CSPAN/FIRST LADIES EDITH WILSON JUNE 16, 2014 10:00 a.m. ET

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) EDITH ROOSEVELT: Dear Citizens. I'm a New Yorker. Here, I passed my childhood and my youth. Here, my forbearers were born and reared their children. (END VIDEO CLIP) SUSAN SWAIN: That's Edith Roosevelt, speaking in New York City 20 years after she left the White House. She was matriarch to a rambunctious family, and her husband, Theodore Roosevelt, was as outgoing as she was private. As first lady, she was a groundbreaking manager of the White House, overseeing a major renovation that added the West Wing, separating the family corridors from the president's offices for the first time. Good evening, and welcome to CSPAN's series, "First Ladies: Influence and Image." Edith Roosevelt will usher in season two of this series and the 20th century. We have two historians who know the Roosevelts well at our table tonight to help tell our story. Meet Kathleen Dalton. She is the author of "Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life" and Stacy Cordery is the author of a biography of Alice Roosevelt. Welcome to both of you. STACY CORDERY: Thank you. SWAIN: Well, the 1900 election reelects President McKinley and brings in the Roosevelt family as vice president. This doesn't last very long, because an assassin has other things in mind for President McKinley. Tell the story of transition, please, that brings the Roosevelts in that very momentous time into the White House. KATHLEEN DALTON: Well, it's dramatic because Theodore Roosevelt, of course, is climbing a mountain in the Adirondacks when he hears the news that McKinley was shot. He rushes down the mountain, and comes to Buffalo. At first, it looks like McKinley is going to survive, but then blood poisoning sets in, and T.R. comes to Washington and takes over a mourning nation. And it's a national tragedy. It's really hard to come to the presidency because of an assassination. But he reassures America, and he turns out to be a very successful president. SWAIN: Well, just a quick snapshot of how much experience he brings to the job. He was just 42 years old.

CORDERY: He was very young. But he had a lot of experience behind him in -- in government. He was -- he learned -- let's see, he had been with, and we can count them off together. DALTON: OK. State -- New York state assemblyman, assistant secretary of the Navy, Civil Service commissioner, New York State Police Commissioner, governor of New York. SWAIN: So, the politics defined his life? DALTON: Politics defined his life, but he wrote 30 books. He was a serious naturalist. He did a lot of things. He, you know, read widely, traveled a lot, had a very expansive and interesting life. SWAIN: And you... DALTON: It was his spirit that triumphed, I think, and made the country look forward instead of behind. Roosevelt famously said, "It's a terrible thing to come into the presidency this way, but it would be a far worse thing to be morbid about it." SWAIN: Well, we're going to learn about the woman who helped him throughout this administration during our next 90 minutes. But, so we were talking before the program started that the United States at the dawn of the 20th century was really still a horse-and-buggy nation. We have a few just facts about America at the time period and during the years of the Roosevelt administration to give you a glimpse of what the country was like. In 1900, the population of this country was about 76 million, but 38 percent of people still worked in the agricultural industry, were farmers. By 1902 we had ended the Philippine-American War. 1903 was the first time that the Wright brothers fly or flew the petrol engine aircraft. 1904, the United States began work on the Panama Canal. And by 1908, that's the first year of the Model T, so that ends the horse-and-buggy age, beginning production. So, what can we learn about this country that the Roosevelts came to -- to administer? CORDERY: Well, it was a country marked by what historians call progressivism. And they were a group of reformers across the nation who were intent upon curing all the errors of the past century. Urbanization, immigration, industrialization brought many wonderful things to this nation, but there were also troubles. And so, these reformers decided they were going to, all at once, abolish child labor and bring women the vote and take care of the injustices suffered by African-Americans, and the list went on and on and on. So there was tremendous optimism as Roosevelt stepped into the White House in this first year of the new century. SWAIN: Now, we've heard about Theodore Roosevelt's readiness for the White House. But what about Edith Roosevelt?

DALTON: Well, she had managed the governor's mansion in Albany successfully. And they had had to move from Sagamore Hill, their home on Long Island, back and forth. She would be there in the summer when he was Civil Service commissioner in Washington. So she was used to packing up the six children and the servants and their household and moving back and forth. So she's also somebody who knew how to manage things. She was just -- she -- he was not good with money. He overdrew his checking account all the time. And she would try to organize him and the children. So, fortunately, she was a good manager, because that's what a first lady needs to do. SWAIN: One of the things that's been delightful about this series -- well, there are a couple things. We're learning a lot, but we also learn what you're interested in, the audience at home. So we'd like very much to have you be involved. In a few minutes, we'll be taking telephone calls with your questions by phone from around the country. Let me give you the phone numbers: 202-585-3880, if you live in the eastern half of the United States, 202-585-3881, if you live in the Mountain or Pacific time zones. Also, we have a conversation already going on Facebook, and you can join it by logging on to Facebook on CSPAN's page, and add your questions to the mix of what we're going to be asking tonight about Edith Roosevelt and her husband and family. And then, finally, we're taking tweets. And we have a hashtag for this series that we didn't have for the first session. It's @firstladies. So send us your questions and your comments on Twitter as well, and we'll mix all of that up over the next 90 minutes. And one of the other things that's great is we have had a videographer at -- at the sites of the first ladies along the way and recording the places where they lived. Tonight, we're going to introduce you to two of those associated with the Roosevelts. One is Sagamore Hill. What is Sagamore Hill? DALTON: Well, it's a home he built in the 1800s, and it's a big, ranging, Queen Anne style house. And it's where all the fifth graders from the Long Island public schools go, and have -- and they get to look at the animal heads on the wall. And the park service does a fantastic job at Sagamore Hill. It's a great place to visit. SWAIN: Well, one thing you should know if you're planning a visit, it is under complete renovation for the next couple of years. So we're going to be showing -- you can see the picture now of how extensive that is. We'll be showing you some of the artifacts inside, but not as much of a tour as we would like, but you'll learn lots, nonetheless. And, in fact, we're going to start there, with a video about Edith Roosevelt and her children. And you will be hearing from the voice of Amy Verone, who is the curator of the collection at Sagamore Hill. Let's listen in. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) AMY VERONE, CURATOR - SAGAMORE HILL NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE: This is a cartoon by Thomas Nast, a well-known newspaper man and cartoonist in New York City. It shows

Santa Claus arriving at the White House to discover that suddenly there are children in the White House, the Roosevelts have moved in. And the title of the piece is, "There's life in the old house yet." It was a gift to the Roosevelts. It is representative of how the country reacted to having the Roosevelts in the White House. The country was excited to have a young family, to have children to watch through the press, to know that they had a young and vigorous president with a very vigorous and attractive wife. And Santa Claus, frankly, is reflecting the country's attitude of sort of excitement over the liveliness that was in the White House now. The biggest responsibility that Edith had in the White House was to control the press's access to the family. And so, what she did was she arranged to have pictures, professional portraits, taken of the children. The first two batches were by Francis Johnson, who was a well-known society photographer in Washington. There's a picture of Quentin on Algonquin, the pony, who was famous for having ridden the elevator and gone up to the second floor to visit Archie when he was sick. There's Archie on a bicycle. There's Kermit with Jack, actually, the wonder dog. And there's a picture of Alice standing in front of a tree. Most of the pictures were taken outside. As I said, several varieties were taken of them. The Ladies Home Journal article is interesting, because you take these photographs and it shows you how they were used by the press. And here we have a picture of Quentin in a tree, Alice in front of her tree. A picture of Ethel. One of my favorites, the little boys posing with the White House guards. And it's just this is how President Roosevelt's children, you know, were presented to the public. And usually they were used in magazine articles or the back cover of magazines, that sort of thing. (END VIDEO CLIP) SWAIN: Well, Stacy Cordery, that's the theme for this young family, 42-year-old president, 40-yearold first lady, coming into the White House. How does the public react? And what was the role of the press in -- in promoting what was happening in the White House? CORDERY: The public was delighted, to use Theodore Roosevelt's word. It had been a long time since there had been children in the White House. And so, children change endlessly, and they become a fascinating part of our -- our watching what's going on in Washington. So the children's antics were in the newspapers. And there was very little attempt to stop that, I think, after -- particularly after T.R. learned that this was pretty good press for him. So the children and their antics. Some of those you saw. Their pets. They were -- they were very important parts of Roosevelt's public persona as president. SWAIN: And how did that contrast specifically with the McKinleys in the White House and their family life? DALTON: Well, Mrs. McKinley was an invalid. And President McKinley was quite reserved, and wouldn't go out and campaign actively. And... SWAIN: Well, this is 180 degrees.

