00:50:37,843.953 And um, and she's also, she stays in Long Island too, so she's, you know, looking over a lot of those properties like Sagamore Hill helping curators go through the archives there. 526 00:50:37,843.953 --> 00:50:42,373.9535 So, The family is, is really, really important in maintaining. 527 00:50:42,403.9535 --> 00:50:44,113.9535 And I think that's still the case too. 528 00:50:44,583.9535 --> 00:50:49,853.9535 I mean, you'll, you'll see today, there's there's family members on the board of directors of Theodore Roosevelt presidential library. 529 00:50:50,213.9535 --> 00:50:56,453.9525 Um, there are a number of family members with, uh, that are, uh, vice presidents in the Theodore Roosevelt association. 530 00:50:57,203.9535 --> 00:51:06,863.9535 You know, this is, it's, if I was a family member and I'm not, but if I am, I would feel a strong connection and, uh, a drive or a an impetus to protect that legacy as well. 531 00:51:06,873.9535 --> 00:51:08,63.9535 I think that's only natural. 532 00:51:08,498.9535 --> 00:51:10,178.9535 Um, it's just, you know, T. 533 00:51:10,178.9535 --> 00:51:10,408.9535 R. 534 00:51:10,408.9535 --> 00:51:24,578.9535 is much more famous than my great, great, great grandparents were, but I, I get the same, I get the same rationale for why you'd want to maintain the legacy in a way that speaks to person that you knew or that's been handed down to you. 535 00:51:24,987.9535 --> 00:51:27,467.9535 I wanted to, uh, to ask you one more question. 536 00:51:27,467.9535 --> 00:51:34,761.9535 That has to do with role with the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library Museum Mm hmm. 537 00:51:34,897.9535 --> 00:51:36,957.9535 construction in Maduro. 538 00:51:37,57.9535 --> 00:51:56,572.953 Um, so could you talk a little bit about, your inputs to that, that library that's under construction and, how you envision people's, experience, what will they take away from Roosevelt with his legacy and his memory when they see that in a couple of years? Sure. 539 00:51:56,582.953 --> 00:52:02,342.953 Well, I think first of all, credit needs to be given to the leaders of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. 540 00:52:02,432.953 --> 00:52:08,161.953 Um, there's two people in particular, uh, Ed O'Keefe, who's the CEO and has Yeah. 541 00:52:08,422.953 --> 00:52:10,142.952 on this project for a number of years. 542 00:52:10,522.953 --> 00:52:25,262.953 And I think his work with the board to develop the values of the library, they fit very closely to what Theodore Roosevelt's best values were, uh, whether it was that idea of daring greatly or thinking boldly or caring, caring deeply. 543 00:52:25,292.952 --> 00:52:29,877.953 Um, Those are all ideas that I think will resonate with people for years to come. 544 00:52:29,877.953 --> 00:52:35,487.953 And everyone that comes into the library is going to be getting that sort of treatment from, from TR. 545 00:52:35,527.953 --> 00:52:42,881.953 I mean, it, the way it's designed is to, to basically put you into Theodore Roosevelt's shoes in a way and Mm hmm. 546 00:52:43,522.953 --> 00:52:50,922.953 Understand Theodore Roosevelt's life and the lessons that we might be able to draw from his life, um, through the experiences of those lives. 547 00:52:51,12.953 --> 00:52:54,132.953 So, I mean, and it's not all, um, it's not all fun and games. 548 00:52:54,252.952 --> 00:52:58,192.953 It's not all, um, you know, adventures and exploration. 549 00:52:58,222.953 --> 00:53:05,392.953 Some of it is, um, traumatic, like loss, you know, as we all know that he lost his mother and his wife on Valentine's day. 550 00:53:05,392.953 --> 00:53:09,102.953 And that is a, that's a trauma that would haunt him from, for years to come. 551 00:53:09,362.953 --> 00:53:10,441.953 I mean, even the Yeah. 552 00:53:10,691.952 --> 00:53:13,467.853 Mm and, um, and his youth and his. 553 00:53:13,797.953 --> 00:53:14,547.953 sickly health. 