America's Greatest 20th Century Presidents by Charles River Charles River Editors Read Free Book Online Page A

1600's the Roosevelts were participating in New Amsterdam politics: one of Franklin’s earliest American ancestors, Nicholas Roosevelt, was an alderman in New Amsterdam. 
     
    By the 1700's, the Roosevelt family had divided into two separate branches – the Hyde Park and Oyster Bay branches.  Franklin was a member of the Hyde Park branch, while his fifth cousin Theodore was a member of the Oyster Bay branch.  Franklin's branch produced prominent citizens dating back to before the Revolution, including Isaac Roosevelt, a delegate to the New York State Constitutional Convention, and James Henry Roosevelt, founder of New York's Roosevelt Hospital.
     

     
    Isaac Roosevelt
     
    Marriage
     
    Oddly, Franklin Roosevelt married another Roosevelt.. from the Oyster Bay branch of the family.  His wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, was Franklin's fifth cousin once removed, and was Theodore Roosevelt's niece. It wasn’t too difficult for Eleanor to get used to her last name after marrying Franklin; Roosevelt was her maiden name.  

     
    Eleanor’s White House portrait
     
    Naturally, Franklin and Eleanor met at a Roosevelt-related gathering in 1902, a White House reception for then President Theodore Roosevelt.  Also a Roosevelt, Eleanor was born into immense wealth like her husband, and her feminist future was apparent from the beginning. In her teens she considered herself ugly and she lacked self-confidence, but she eventually overcame these discomforts and began to consider female aesthetic standards unjust.  She attended school in London, and, like her husband, was fluent in French.
     
    When Franklin and Eleanor met, they were two very different characters.  Franklin was garrulous and outgoing, while Eleanor was shy and reserved.  Regardless, the two quickly hit it off.  Though the two had travelled extensively to Europe – a rarity in the early 1900's – their wealth had also left them sheltered.  Eleanor, however, was certainly the less narrow of the two, and during the courtship she took Franklin on a tour of New York's poor tenements, an eye-opening experience for the future President.  Social justice was first on her mind, and economics was first on Roosevelt's.  It was a match made in heaven.
     

     
    The Roosevelts in 1904
     
    The two were married in March of 1905, with sitting President Roosevelt in attendance.  Because both of Eleanor's parents had already died, President Roosevelt had the honor of passing Eleanor off to Franklin at the wedding.  For their honey moon, the Roosevelts took a three-month tour of Europe.  Upon returning to America, they settled in New York City.  Within five years, the couple had four children, with two more to come by 1916.  Of the six, five would survive into adulthood – all but Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr, who died shortly after birth in 1909.
     

Chapter 2: State Politics, The Navy, and Polio, 1910 – 1921
     
    New York State Senate
     
    In 1910, FDR was elected to the New York State Senate, representing his home town of Hyde Park.  The district had not elected a Democrat since 1884, but Roosevelt's family prestige and the Democratic favorability that year helped bring him to Albany.
     
    Roosevelt's time in the State Senate often surprises those who know him only for his Presidency.  Though his later Presidential run attracted the Catholic “white ethnic” vote, his time in the State Senate was actually focused on countering the influence of “white ethnic” leaders.  For example, much of his efforts were devoted to breaking the influence of Irish Tammany Hall bosses and union leaders, who had held the Democratic Party in a stranglehold for over half a century.  One of FDR's most successful moments came when he rallied the Democrats to defeat the Tammany candidate for one of New York’s U.S. Senate seats.
     
    FDR's reelection in 1912 further aligned him with this anti-Tammany, subtly anti-Irish faction of the Democratic Party.  In that year, FDR was an