DALTON: So very completely different. And so, it's a little bit more like the Lincolns, with a little concerning them. But then, the media was different during the Civil War in the sense that they didn't report so much about the children. But then, you know, there were all these yellow journals, that -newspapers like Pulitzer and Hearst, who would put pictures of the children in their newspapers. And then, all of these magazines, like McClure's, that people would buy. So there's so much more active media. And so, they could publicize what was going on in the White House very much more actively. CORDERY: That's a really important point. And then, of course, they were all photogenic. And they did great stuff. I mean, they would steal the cookie trays from the kitchen and slide down the staircase on them. The children would pop out from behind potted palms and scare the guests. They would roller-skate and walk on their stilts. And... DALTON: Throw ice at the policeman. CORDERY: Throw ice at the policeman. So the White House staff had their hands full, but it was all terrific press for Theodore Roosevelt. SWAIN: Now, we were talking about the fact this is the dawn of the new century. But, in fact, the Roosevelts were brought up in the previous century. They are Victorian in their attitudes, their mores, their culture. What kind of parents were they? DALTON: Well, they were different kinds of parents. Edith could be fairly strict, a descendant of Jonathan Edwards, a Puritan. And so, she thought children should behave, and she was fairly strict. She would turn to Theodore and ask him to do the spanking, but he did it reluctantly. He was an indulgent parent who liked to play bear and hide-and-seek and have pillow fights with the kids. So he -- the kids looked at him as sort of a large playmate. So she really had to be the main parent. SWAIN: And Regina Crumkey on Twitter wants to know, did Edith have reservations about her husband being president and I'll add, about her family, especially after McKinley's assassination? CORDERY: Oh, absolutely, yes. And she beefed up security on the quiet whenever she could. So those are her greatest fears. And she wrote about these in letters to her sister. She wrote about these -this fear of Roosevelt's assassination in letters to friends as well. That was really scary for her. DALTON: But he felt carrying a gun was enough for him... CORDERY: He was very tough. DALTON: ...difficult to watch, but... SWAIN: Now, how many children were there? DALTON: Six. SWAIN: And the first child was not a product of Edith's marriage.

DALTON: You should take the Alice question. SWAIN: Explain who Alice was, very briefly, and how she related to the rest of the family. CORDERY: Alice Roosevelt was the daughter of Theodore Roosevelt and his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee. And when Alice Hathaway Lee died in childbirth, more or less, then Theodore Roosevelt handed his infant daughter, also named Alice, off to his sister, Bamie or Anna Roosevelt. And so, she was raised until Edith entered the picture and Theodore married Edith by the -- by Theodore's sister. DALTON: All right. So Alice was really Bamie's daughter for the first three years, so that created problems. CORDERY: Yes. SWAIN: Now as we learn about her, how much of a historical record exists about Edith Roosevelt? How much do -- are we able to learn from her own words, for example, about her life and her attitude? DALTON: Well, she did contribute to a travel book after T.R. died, and she did do a family history. But she never wrote memoirs and she did burn most of his letters, not all of them. But she wanted to be very private. So her -- some of her letters, especially her letters to her sister survived. But she tried to erase a lot of the record, because she didn't want people snooping into her private life, even in death. CORDERY: and that's part of the Victorian point that you brought up earlier. DALTON: Yeah, right. Right. CORDERY: This was very much a part and parcel of being a woman of the 19th century. SWAIN: We do have one letter where she described her children and her views of them. And here's a bit of what she had to say about her family in a letter to a friend. She said about Alice: "Alice is exceedingly pretty and has a remarkably steady head. Though, in some ways, is very child-like. Ted is a good boy and stands well at school. Kermit is odd and independent, as always. And Ethel is just a handful. She is a replica of Mrs. Cowles. Archie, we call the beautiful idiot. Quentin is the cleverest of the six. So some of those terms are probably terms of endearment, but sounds a little bit harsh to our ears today. But what can we tell about her view of her children from this? CORDERY: It was probably spot-on at point in time I would think. Alice was very beautiful, but she was also -- and had a pretty steady head. She's going to go into a woman who's got a wonderful political acumen, for example. Archie had a tough time. He had some health problems when he was a young lad and Kermit could be... DALTON: Kermit was the -- Kermit was the poetic one. CORDERY: Yes. DALTON: And both of his parents confided in him. He was probably closer to T.R. than any of his other children. CORDERY: Yes.

DALTON: But -- and Ethel -- I met Ethel when she was an older person. She was a very gracious, wonderful lady and I just really liked her. CORDERY: Everyone loved Ethel. DALTON: Yeah. CORDERY: Ethel was that sturdy rock upon, you know, whom you can build the rest of the family. And Ted, poor Ted, bore the brunt of all of his father's expectations. And it... DALTON: About manliness and toughness and... CORDERY: And manliness and what to do with your life and all of that, yeah. SWAIN: Well, I'm going to put you on the spot here, (Betty Gutierrez) wants to know, were the Roosevelts with their six children, the largest family ever at the White House? CORDERY: Well, I think so, but I'm not... SWAIN: John Tyler had about 15. I don't know if they were all there at the White House at the time. DALTON: Oh, really. OK. So you know this. SWAIN: Yeah. DALTON: I don't -- you know, I'm mostly a 20th century historian. SWAIN: It's hard to be among the largest family ever. DALTON: Yeah, yeah, yes. SWAIN: There were not too many. DALTON: But that was more typical in those days. Larger families were more common. SWAIN: Ken is watching us in Fremont, California. And you are on the air. Ken what's your question about Edith Roosevelt? KEN (ph): Yes. I have a question, and it's probably something you're going to be addressing later on in the program. But what was Edith Roosevelt relationship with President Roosevelt's successor William Howard Taft? SWAIN: Thank you. We will be talking about that Tafts later on in the history. But, very briefly, what did they think and how did they know the Tafts? DALTON: Well, they had known them in -- when they were working at the Civil Service Commission, when T.R. -- so they were social friends. I don't think Edith Roosevelt cared for Mrs. Taft very much. But they were friendly during T.R.'s presidency. And it's really not until 1910, after Taft kind of shows his hand as president and kind of undoes some of the things that T.R. did that hostilities break out. SWAIN: Next is a call from Alexander who is in Chandler, Indiana. Hi, Alexander. ALEXANDER (ph): Hi. I have a question about Theodore Roosevelt.

SWAIN: I'm happy to hear it. Can you tell us how old you are? ALEXANDER (ph): I'm 12 years old. SWAIN: And have you studied Theodore Roosevelt in school already? ALEXANDER (ph): No, but I have wrote a paragraph about him. He is my favorite president. SWAIN: And why is he your favorite? ALEXANDER (ph): Because I think he did a lot for this country. SWAIN: OK. Can you name one thing that you like that he did for the country? ALEXANDER (ph): He fought in the Spanish-American war. SWAIN: And what question do you have for our two historians about him? ALEXANDER (ph): Did he believe in God and Jesus? SWAIN: OK, thank you. CORDERY: Yes. Yes, he did. DALTON: He was a devout Christian. CORDERY: Yes. SWAIN: And in fact, getting -- incorporating religion into Edith's life, can you talk a little bit about her religion and how it informed her approach to her life? DALTON: Well, she argued for applied Christianity. And that is she would urge her husband to think about how his policies affected the poor. She was really like a -- what we call a social gospel Christian, taking care of the poor, being concerned about the needy. She was an Episcopalian and at that time, the Episcopal Church was very devoted to social gospel concern for poor people. SWAIN: Sue is watching us from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Hi, Sue, you're on. SUE (ph): Hi. Thank you. I understand that one side of the family wanted to be called Roosevelt and the other Roosevelt, is this true? And if so, which would be which? DALTON: Well, that comes from Sunrise at Campobello. The old movie with Greer Garson. So no, they're all Roosevelt, as in Roosevelt. SWAIN: And the lineage of the family, what's their history? DALTON: They share--the Hyde Park Roosevelts and the Oyster Bay Roosevelts--share a colonial ancestor. And then it's Claes Martenszen Van Rosenvelt, a Dutch settler in New York. And then, two, three generations down, the family splits. And so, Theodore Roosevelt was fifth cousins of Franklin Roosevelt. But the complicated thing is that Theodore Roosevelt had a wonderful niece he loved dearly, Eleanor Roosevelt, who was his alcoholic brother's daughter and then Franklin married Theodore's niece. And so, Franklin would call Theodore, cousin Theodore, but then he called him Uncle Theodore.

SWAIN: I'm feeling the need for a family tree. DALTON: Yes. Well, I think it's a good idea. But yes, they're distant cousins... SWAIN: Well... DALTON: ... Franklin and Theodore. SWAIN: Well, setting the stage this large and bustling family, the Roosevelts moved into the White House and very quickly, Edith determined that it just wasn't going to work for them. What we have to show you is a sketch that she drew, just one week after moving into the White House in September of 1901, a plan for the second floor that shows, in her mind, how very crowded it was to have the family and the workspace there. So, what did she do? CORDERY: Well, she picked up on some plans that had been underway Caroline Harrison's time in the White House, and pretty quickly got together with a very influential firm called McKim, Mead, and White. And this is -- there's a big back story here. But to cut to the chase, Edith Roosevelt worked very closely with Mr. McKim, and decided that she was tired of, as she put it, living over the store. So she wanted to separate the living areas from the public areas. And so, the upstairs was renovated. The downstairs was renovated. And most people really liked it. The upstairs had, what, seven bedrooms and seven bathrooms, so that was pretty good. Alice had -the teenager daughter, she had her own bedroom. Ethel had her own bedroom. Mrs. Roosevelt put her own study up there, so the president had a study and office on the second floor, but so did the first lady with a door that adjoined. So -- and that was very important to her to be able to sort of knock on the door and, say it's time for bed, you're working too late, that sort of thing. SWAIN: This change was really -- really created the White House, as we know it today. If you look at photographs of the White House, as it existed before they began this renovation, there were large greenhouses around it. And of course, the West Wing didn't exist. So she changed the whole feeling of the White House by adding the West Wing to it. How cooperative was Congress in this endeavor? DALTON: Congress voted money for this. And they wanted a better house. It was the moment when the United States became a world power. T.R. was modernizing the presidency. The United States had really arrived as the most successful manufacturing power on Earth. And they were in the process, becoming a very serious world power. So I think Congress thought of it as a matter of national pride to have a president's house that would be as distinguished as the equivalent in another country. CORDERY: And it was falling down, right? DALTON: Oh yes, and there were rats in the White House. CORDERY: Right. And they had to shore up in the basement when enough people came to... DALTON: Right.