554 00:53:14,897.953 --> 00:53:31,247.953 Um, you know, that's, that's something that should stay with you, you know, and one of the big themes I think is perseverance, taking, you know, that idea of going above and beyond what you think is possible, that thinking boldly idea. 555 00:53:31,587.953 --> 00:53:34,577.952 Um, that's something that follows Theodore Roosevelt around in his life. 556 00:53:34,587.953 --> 00:53:42,357.953 And that, those are things that we, we can take from, from his, his life and say, You know, that makes me more resilient. 557 00:53:42,367.953 --> 00:53:43,867.953 That makes me more effective. 558 00:53:43,897.953 --> 00:53:44,381.953 That hmm. 559 00:53:44,797.953 --> 00:53:45,887.953 exciting and creative. 560 00:53:46,367.953 --> 00:53:50,817.953 Um, so I, my hope is, is that when people go in there, that that's, that's what they're going to take away. 561 00:53:50,877.953 --> 00:53:56,167.953 And I can tell you actually that the way it's been designed so far, that's exactly what they're aiming to do. 562 00:53:56,477.953 --> 00:54:01,187.953 Every part of the museum is, um, is, is loaded with that sort of. 563 00:54:01,397.953 --> 00:54:04,927.953 Value and character and Ed is very much responsible for this. 564 00:54:04,927.953 --> 00:54:13,817.953 He's been shepherding the project along for the last, I don't know, is it as many as five years now? But, um, it's, it's, it's being built right now. 565 00:54:13,817.953 --> 00:54:15,327.953 I mean, it's not an idea anymore. 566 00:54:15,551.953 --> 00:54:15,851.953 No. 567 00:54:16,347.953 --> 00:54:19,127.953 And that alone is, is a very exciting thing. 568 00:54:19,497.952 --> 00:54:26,67.953 The interior isn't, you know, isn't yet finished, but the exterior is going up and it's really, it's a beautiful building. 569 00:54:26,77.953 --> 00:54:28,857.953 It's the design is by an architecture firm called Snohetta. 570 00:54:29,322.953 --> 00:54:32,272.953 And, uh, they've, they've thought about sustainability. 571 00:54:32,472.953 --> 00:54:36,631.953 They've thought about ecology, how this building fits with the environment, Yes. 572 00:54:36,642.953 --> 00:54:42,872.953 the visual aspects of it, but, you know, indigenous species that, you know, we're, we're around in TR's time. 573 00:54:42,872.953 --> 00:54:48,401.953 And so, I mean, it's really an incredibly detail oriented project Yeah. 574 00:54:48,782.952 --> 00:54:52,881.953 I just cannot wait until 2026 when the doors open and we get to Oh, yeah. 575 00:54:53,282.953 --> 00:54:55,202.853 we get to learn from TR. 576 00:54:55,281.953 --> 00:54:58,401.953 I also have to give a shout out as well to the Theodore Roosevelt association. 577 00:54:58,501.953 --> 00:55:02,301.953 I mean, they're doing some really exciting things too, with experiential tours. 578 00:55:02,311.952 --> 00:55:04,941.953 They have an annual yeah, year that gets better and better. 579 00:55:05,261.952 --> 00:55:20,851.953 Um, you know, the, the partners, the, the, the institutions that are a part of TR and TR memorialization, they are really dynamic groups that are doing things to not just, not just kind of keep TR's legacy alive, but to. 580 00:55:21,566.953 --> 00:55:22,376.953 you in his shoes. 581 00:55:22,396.953 --> 00:55:40,846.953 Like yeah, for example, uh, the Theodore Roosevelt Association is a tour with me and others in the Adirondacks where yeah, first listened to birds and not first, but you know, first yeah, And, uh, you know, and really fell in love with nature and understood how nature interacted with humans. 