CORDERY: So it wasn't -- it was important for all kinds of reasons. But it was a marvelous reflection of these changes that Kathleen has just discussed, right, as the country takes on a new aspect, so does the executive mansion, which is now renamed the White House, because Theodore Roosevelt said, "there are executive mansions in every state There's only one White House." SWAIN: How long did the renovation take? DALTON: Well, it was most of one year, wasn't it? Most -- it was in 1902. SWAIN: And where did the family stay during the renovation? Did they go back to Sagamore Hill or? DALTON: Well, Edith took the children back to Sagamore Hill over the summer. The renovation started before she left. They were staying in Jackson Place just -- at Lafayette Square. So -- and T.R. is hit by a trolley in the middle of this when he's settling the Anthracite coal strike, so they have some difficult moments where he's negotiating with labor and management in a wheelchair because he was hit by this trolley accident. SWAIN: How involved was Edith Roosevelt in the actual renovations? How much of a manager was she and how much of vision did she have the ultimate design of what came out? CORDERY: Edith was very interested in the past, and McKim was very interested in the present. So McKim had no feeling for the -- sort of the Victorian furbelows that Edith really enjoyed. And so, Edith, for example, saved the Lincoln bed -- Lincoln's bed set. She made sure that that came in. She was very interested in history and making sure that it reflected, you know, the long, important past of the United States. But she also had her eye on the bottom line. So Edith, who was so good at managing, as you mentioned, also read the accounts and when the money got tight, Edith was very creative. She was a very good steward of the nation's money, because she took the carpets that were on the first floor and said, "we're running out of funds.” So she had them recut to go in the corridors in some of the rooms upstairs. She took curtains from the first floor and had upstairs furniture re-upholstered in that curtain material to save money. SWAIN: The Congress appropriated $475,000 in 1900, inflationary times for that project, completed in time for the social season in 1902. Marvin is on the line with us -- Los Angeles. Hi, Marvin. MARVIN (ph): Hello. It's great to see you back. I have a question about the relationship between Edith Roosevelt and the Franklin Roosevelts. I know in 1924 Al Smith ran for governor of New York and Theodore Roosevelt Jr. was the Republican candidate. And Eleanor Roosevelt supported Al Smith. And one other thing, the first time I went to Washington was 1955, hoping to see a celebrity. I walked over to Lafayette Square and saw a crowd and a lady, a slim lady with a broad-brim hat was rededicating a statue that her father had dedicated 50 years ago. And it was Alice Roosevelt. She seemed to enjoy being the center of attention, and this was 1955, after leaving the White House in 1909. CORDERY: She did love to be the center or attention.

DALTON: She did. But the Hyde Park Roosevelts and the Oyster Bay Roosevelts were basically very close. And Franklin Roosevelt loved to come and visit Theodore Roosevelt and they were friendly. And Eleanor, of course, was Edith and Theodore's niece and they -- T.R. used to read her poetry. They were quite friendly with her. And when Eleanor and Franklin married in 1905, Theodore Roosevelt gave her away and acted the part of her father. And Edith signed her -- their marriage license. CORDERY: Edith offered to let them be married in the White House. DALTON: Yes, so they -- I'd say that T.R. and Edith were devoted to Eleanor and loved Franklin in the beginning. It's just by the 1920s, Ted Roosevelt, T.R.'s oldest son, has political ambition and was - some people accused him of being involved with the Teapot Dome scandal, which it turns out is really not fair. But Eleanor drove a car with a teapot on the top of it to embarrass her cousin. So that created bitter feelings for a while, but it -- Edith remained somewhat friendly towards Eleanor. SWAIN: Joe Wiegand wants to follow up your comments about the destroying of their letters by asking, "what do the historians say about this missing record? Do we miss the intimate T.R. and Edith because of this?" CORDERY: That's a great question. Well, you wrote the biography, what would you think? DALTON: Well, I think that I found some of their correspondence in their children's papers, so I think we know a lot about -- I mean, of course, you'd want to know more, but I think they -- we have a pretty good record of what their relationship was like. And he -- Theodore Roosevelt adored Edith Roosevelt and she was devoted to him, not that they didn't have their little difficult moments. You know, he was not an easy husband -- forgot birthdays, could be very inconsiderate. CORDERY: Wasn't there when children were born. DALTON: Right, and would -- was always going off hunting. But I think we know a lot about them. We do, even though she did burn some of the letters. CORDERY: And he truly did love her. So he wrote about her to friends of his and, you know, highly complimentary things. SWAIN: We're going to return to Sagamore Hill and look at their collection of artifacts from the White House years of the Roosevelts. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) VERONE: What we're showing you here are objects from the White House, both some mainly personal objects from Edith, but also this lovely cup which was -- you can see the presidential seal. This is a cup and saucer from the White House service that Edith ordered in the White House after the renovation was completed. And there was very -- the public was very interested in this activity and this is an example of that. It's a newspaper article showing the new White House service. You see the cup here in the top picture. She ordered 1,125 pieces of new china to replace what she called "the scraps," the bits and broken pieces from all the White House china sets that were in the house when she got there.

What we do have here are examples of an invitation to a garden party that she threw. I love the dinner invitations because they're very specific. They tell you when to arrive. They tell you when the dinner will be over. So it's very clear that you're not to overstay your welcome; you're not to party with the president afterwards. You're to come and have your dinner and you're going to go home afterwards. Some of other objects you see here include a gold-plated vanity set, like the silver one that she had as a younger woman. This was very elaborate. It has her initials carved in it. These are crystal beakers that were used for perfume and other scents. You have a comb, you have a brush. You have, you know, jars for rouge and other lotions. And this, you know, was indicative of her status. She was the first lady and she took that job seriously. This is a set of her gloves and this is a glove box that was kept on her dresser, and it does open. You see it's lined with velvet and probably would have held a dozen pair or so of gloves, especially hers because they're so small. She loved fans. She collected fans. She also liked to carry fans at the public receptions. She liked to stand in line next to T.R. He loved to shake hands. And she found that by holding posies or holding fans, she did not have to shake hands with strangers and was delighted by that. This set of china is actually the family's china. They didn't use the formal White House china for their everyday meals. They used this china, which is English. And you can see that it is pretty plain in design, except for T.R.'s initials which are in blue in the middle of the plate. As first lady, she did in fact receive a lot of gifts, both from friends and family, but also from foreign leaders. These lovely little bracelets were silver bracelets sent to her by the emperor of Abyssinia, which is now -- nowadays Ethiopia. This is a box that goes with the silver bracelets. It's what she kept them in and she even wrote notes to herself so she could remember where the different things came from. And it says on there, "silver bracelets sent to Mrs. R. -- T.R., senior, by the emperor of Abyssinia at the White House." We've opened the case here so you can get a close-up look at these Sevres figurines, which were given to her by the French government. They are made of French porcelain. There's a set of 14 and they were used to decorate tables at state dinners at the White House, but it was very clear that they had been a gift to her and she very much liked them and she made sure that she took them with her when she left the White House. (END VIDEO CLIP) SWAIN: A sense of life at the White House under the Roosevelts. Now, you were making a point earlier, both of you, that this was the dawn of America on the international stage, and Roosevelt, as the adventuring and imperial president in some ways. How did they use the social aspects of the White House to advance that view? DALTON: Well, in order for the United States to be taken seriously as a world power, the United States president had to entertain like heads of state elsewhere. So, the White House changing really made a difference. Plus, all of those diplomatic receptions and cabinet dinners and open events, big dinners, I mean, I think it was something like 40,000 people came through the White House in the first year. It's just amazing. It creates goodwill. If you've had dinner with someone, you're more likely to be able to agree with them or work with them afterwards.

And sometimes we underestimate the power of face-to-face interactions. The Roosevelts really did a good job of this, because they knew how to socialize and they were -- they were very energetic entertainers. SWAIN: I want to underscore that number -- 40,000 guests in the White House in the first year alone. DALTON: Yeah. SWAIN: That's a momentous effort. DALTON: It's a lot. It's really a lot, but if you're highly organized -- she had her social secretary. She really knew how to do this. And as T.R. modernized the presidency and changed the Navy and changed the government, and, you know, created the first Far Eastern desk in the State Department, you know, it was really amateur hour in the 19th century in the federal government. In the early -- in the early 20th century, T.R. and Edith were modernizers. SWAIN: This hiring of the social secretary was one of the things that most historians point to as Edith Roosevelt really being a harbinger of the modern first lady. What was the concept of a social secretary? How did she use her? CORDERY: Well, she hired a woman named Isabella Hagner who was very interesting in her own right. By age 16, Isabella was an orphan. She had brothers to take care of, so she went into the workforce. And she worked for the social register and eventually she worked for the War Department. But she also did this task of being a social secretary where you would help an elite woman with her correspondence, with her -- whatever hostess duties she might have had. And this is what Belle did for Anna Roosevelt Cowles, that Mrs. Cowles or the woman -- Theodore's sister, the one who raised Alice. DALTON: Bamie. CORDERY: Bamie -- that's easier. And so she was an old-hand at this, was Belle Hagner. And she came into the Roosevelt White House at the time when the first lady was inundated by all the details of Alice's debut. So Alice was making her social debut and there were letters to write. There were invitations to offer. There were flowers -- all these many things to be taken care of. So that's when Belle stepped in. And then she stayed for -- well, she stayed until the end and was quite a member of the family. At one point, Edith said, "I think of you as my daughter.” And so they had quite a close relationship. You know, Belle -- you've read these letters too, I'm sure, Belle became a kind of a surrogate mother in some ways, particularly when the children couldn't go to Edith for things they needed, like some of the children wanted sweets sent to them when they were off at school. So they wrote to Belle and said, "Could you send us some treats?" And Alice once was not supposed to take a bracelet from a young man, but she did anyway, then she lost it. Well, then she had to ask for Belle's help to recover this piece of jewelry she wasn't supposed to take. So it was a very close relationship among the children and Belle. SWAIN: For Edith and Belle Hagner, is it fair to say that this managing of the social side was very serious business and that Edith was a tough manager, was controlling her guest lists and who would be there and who wouldn't?

DALTON: Yes, she didn't want people who were adulterers or who were unacceptable socially to be a part of their entertainment. And, you know, of course, most people were white and there weren't that many Jews invited to the White House in those days. So keep in mind, this is kind of the WASP ascendancy era of social life. And so exclusive society was Washington elites and people in government, foreign diplomats and people like New York society. So it was an exclusive group. CORDERY: It's important because she begins what -- what is a much longer tradition now of the sort of bureaucratization of the Office of the First Lady. Now, Belle's not the very first social secretary ever to work for a first lady, but she is the one who stays the longest and starts us down this path. Mrs. Taft, you will all learn next week, does not have the same sort of social secretary relationship, and that is to her peril. SWAIN: So that's a point for us in the influence of Edith Roosevelt. She began the bureaucratization of the role of first lady. CORDERY: Exactly. DALTON: The professionalization. SWAIN: Professionalization. CORDERY: That's a better way to put it. DALTON: Right. SWAIN: We're going to back to calls for a bit. Let's talk to (Bud). He's watching us in St. Louis. Hi (Bud), you're on. BUD (ph): Hi. Thanks for coming back again. SWAIN: Glad to be back. BUD (ph): I'm a major Teddyphile and just -- just a sideline. We got a great -- we got a great connection here in St. Louis with T.R., you know, with -- with the World's Fair. And I know with the history museum down in Forest Park, there's a great photograph of him. I think it's at the opening ceremonies. But my question was this, and I guess because he did so much, I have trouble keeping dates straight. I do know that -- I believe that his first wife and his mother died the same day and that more or less forced him to go west, take up the cowboy life. I guess my question is when he came back, when did he marry Edith, especially was it before the Spanish-American War? And how did -- did she help him very much to overcome that -- that sorrow of his first wife and his mother? And thanks for taking my call. SWAIN: Well, I'm going to ask a very brief touching on this story because later on in the program, we'll spend more time on their early relationship and how they came together. So he asked the dates of their marriage. Why don't we just give them some of the facts.

DALTON: OK, OK. February 14, 1884 is when Alice, his first wife dies and then T.R. marries Edith December, 1886 and the Spanish-American War is July, largely July, 1898. So... SWAIN: And you are right. There is a very -- really an unforgettable story of the death of -- of Theodore Roosevelt's first wife. But we're going to keep you hanging on a little bit, if you don't know it already, to tell you later in the program. Ed is watching us in Medora, North Dakota, and -- it's a special... CORDERY: Oh that's a very special place. SWAIN: This is Roosevelt territory in Medora. Hi, Ed. You're on. ED (ph): Hi. Thanks for taking my call. I'm the chairman of the Theodore Roosevelt Medora Foundation and we -- you know, our effort with the foundation is really to sustain the legacy of T.R.'s time as a cattle rancher in the Badlands in Western North Dakota. And you know, I was just curious if your guests would talk to us a little bit about -- you know, earlier, you were mentioning that there was an effort of keeping the socially unacceptable people out of the White House. Tell us a little bit about how the first lady felt when T.R.'s cowboy friends and Rough Riders would come and visit in the White House. DALTON: Well, in fact, I think Edith understood that his time in the Dakotas was really precious to him. T.R. said that he would never have been president if it hadn't been for his time in the Dakotas, well, what's now North Dakota, his ranches. And the Theodore Roosevelt Center there at Dickinson State is a wonderful project. And I think she understood. She had visited the ranches that T.R. had and understood that his time being a rancher meant everything to him. So she put up with some people who she might not have chosen as friends, you know, desperadoes and farmers and cowboys who T.R. loved, so she accepted them. CORDERY: And that's the key piece of it because she went to North Dakota when she was very new in the marriage and quite a young woman and head-over-heels in love with her husband and he was head-over-heels in love with North Dakota. And so she loved, you know -- she wanted to know all about the things that he loved. And so I think those people had a kind of a -- those marvelously colorful characters from North Dakota had a sort of a rosy patina for her. SWAIN: Did they keep the ranch throughout their presidency? CORDERY: No. DALTON: No, he had to sell it. CORDERY: He did.

DALTON: Basically he was a failed cattle rancher. CORDERY: Well, the weather was against him... Come on. DALTON: Yes, they froze. Those were hard days. My grandfather was a wheat farmer not too far from there and it was -- those were hard times, very hard times. SWAIN: It is now a national park, his ranch? DALTON: Yes, there is a national park. I mean, there are oil derricks there and North Dakota is having an oil boom, well, natural gas boom and some of the landscape is being bothered a bit. But yes, been to the ranches and they’re really -- they're great. And there's a very large T.R. contingent... CORDERY: North Dakota... DALTON: ... in North Dakota and they love him there. CORDERY: They do. It's really important to understand Theodore Roosevelt, you have to understand North Dakota. And if you go to North Dakota today, you can see the Badlands, you can see the site of the Elkhorn, you know.. So there's a Theodore Roosevelt National Park and those amazing park service people who run that and there's the Theodore Roosevelt Center where they are digitizing 155,000 letters and all of the... DALTON: Amazing project. CORDERY: ... things that Roosevelt is doing. And then there's the Theodore Roosevelt Medora Foundation that your caller mentioned. So there's a -- there's a joint effort to -- to keep the memory of Theodore Roosevelt alive and to remind us all the importance of North Dakota for Theodore Roosevelt. SWAIN: Joan is in Silver Spring, Maryland, outside Washington. Hi, Joan. What's your question? JOAN (ph): Oh, good evening. I'd like to know how did Edith and Theodore meet and how long was their courtship before they married? SWAIN: OK, we will answer that. We promise we'll answer that. But before I leave the question, the period of time of their White House years, one of the other things we think of with modern first ladies, particularly with Jacqueline Kennedy, was bringing renowned performers into the White House. And this was something that Edith Roosevelt also did during their tenure.

How did she approach introducing Americans to culture and supporting culture and the arts in the White House. CORDERY: Well, she had the musical taste of the pair, would you say? DALTON: Oh, yes. CORDERY: Theodore Roosevelt was -- did not -- at least he wasn't as bad as President Grant who -who once famously said, "I know two songs. One of them is 'Yankee Doodle Dandy and the other one isn't." But she loved classical music did Edith Roosevelt. And so she worked actually with the Steinway Company and in this way brought amazing entertainers to the White House, including Pablo Casals and... DALTON: Paderewski. CORDERY: Yeah. Jan Paderewski, the pianist. So she brought the entire Philadelphia Orchestra at one point in time. So she was very attuned to this. Edith had tastes that weren't quite in line with -- with her husband's family. She loved the Corcoran Art Gallery, for example. So theater and art and music, classical music was very important to Edith. DALTON: Also what they would call then "Negro spirituals.” T.R. brought Indian songs. So I argue that they're cultural nationalists, that they want people to discover America. So he helped encourage John Lomax to discover cowboy songs. So they wanted people to understand that America had culture. It was not a colonial society anymore. It depended upon great European cultures for borrowing artists. And the White House had really arrived culturally. So they're -- they're really important in that sense too. CORDERY: And once the White House was remodeled then there was space to have -- bring these performers on this sort of a stage. SWAIN: Since they had Sagamore Hill, why did they need a retreat called Pine Knot? DALTON: Well, it took a while to get to Sagamore Hill because it's all the way in Long Island whereas Edith could -- especially in 1905 and 1906 where he had a lot of political conflict and a lot of difficulty, Pure Food and Drug Act and all kinds of times that when he's really having a rough time in the presidency and he's gained a lot of weight. So she wants him to have an overnight out in the cabin. I've been to this cabin. It's very primitive. It's -- it's outdoor. There's no plumbing, there's no electricity, there's nothing. And she didn't cook so he had to cook for her on a kerosene stove. And they had to, you know -- they had to do everything for themselves. But they needed a quick escape. SWAIN: So we took a camera there. Let's take a look at it... DALTON: Oh you did? Oh great.