582 00:55:40,846.953 --> 00:55:49,515.953 I mean, this, these are, these are great experiences and I think they're important for us to kind of go and walk in his footsteps sometimes to see, see the yeah. 583 00:55:49,700.953 --> 00:55:51,390.953 Very much. 584 00:55:52,427.0155 --> 00:55:57,977.0155 You write a wonderful summary at the end of the book on page 218. 585 00:55:58,57.0155 --> 00:56:01,587.0155 And It says, Roosevelt's ghost appears in all quarters of American life. 586 00:56:02,227.0155 --> 00:56:07,657.0155 This book only presents the most important sightings as examples of the interpretations of public memory. 587 00:56:08,357.0155 --> 00:56:15,947.0155 The mythical Roosevelt, as John Allen Gable put it, surpassed the real Roosevelt almost instantly after he died in 1919. 588 00:56:16,717.0155 --> 00:56:23,77.0155 That myth or ghost has evolved continuously, a derivative of the personal ambitions of those who conjured T. 589 00:56:23,77.0155 --> 00:56:23,317.0155 R. 590 00:56:24,117.0155 --> 00:56:32,477.0155 By considering Roosevelt for their various perspectives, we can clearly see how memorializers created legacy themes and consequently transformed T. 591 00:56:32,477.0155 --> 00:56:32,617.0155 R. 592 00:56:32,627.0155 --> 00:56:34,567.0155 's popular image again and again. 593 00:56:35,397.0155 --> 00:56:38,257.0155 The only apparent constant is Roosevelt's popularity. 594 00:56:38,767.0155 --> 00:56:41,277.0155 He remains as germane today as a century ago. 595 00:56:41,777.0145 --> 00:56:52,937.0155 Our impressions of him may change, but until the time when his memory is entirely insignificant, a scenario that seems utterly unlikely, Roosevelt's ghost will continue to inspire debate and interest. 596 00:56:53,487.0155 --> 00:56:54,477.0145 Like the Cheshire Cat. 597 00:56:54,967.0155 --> 00:57:00,47.0155 The image of Roosevelt's toothy smile flourishes in our imaginations. 598 00:57:00,517.0155 --> 00:57:03,817.0155 And even when they fade, the image leaves a lasting impression. 599 00:57:03,827.0155 --> 00:57:07,887.015 I think that is just a, a wonderful description of T. 600 00:57:07,887.015 --> 00:57:08,237.0145 R. 601 00:57:08,807.0155 --> 00:57:11,947.0155 It's like, he occupies a place in your heart and soul. 602 00:57:12,357.0155 --> 00:57:12,797.0155 So. 603 00:57:13,457.0155 --> 00:57:14,537.0155 Thank you for writing that. 604 00:57:15,133.0155 --> 00:57:15,753.0155 Well, thank you. 605 00:57:15,753.0155 --> 00:57:17,803.0155 That's quite, uh, it's quite touching. 606 00:57:17,853.0155 --> 00:57:31,83.0155 And I mean, uh, as an author, I think you hope that what you're writing resonates with people and it's, uh, absolute pure, pure delight that, uh, it's, it's percolated with you guys and you've, you've thought about it and you've read the book so thoroughly. 607 00:57:31,123.0155 --> 00:57:33,173.0155 So thank you both so very much. 608 00:57:34,147.0155 --> 00:57:34,777.0155 Thank you. 609 00:57:35,533.0155 --> 00:57:46,713.0165 Well, I think that's probably going to, wrap up our discussion here of,, Theodore Roosevelt's Ghost, the History and Memory of an American Icon by Michael Patrick Cullinane. 610 00:57:46,863.0165 --> 00:57:54,542.954 Uh, Michael, how can folks learn more about your work? You can find me on michaelpatrickculinane. 611 00:57:54,582.954 --> 00:58:10,636.954 com and you can also check out my podcast it's called the gilded age and progressive era it's on all major platforms and of course if you want to buy a copy of theodore roosevelt's ghost it's as they say it's with all good booksellers and you know who they are good. 612 00:58:11,553.0165 --> 00:58:14,456.954 Well, thank for being on the, Talk About Teddy podcast.