SWAIN: ... then we'll come back and talk some more about it. But remember this. This is a very wealthy family who's grown up in the -- in the height of society. And keep that in mind when you see the house that Edith built called Pine Knot in the rural part in -actually in the wilderness part of Virginia. Let's watch next. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PAULA BEAZLEY, PRESIDENT - EDITH AND THEODORE ROOSEVELT PINE KNOT FOUNDATION: Edith sought a place for rest and repairs for the president close enough to D.C. that he could get out here as often as needed but far enough away that there was wilderness. So she bought the cottage and 15 acres and her renovations that she prescribed for $280. The deed is written in her name. And the renovations that she did include this porch, which she called her "piazza" and specified that it be supported by these untrimmed cedar posts. These are the original -- most of what you see is original. And the color of the house now is the color that it was when the Roosevelts here. The interior is completely unfinished. They are bare because Edith wanted them to be left that way. She wanted it to have a total rustic feel just as the porch and wanted it to be natural in every sense. This room was originally divided into two and Edith opened it out into a lodge-like room. She wanted to have the family be able to be here together. And they cooked their meals by the fireplace. Generally T.R. would do the cooking and Edith would boil the water for the tea. And the children would fetch the wood and do the various things that were needed to get the meals together. When Edith saw the cottage the first time, there were no fireplaces. It -- the cottage was unfinished. And so these fireplaces were done to her specification. She has designed these wonderful little stone ledges that are built into the fireplace to provide some functionality and also some interest. The stairs were originally in the center of the room so they kind of took up the whole thing. And Edith specified -- she moved to the side for really two reasons. One is she wanted the bottom floor to be in an open lodge-like room. The other is that she wanted to create a room upstairs. This is the tiny room Edith created for Ethel. But I think the special feature of this was that it had a door so that Ethel would've been able to shut off her brothers from entering her room. This is where Edith and T.R. slept and so this would be the master bedroom, as it were. But clearly, as you can see, the light streaming through the boards, it is no more better appointed than any of the other rooms. This is the boys' room. So all four of the boys would've slept in this room when they were here. And it too has a wonderful mantle and even better yet, it has the stone supports that Edith would've designed. This was a family. In that sense, it was unique for the Roosevelts because Sagamore Hill had become a place where T.R. had politicians and press and constantly a hubbub of activity. This was the one place where it was private family time and the Roosevelts made it very clear they did not want anyone but family here.

(END VIDEO CLIP) SWAIN: So you'd wanted to make a point or tell us a story about Pine Knot. CORDERY: No, only just to buttress what Kathy had said about the reason Pine Knot was important is because there was no more privacy at the White House and very little at Sagamore Hill by this time. So in order for Edith to get her husband away, she had to go far, far off the grid as we would say today. SWAIN: Well, let's see how far off the grid it is. It's driving distance from Washington today. How long would it take you to get there? DALTON: It's about -- Charlottesville is commutable. It's a little bit more than an hour. I've given a talk there, and there's a big T.R. contingent right around Charlottesville. It's fun. SWAIN: And you -- and one can go visit Pine Knot today if you're interested. DALTON: Yes, I believe you can, yeah. Yeah. SWAIN: So, this looks pretty darn rustic. Today, there would have to be a perimeter and the press would be hanging out at the perimeter and making sure they could capture them coming and going and using telephoto lenses to get them. What was it like? Did the press really leave them alone when they went there? DALTON: I think the press left them alone. Edith lost some sleep when they first went there because she was worried about intruders, and she didn't feel entirely safe. But I think the Secret Service protected them finally. But it was close to a farm that friends of theirs had. So, they would sometimes have food come over -- yeah, from the Wilburs. Yeah. CORDERY: Wasn't it at Pine Knot that John Burroughs came to visit -- found the nest of a flying squirrel... DALTON: Oh, right. CORDERY: ... and then went out at night to take a little walk -- John Burroughs, the great naturalist -- went out to take a little walk and thought he heard something, and discovered it was Secret Service men that Edith had secretly put there to protect... DALTON: Right, right. CORDERY: ... and she didn't tell T.R. about the extra Secret Service. SWAIN: Would he have... CORDERY: It might not have been Burroughs. SWAIN: Would he have chafed at the extra service? DALTON: Oh, yeah. He was impossible about those things. Yes. SWAIN: Really didn't want the protection? DALTON: No, he didn't think he needed it, but...

CORDERY: He carried a pistol. DALTON: He carried a pistol. And he just -- you know, he was cavalier about it where she was worried. She was very worried because, in fact, people would come and -- well, he was eventually shot in the 1912 campaign, and McKinley had been shot. And there were other attempts to get at him. So, she had reason to be nervous. SWAIN: Adrienne Meyers Wilber asks on Facebook, "Was Edith in to hiking, nature, and hunting like Teddy?” Did she do this for him, or did she truly enjoy being outside and -- and living a more rustic life? DALTON: Well, I think she believed in the simple life, you know, of getting away from society and having -- not needing all the modern comforts. I'm not sure that she ever hunted. CORDERY: I don't know of her hunting. She did certainly hike. But I also know that after a certain number of children, I think she decided that these point to point hikes that Theodore Roosevelt was so -- promoted so strongly -- she would take a book and sit on a porch and read, and let them go about it. DALTON: Right. His -- his younger sister would go on those. You know, over, under, around and through. You know, through the -- walking through the swamp or climbing over the -- and he -- he would take his kids and any neighbors on these big hikes. She didn't like that. But she -- she was not - she's not a classic Victorian lady. She was willing to hike. And after he died, she travels around the world. And then she goes on a canoe trip to a distant waterfall. And she does a lot of adventurous things for someone her age. SWAIN: Next is Johnny in Denver, Colorado. Hi, Johnny. You're on. JOHNNY (ph): Hi. Thank you for your wonderful series, and hope it continues. My question is concerning Mount Rushmore, and whether Edith Roosevelt had an opinion about the monument, seeing how she was alive during its conception and construction. DALTON: Hmm. She knew Gutzon Borglum, who was the person who carved it, but I don't ever remember reading anything -- does -- I'm not sure that it's finished -- well, what is it... SWAIN: By the time she died? DALTON: Well, no, it's finished -- I think -- isn't it finished in the '20s or '30s? But I'm not sure she ever sees it. So, I -- I don't remember her opinion. Obviously, there's some people who -- who think that T.R. shouldn't be on there. But Gutzon Borglum was a Bull Mooser. That means he supported T.R. and admired him very much for his 1912 Bull Moose Party third-party run. So, I think the fact that it's a Bull Moose monument -- it's a monument to other great presidents. SWAIN: And while we're talking about how she lived, Barbara Lindquist Schlichting says, "I would like to know if Edith cooked very much.” Right back to the cookies again, I guess. So, do we know about whether or not she prepared food for her family? DALTON: No, she always had servants. And I think she was proud that she had never made a bed in her life, except maybe at Pine Knot. SWAIN: Elaine is in Van Nuys, California.

Hi, Elaine. ELAINE (ph): (inaudible). SWAIN: Elaine? ELAINE (ph): Yes, hello. SWAIN: Hi, you're on the air. Go ahead. ELAINE (ph): Yes, I want to know where she may have stood on the women's movement that was going on. I mean, the vote didn't come for women until 1920. But where did Edith stand on this? I very much would like to know the answer to that. SWAIN: Thank you. DALTON: Well, she said in private that she thought suffrage was a good idea. And, of course, women could vote in Western states first. So that, I believe, in 1904, you could vote in Utah and Colorado and some other Western states. So, I think she was very quiet about it. But when Susan B. Anthony came to the White House, it was Alice who wanted to talk to Susan B. Anthony, so I think Alice is -- was the person who was most sympathetic to suffrage. True? CORDERY: Yes, true. SWAIN: Barbara is in Peoria. Hi, Barbara. BARBARA (ph): Yes. I would like to know whether it is true that Theodore Roosevelt asked Booker T. Washington as a guest to dinner. And if so, is -- was that a first? DALTON: Well, in -- I think it's October 16th, 1902, Theodore Roosevelt does invite Booker T. Washington, who was the leader of Tuskegee Institute, and a very important figure in African American history. Booker T. Washington was somebody who rose up from slavery, and was recognized as a very important educator, but also dealt with political patronage for the Republican Party. So, Edith and T.R. had him to dinner, which was -- you know, Frederick Douglass would come to the White House and talk to Lincoln, but I don't think a dinner was involved. So, it's not the first time an African-American came to be an adviser, but it may be the first dinner. CORDERY: Could be. DALTON: Could be. I -- I think it may be the first -- but people in the South went crazy. People threatened to kill T.R.. They said they should put a bomb under his chair. That he promoted -- he advocated social equality between blacks and whites. So, we just have to remember, in African-American history, after reconstruction, this is the nadir -this is the low point of their segregation -- legal segregation passed by Southern states. And AfricanAmericans in the South were treated very badly. So, it was controversial to cross the color line socially.

SWAIN: Well, this seems like an important time to talk about Edith's attitudes about -- about African-Americans. Lew Gould in his biography of her gives a number of citations of personal correspondence where she would use what we would very much consider derogatory terms about African-Americans. And he writes in his books, "Edith Roosevelt's racial comments fall within the range of general white attitudes towards blacks among the American upper class in these years. Pejorative descriptions of African-Americans were delivered in these circles without much conscious thought of their implications. Nonetheless, the effect of her views on her husband has not been explored in discussions of the president's own racial policies." What kind of influence can we know that she might have had in his thinking and ultimately, his actions as president on this topic? CORDERY: Well, let's think. This is a couple who spent time together every day. They went horseback riding. They went walking. They were together every night over what Betty Ford would later call the "first pillow.” So, they had a very close relationship, a very loving relationship. And I think what Lewis L. Gould is doing in his book -- and Dr. Gould is -- I would call him the founder of modern first lady scholarship -- so, Professor Gould is looking at these letters and the terms that Edith is using to describe African-Americans, and finding them, certainly, as you just read, within the boundaries of what white Americans used, right? But they are more extreme than what we know Theodore Roosevelt used. So, what kind of influence does she have on her husband? This is what we haven't really plumbed yet. DALTON: We don't really know. CORDERY: We don't really know. So, we don't know. And -- and it would be interesting to look at the timing, for example, of the Brownsville incident with some of the things that Edith has written in some of the places she's gone and what she said. SWAIN: What's the Brownsville incident? DALTON: African-American soldiers were falsely accused of shooting up the town of Brownsville, Texas when they faced terrible segregation and local hostility. And T.R. didn't really want to know the details -- that he just assumed they were guilty. So, they got dishonorable discharges, and, I think, quite unjustly. So, he has had a fair amount of African-American support in the North, where people could vote. And they were certainly -- he lost them over that. CORDERY: And Gould makes the point, too, that later, as he was no longer going to run for president, he was less attentive to the needs of African-Americans. And so, it's a very interesting question that -- you know, that -- the scholarship that -- that Dr. Gould has got in his book. It prompts more questions. I think it -- it's also a good -- I mean, a terrible topic, but it just goes to show you that history is never done being written. There's always more questions to ask, and this is a good one. The musicales that -- that Mrs. Roosevelt had in the White House as first lady -- she brought in these singers of -- spirituals, and... DALTON: Yes, spirituals. Well, that was considered, you know, as giving them an audience at that time, so... CORDERY: Yeah. DALTON: Again, you know, it's not minstrel shows. It's spirituals. So, you know, I -- we look -- we have to be careful about looking back. So much has changed.

CORDERY: It's very true. DALTON: Yeah. His life -- he appeared on a stage with W.E.B. DuBois, and said, "Justice has not been done to black people, and this is something I really want to face." CORDERY: And their daughter taught African-Americans at -- at the Sunday school, as well. So, I mean, it's a very interesting -- race in the Roosevelt family is a very interesting topic. DALTON: They're not Eleanor Roosevelt, okay? CORDERY: No, they're not. SWAIN: We're going to return to Sagamore Hill, the family home in Long Island, and learn a little bit more about their collection that shows the family life of the Roosevelts. Let's watch that. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) VERONE: This is a fascinating piece. You know, most people take baby pictures and snapshots. The Roosevelts at some point had three of their children, Kermit, Ethel and Archie -- they had (inaudible) reliefs done of them. And, obviously, this would have been work done by a professional sculptor. It would have been expensive. Just fascinates me that it was done. We don't have similar pieces for the older children or for Quentin, who's the youngest. But we have this piece. And it was kept on the wall outside the nursery on the second floor of the Roosevelt home. Edith raised her five children from infancy, obviously. And she kept souvenirs. And there's actually, in T.R.'s letters, references to Ethel walking around in little red shoes. And I think that all of the children had little red shoes at some point or another. And Edith, obviously, kept those that the children did not actually destroy. The book is "Peter Rabbit" in French. It belonged to Ethel. And, you know, the Roosevelts were fortunate. As their children were growing up, the Beatrix Potter books were brand-new and were coming out, and they bought them. And they read them to their children. They read them with their children. The children eventually would read back to them. Books were important to the Roosevelts, at all ages. And I love the fact that here's one in French was obviously a way to introduce child to a new language, in a, you know, story that they already knew. So it probably helped to make it easier to learn French, to read a story you already knew. This sampler was done in the 1920s and '30s by Edith Roosevelt, and it basically tells the story of her family's life. You can see right in the top row representations of her husband and herself and their six children. And it goes on to show highlights of Theodore Roosevelt's career, his actions as vice president, for Cuba, for being president. An inkwell to show that he was a writer. The pelican on the third row to show his conservation interests. And then, on the bottom row, three sons in uniform and a gold star for Quentin, who was killed during World War I. And, you know, it's a lovely piece. She had learned to do needlework as a small girl. She did needlework throughout her lifetime. And I think just a very poignant, very touching representation of what was important to her.

(END VIDEO CLIP) SWAIN: I want to tell you about some resources. This video is on our Web site, but there's also a special feature. We have been accumulating all of the programs to this series. And, as you know if you've been watching us along the way, before we finish we'll have done individual biographies of each of the women who served as first lady in the history of the United States. But our website, C-SPAN.org/firstladies, has all of these resources with all the videos of past programs plus many tours that didn't make it to air, so you can see other things. We also have a special feature each week. The special feature for this one is another item from Sagamore Hill. It's a dog bowl that apparently Edith kept under the desk of her study, and there's an interesting story behind it. And you'll have to go to the website and click on the link to find out what the interesting story is. One other resource I'd like to tell you about is our partner for this series is the White House Historical Association. They've been so helpful in helping us prepare the way and the resources. They have published this terrific book of biographies of the first ladies of the United States. We're making it available for you at cost. And on that same website, there's a link if people would like to order it. It will have individual biographies of each of the first ladies, and you can be prepared for the ones that are coming up in the years ahead. And we'll get that to you just as quickly as we can. If we can show that on screen, that would be great. I don't know if I have too much further. But there it is. That's what it looks like. And you can have that as part of your own collection. Well, I'd like to get to the part that people have been asking us quite a lot about, and that is the early years of Edith Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt. The amazing things is that they knew each other as very small children. How did that happen? DALTON: They grew up in the same neighborhood in New York City. T.R. grew up at East 20th Street, and she grew up near Union Square. So they were tutored together. She was his younger sister, Corinne's, best friend. They watched the invalid corps of the Civil War, you know, the men who lost arms and legs, marching down Union Square together from his grandfather's window. So they were playmates. They read books together. They were like family. So. SWAIN: Is it true that they watched Abraham Lincoln's funeral procession... DALTON: Yes. Funeral procession. And she cried when she saw all the invalided soldiers. And that -- so that's 1865, so they were really little. SWAIN: And has memories of those images. And I think we've got depictions of that on the screen. It's an amazing -- you get in very close, you can see the two little tiny figures of children peering out the window. DALTON: Isn't that really a miraculous find? SWAIN: Really. And, indeed, it is. So they were children together, and people thought that there was a romance there, but, in turn, he married someone else. How did that all happen?

CORDERY: Well, that's the mystery of the summer house. There's an -- there's an argument. We don't really know happened. But T.R. and Edith were together. Things seemed to be going very well. And then there was some sort of a fight. And after that, they broke apart, Theodore went off to Harvard. And there, across the room, he saw Alice Hathaway Lee. Told a friend, "I'm going to marry that woman.” And, indeed, he did. SWAIN: And who was Alice Hathaway Lee? DALTON: Well, Boston Brahmins are the upper class of Boston, usually descendants of people who came over on the Mayflower or, you know, inter-married with them. And she was the daughter of a wealthy banker. And a very beautiful woman, and really quite charming and athletic. And T.R. was incredibly taken with her, but she had many suitors, so he had to work hard. He sort of surrounded her, which is, he charmed her little brother and sister and her cousins and her uncles. And finally he became so familiar, she gave in. SWAIN: How old were they when they married? DALTON: Oh, they were -- well, let's see, 1980 -- I mean, 1880, he was just 21 and she was something like 19. So they're very, very young. But that's not unusual in that time period. SWAIN: How long were they married? CORDERY: Well, she died in 1884, on Valentine's Day. So, four years. DALTON: Four years, yeah... SWAIN: And this was the story that I earlier said was one that you would never if you hadn't heard it before. So tell the story of what happened in the Roosevelt house on that -- on that Valentine's Day in 1884. DALTON: Well, Alice had already been born, the baby had been born two days before. But, Alice, the mother, had Bright's disease, which is a kidney disease. And so, she was fading. T.R. was up at the state, up in Albany, with the state assembly. And so, he got telegrams saying, come down, your mother is ill. She had typhoid fever. But then, he'd get more telegrams, Alice is not doing well either. And so, he finally came down on the train to New York, and came into the house. And it was -- you know, they both died that day. It was -- it was a tragedy that was -- you know, broke his heart. And he was distraught. He had already been west, and he did flee to the west and was very, very sad, for a long time. SWAIN: It's so hard to imagine, really, losing your mother on one floor and just a few floors below, your young wife, just a few days after child birth. So what happened to Roosevelt in the years after? How did he approach this? And was he -- was it surprising that he married again? CORDERY: It was surprising to him, I think. He told his sister, "Don't let me run into Edith at your house anymore," because Edith was friends with both sisters.

And so, when Theodore Roosevelt went out to the Dakotas, he -- he vowed he was never going to marry again. This was very much a Victorian notion that you were committed to your wife, even though she had died. And so, he was heard to walk the floor out there, right "I have no constancy, I have no constancy," when he said that had met Edith. So there was an impromptu meeting at Bamie's house. And they discovered that old flame that had died was rekindled. So they courted in secret and didn't tell anyone about it. And then there was a funny moment when other people had noticed that they must have been in love, because it was printed in the newspapers that they were engaged. And Roosevelt had not told his sisters. So then, he had to -- he had to explain this in sad letters to his sister, saying, well, actually, it's kind of true. SWAIN: But to somehow finally travel emotionally. And Theodore Roosevelt was a diarist. And we've got a picture on the screen of his diary... (CROSSTALK) SWAIN: It's a big X he put on that day, "the light has gone out of my life.” And to be able to travel from that to marrying Edith in that short time. CORDERY: He threw himself into his work. People said he didn't know what he was doing. He attended this double funeral. He was devastated. But he was also very young and very vigorous and very much alive. And they had been through that, because she knew him before -- before this tragedy happened, right. So, of anyone in his life, Edith had known him the longest, and had been through the death of his father, had been through the death of his mother, the death of his wife. It was I think in that sense a sort of a lovely destiny that he would find solace in this -- in his old, dear friend. SWAIN: Our guest, Stacy Cordery is the biographer of Alice Roosevelt, the child that Edith inherited when she married. (LAUGHTER) SWAIN: And you've made reference many times to her outsized personality. CORDERY: Right. SWAIN: What was the relationship like between the two women? CORDERY: Well, that's a very interesting question, because, you know, Edith said she did her best by Alice. She once said, "I'm not the best kind of mother for Alice; she needs someone who's more outgoing and a little less staid than I am." But she was actually a very good mother. She worked with Alice -- Alice had a leg problem. You know, she stretched her legs. She was indulgent toward Alice. Alice said I'm not going to go to boarding school, and so, her stepmother gave in to that.

But as Alice got older, I think she was seeking attention that she never, ever had. And so, to find that attention -- couldn't quite get it from her father, couldn't quite get it from her stepmother, didn't get it from her stepsiblings, Alice looked on a much bigger stage for that. And once Alice began to cross these lines of propriety, as Edith saw them, the relationship became much more strained. SWAIN: And was there a difference in the way she treated her own children versus... CORDERY: Yes. She was -- she preferred Ethel. And I think Alice knew that. I think Alice was strong willed. She'd been a little bit spoiled by Bamie. Her Lee grandparents would buy her anything. And so, she had a strong will. I think Edith would have preferred a little bit more pliant, a little bit more traditional daughter. And she had one. So I think that was tough. I think -- and they never -- nobody ever seemed to talk to Alice about her mother's death. T.R. was never willing to explain to her why she had a different mother. SWAIN: And (John Wilson) on Twitter, "What was the relationships between Edith and Bamie," who was also a political confidant of T.R.'s? DALTON: Well, Bamie had a little White House where T.R. would come to have secret meetings. She was quite a smart and capable person. So she and -- she also ran Sagamore Hill and set it up before Edith moved in. So there's a little bit of competition between Bamie and Edith about who's going to be the political adviser. But most of the time, they worked together. But it's clear that Bamie was quite a formidable and quite a brilliant woman. She's a really important person in Eleanor Roosevelt's life, too. SWAIN: We're going to return to Sagamore Hill to look at how Edith ran that household, which she established as her own, after Bamie had run it for awhile. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) VERONE: Well, Sagamore Hill was certainly designed to be a summer home. But it was always just their primary residence. In the first five or six years that they were married and they lived here, they lived here year round. After the White House, they lived here year round again, even though it was hard to heat in the winter. It really was the center of their life. Even if they weren't here, it was where their hearts were. Edith ran the household, not only at Sagamore Hill, but in all the places that they lived -- in Albany, in Washington, D.C. And she managed the family's accounts. She managed the family's investments. What we have here is an account book. It's an example of the annual accounts. It's from 1891, I think it is. And it's basically every family member is listed, and then she kept track of the expenses that she paid for each family member every month of the year. But it's also broken down into grocery bills, what she was buying from the butcher, what she might pay for a plumber to come in and do repairs. She counted every penny and kept very good track of what her household was spending. Sagamore Hill was different than earlier presidential homes because it wasn't ever a commercial venture. They did not try to be self-sufficient. What Edith wanted from Sagamore Hill was basically

to offset the expense of living there. And so they did raise hay, you know, and alfalfa and rye -- you know, grains that they could feed their horses and reduce the cost of having horses here. They did have a lovely garden that produced everything from corn to strawberries. They had an arbor that had eight different kinds of grapes. They had strawberry and blueberry fields. But the idea was to -- to both feed the family and the staff who lived on-site, but also to reduce the cost of maintaining a property like this. We're holding a book. It's a Sagamore Hill guest book. And when people would come up to see T.R. and Edith, they would sign their names just like they were visiting the White House. And it's just a casual list. It's not as formal as the White House list would have been, but usually, they would have been politicians or government officials. But even family signed the took. You see here on August -- in 1904 that Anna Roosevelt Cowles visited and that was T.R.'s older sister Bamie; that her brother-in-law Douglas Robinson, who was Corinne's husband, was visiting, so it's obviously a family visit that day. And there are signatures from them. So, sometimes, I mean, I don't think these people signed their name. I think Edith went back and made note of who had been visiting. There's this wonderful illustration done by one of the visitors showing "hope at sunset," is what the illustration says. But it's, you know, the way for the family to keep track of who came to see them, and when their families were here, when their friends were here, and what they were up to while they were visiting. (END VIDEO CLIP) SWAIN: And a look at life in Sagamore Hill. We're going to spend a few minutes on a big topic, and that's really the influence of Edith Roosevelt on her husband's very active administration. Just some statistics -- again, we've had to choose from a two-year term -- I mean a two-term administration. And this is hardly an exhaustive list, but in 1904, the Supreme Court upholds the Antitrust Act; 1905, the National Forest Service was created; the Pure Food and Drug Act passed in 1906, something you said earlier. It was a very contentious time. Roosevelt wins the Nobel Peace Prize also in that year. And in 1908, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is created. Just a few things during the time that Roosevelt was in office. What was Edith's influence, if we look at what she contributed to this? CORDERY: Well, Edith played a fairly large role, but behind the scenes. One of their friends called Edith "the perfection of invisible government," which I think she would have liked. For example, going back to the Victorian thing, it was Edith who said, "We are not going to call the president by his first name anymore; he will be Mr. President.” So she never called him by his first name in front of people in the White House, so making that... DALTON: More formal. CORDERY: ... much more formal. Thank you, yes. She played a role in personnel. At least at one point in time, we know that she suggested someone... DALTON: James Garfield.

CORDERY: ... James Garfield for the Civil Service Commission. She tried to get rid of an ambassador from Britain she didn't like very much, and tried to get one in. She said, "I pulled every string that I knew to pull to try to get you here," and alas, she failed to get Cecil Spring Rice in. She was a kind of a back-channel to Theodore Roosevelt. For example, men in the White House, Henry Cabot Lodge for example, would talk to her about the post office scandal, rather than talk to him about it. And so she could also be a pathway for Roosevelt to discuss matters of diplomacy that he could not discuss with the diplomats themselves. And then we've mentioned briefly that all the time they spent together walking and so forth. She sent newspaper stories to him. She read four newspapers a day. He was not so… DALTON: He didn't have time. CORDERY: He didn't like to read newspapers or he -- I guess he read a lot of things, but she read newspapers and then cut out stories and handed them to him. So, she made sure certain topics were in front of him. SWAIN: What would you like to add about her influence? DALTON: Well, she favored his conservation policies. We have her on record with that. She, you know, later on when he runs for president in 1912, she cries the day after he loses. And, you know, she -- she was really behind him. But she edits his speeches and his articles. And he clearly talks with her about policy. And she sits in political meetings -- this is like Mrs. Carter -- but she was knitting, looking unobtrusive, but then they discussed what happened at the meeting afterwards. So she's -- she's a very active first lady. SWAIN: (Brent) in Lancaster, Minnesota. BRENT (ph): Hi, thanks for taking my call. I just have a quick question concerning Edith's life after the presidency and after T.R. died. Was she active in Washington society after that? And did she have much influence or relationship with Franklin and Eleanor as he began his run in politics? Thank you. SWAIN: Okay, thank you for that question. We're going to dissect it a little bit. The Roosevelts leave the White House and did they believe that their political career is over at that point? DALTON: Well, I think they -- they said that and she thought that that was true. They moved back to Sagamore Hill. T.R. goes on a safari in Africa. SWAIN: For a year, right? DALTON: For a year. And then she joins him. They ride camels together in Egypt and they travel to revisit the sites of their honeymoon in Italy and other places. And they travel around Europe. But then he comes back, and Taft is in political trouble because the party -- the Republican Party is split between progressives and conservatives. And Taft hasn't really done a great job at holding the party together. So T.R. gets back into politics in 1912.

SWAIN: And so she supported his run as the Bull Moose candidate. DALTON: She did. I think it was a painful moment because they knew that he couldn't win. But this is when the primary system comes in. They voted to have preferential primaries instead of having caucuses to choose candidates. And it was hard to predict. He won a lot of the primaries, but they were all new, so nobody knew what that meant. So when it came time to go to the Republican convention, Taft controlled the delegates and got the nomination. SWAIN: Something we could spend another entire program on. DALTON: Right, right, right. SWAIN: So seven years after his unsuccessful run, Theodore Roosevelt dies; 1919 is the year of his death. He was just 60 years old. How did he die? CORDERY: Well, his heart gave out. DALTON: Yeah, an embolism killed him. SWAIN: And -- and was he failing or was he robust up until... DALTON: Well, you know, he explores the Brazilian jungle in 1913 and almost dies. He has a leg injury. He has fever. And then -- so he -- yes, and he has rheumatism. CORDERY: Blind in one eye. DALTON: Yes, so he's -- he's in bad shape. And part -- part of it is the way he's lived his life. SWAIN: So he packed a lot into his 60 years. DALTON: It's a strenuous life. (LAUGHTER) SWAIN: And did -- was Edith with him when he died? DALTON: She was downstairs... CORDERY: In the house... DALTON: And she's been taking care of him and they knew it was serious. SWAIN: And did he die at Sagamore Hill? CORDERY: He did. She was just 58. SWAIN: So how did -- a caller wanted to know -- how did she spend her post-White House years? There were many of them. She lived for a long time. CORDERY: Travel, travel, travel, travel. She traveled a lot of places. She went to South American many times. Kermit was down there.

DALTON: South Africa, she went around the world. CORDERY: She did. DALTON: She went to the Caribbean. CORDERY: Right. DALTON: She traveled with Kermit and other -- other children. SWAIN: Was she political? DALTON: Well, except for this one moment with Hoover, she sympathized with Alice and Ted in some of their upset about Ted's career not going too well. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., was assistant secretary of the Navy. He ran for governor of New York. He tried to follow in his father's footsteps. It didn't work very well. SWAIN: She also had just a very bad family life in her post-White House years, losing three of her sons. CORDERY: Oh, awful, horrible, unbelievable. Yes. So, Quentin died in World War I, and then she lost sons in World War II. Do you want to tell the story? DALTON: Well, Ted is on the beach at Normandy. He's a war hero. Kermit kills himself and the family doesn't -- didn't want to talk about that for many years. But Archie lives a very long life. CORDERY: Ethel lives a long life. And Alice will, of course, outlive everyone -- first-born child will outlive everyone. SWAIN: And Alice, we just have to say a word about the person that she married and how her -- her relationship turned out after being such a big factor in her parents' relationship. CORDERY: Well, I'm not sure what you're what you're searching for, but she married a man about 15 years her senior, Nicholas Longworth, who everybody thought might become president, which would put Alice in the White House as first lady. That would have been interesting. And they have a - a sort of tortuous relationship, I would say. Eventually she will have a child. Nick will not be the father of that child. The most powerful Republican in Washington D.C. will be the father of that child, William Borah. And then she will become a sort of a -- what? -- a... DALTON: A gadfly? CORDERY: Well, I would say she was more like a -- she was a wise political observer and people sought out her dining table, sought out her advice for really 60 years. She was an icon in Washington, D.C., the "other Washington Monument," she was famously called. DALTON: Really funny. CORDERY: And funny -- very witty, yes.

SWAIN: We have about six minutes left. I'm going to show a little bit more of a the clip that we started our program, that is the Republican rallies that she spoke at... (CROSSTALK) SWAIN: And want to understand the family politics of both sides of the Roosevelts when we do. Let's watch, and then we'll come back to you. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MALE: (inaudible) Roosevelt. (APPLAUSE) EDITH ROOSEVELT: Dear citizens, I'm a New Yorker. Here I passed my childhood and my youth. Here, my forebears were born and reared their children. Therefore it is fitting that mine should be the honor of welcoming the president of the United States to our city. (END VIDEO CLIP) SWAIN: So there we look at her one dip into politics in her post-White House years. So, what should people know about that -- that relationship between the two Roosevelt families and their political aspirations? DALTON: Well, she was mad at Eleanor for the teapot dome car and she was supporting Ted and his political ambitions and she was being a loyal Republican. Herbert Hoover had given money to the Bull Moose Party, and I think a lot people saw Hoover as a progressive Republican in T.R.'s mold. SWAIN: David Welch wants to know which of the progressive movements was closest to Mrs. Roosevelt? DALTON: Well, she supported parks and playgrounds in Oyster Bay, so I wouldn't think of her as being an active reformer, but you know, she was sympathetic with some of the progressive reforms. SWAIN: We have about four minutes. We're going to tie a bow around all of this, on what we've learned about Edith Roosevelt. Let's first take a call from Joel in Monroe, Michigan, who's been waiting. Hi Joel. JOEL (ph): Hi, I have this question for Stacy. I read her book about Alice, and I was totally impressed with it. It's the only book I've ever seen written about her. I just want to ask the question: were her impersonations of Eleanor as good as everybody said they were? CORDERY: Yes, apparently they really, really were that good. She did a mean one of Mrs. Taft that got in the way of the -- the transition from the Roosevelt to Taft White House as well. But she is a pretty good mimic. SWAIN: And did I read that as they were departing the White House and the Tafts were coming in, she was photographed sticking her tongue out at the press, to express her opinions about the transition?

CORDERY: I wouldn't be surprised. (LAUGHTER) It just suited her personality. SWAIN: (David Welsh) wants to know, in what ways was Edith Roosevelt best-suited to be a 20th century first lady? DALTON: Well, I think 20th century first ladies have had to be partners. It's such a demanding job that the president really needs not only emotional support, but he needs practical help. So, there have been quiet delegations throughout the history of the first lady -- lady's time in the 20th century. CORDERY: That was an excellent answer, Dr. Dalton. Theodore Roosevelt said, "I have never seen in any other woman the power of being the best of wives and mothers, the wisest manager of the household, and at the same time, the ideal great lady and mistress of the White House." SWAIN: Well, this would answer a viewer's question that said, "what strength in particular did Edith have that helped her husband become a successful president?" CORDERY: She was patient. SWAIN: That was the most important characteristic with -- with Theodore? CORDERY: Well, one of the things we didn't talk a lot about, and we could spend two hours on this alone, is how very different these two were in terms of their personalities and characters, right? And so, where Theodore was outgoing and never met a stranger, Edith was much more reserved, and I think that part of her -- part of her wisdom was knowing when to give Theodore Roosevelt his head, and when to say, "Now, Theodore.” Don't you think? DALTON: She calmed him down when he was... CORDERY: She calmed him, mm-hmm. DALTON: ... he was more excitable, and more impulsive, and she's quite calm and deliberate. CORDERY: Right. But she was a better judge of people, everyone said that, than Theodore was, and he often said, "Whenever I went against Edith's advice, I regretted it." SWAIN: I'm going to squeeze in a last question from Robert in (Vandergrift), Pennsylvania. Hey Robert, quick question please. ROBERT (ph): Hi, thanks for taking my call. You mentioned that Roosevelt came from a wealthy family. I was interested in the source of his wealth, and if they maintained their wealth during his presidency, why she seemed to be so conscientious about money? CORDERY: That's you. Go.

DALTON: OK, well, the Roosevelts, Theodore's family had merchant wealth, banking wealth. His grandfather was very successful, helped found the chemical bank in New York City, and they also owned a lot of property and collected rents. And so, T.R. spent a lot of his inheritance from his father on ranching, and wasn't very careful about money. So they really lived on his writing and just his salary. So, that's why they were strapped. CORDERY: Yes and Edith was very poor as a -- as a child, compared to the Roosevelts, and so she was always in the habit of pinching those pennies, and it wasn't really until they got to the White House that he felt -- that sorry, that she felt that she had enough money, finally, to entertain and could relax a bit. SWAIN: As we close here, we've shown you the biography Stacy wrote about Alice. I want to make sure to get it on screen. Kathleen Dalton's book, "Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life.” Some of our callers have read it. You might be interested if you want to learn more. And as we close out, very quickly here, if we look at the pantheon of first ladies that we're going to be understanding and learning more about this year, where should Edith Roosevelt fit? What's been her influence on the job, her influence on American history? DALTON: Well, when Eleanor Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt came to the White House in the middle of the crisis of 1933, they told friends, "We'd really like our White House to be like Uncle Theodore's and Aunt Edith's." And they were role models for other couples, presidential couples, because they were vigorous and active, but also, they maintained a homey sense, and kept their personal life alive. So, I think she's -she's a really important organizational pioneer in some ways. SWAIN: And you would say? CORDERY: I think the first lady has a fine line to walk between being the sort of embodiment of the -- of the ceremonial aspects of the -- of the job and the kind of global stage that the first lady needs to occupy. And that sort of folks, the home-like, this is your house as well as mine. And Edith did that very, very well. The changes she made, the professionalization of the office itself, these all reflected that very clear sense that Edith had that we were stepping into a new century, and the future was going to be terrific. SWAIN: And on that note, we will say thank you to Stacy Cordery and Kathleen Dalton for being with us tonight to tell us more about the life of Edith Roosevelt, the first first lady of the 20th century. Thanks to both of you for your scholarship, appreciate it. END