FAMILY MAN IN THE ARENA Dickinson State University Dickinson, North Dakota A three-day public symposium about the family life of Theodore Roosevelt OCTOBER 15-17, 2009 Lectures and panel discussions FREE Registration fee for featured events and field trip See inside for details “For unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly makes all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison.”
Transcript
FAMILY MAN IN THE ARENA
Dickinson State University
Dickinson, North Dakota
A three-day public symposium about the family life of
Theodore Roosevelt
OCTOBER 15-17, 2009
Lectures and panel discussions FREE Registration fee for featured
events and field trip
See inside for details
“For unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly makes all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison.”
“Nothing else takes the place or can take the place of family life,and family life cannot be really happy unless it is based on duty, based on recognition of the great underlying laws of religion and morality, of the great underlying laws of civilization, the laws which if broken mean the dissolution of civilization.”
Theodore Rooseveltat the Pacific Theological Seminary, 1911
FAMILY MAN IN THE ARENA
When the Roosevelts moved into the White House in the fall of 1901, they took the presidential residence—and the country—by storm. They were the first really interesting First Family since the Lincolns, and far more colorful and fascinating to the American people.
Whatever else he was, Theodore Roosevelt was always a devoted family man. He never let his strenuous pursuit of big game, political triumphs, national reforms, or international respect for the United States take precedence over his life as a husband and devoted, if sometimes undisciplined, father. He cut short cabinet meetings to honor play dates with his children, and against the better judgment of his wife Edith, he joined them in pillow fights and in throwing water balloons at secret servicemen on the street below.
When we think of the Roosevelts we conjure up images of the wild menagerie of pets who lived on and off in the White House, including a parrot that cried “Bully for Roosevelt!” on command; of a Shetland pony riding up the elevator to visit a sick child; of reckless games of “point to point,” in which everyone, single-file, had to move in a straight line to some distant goal, no matter what the obstacles.
But there was a dark side to Roosevelt family life, too. TR’s first child Alice never felt fully embraced by the family that Edith
produced, particularly because of her father’s Olympian refusal to discuss her dead mother. Alice presided for decades as the imperious queen of Washington, D.C., witty, irreverent, sometimes wicked, but it is clear that for all her admiration of her father, she never felt the parent-child intimacy she craved.
Roosevelt pushed his children hard, often too hard, in his quest to create play-fellows equal to his own heroic strenuousness, and to make sure his children did not fail to make the most of their capacities. Roosevelt’s family life was deeply authentic, but it was almost always on display for a fascinated, sometimes intrusive, public. Ted, Jr., suffered a nervous breakdown during his prep school life. Kermit (like his deceased uncle Elliott) had a penchant for alcohol and dark risks.
In this symposium we will explore the family life of the Roosevelts from as many perspectives as possible. We intend to celebrate the sheer exuberance of being Roosevelt, but not to turn away from the shadow cast by a man of such outsized ego, ambition, and achievement.
We have assembled a wonderful cast of scholars, biographers, and other presenters for our fourth annual symposium. We’re eager to learn from you, too, and we welcome you to Theodore Roosevelt’s second home—Dakota.
Clay S. Jenkinson, symposium moderator, is the Theodore Roosevelt humanities scholar at Dickinson State University. He is also a distinguished humanities scholar at Bismarck State College, a columnist for the Bismarck Tribune, and the host of a weekly radio program, The Thomas Jefferson Hour.®
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
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Photo courtesy of Sagamore Hill National Historic Site, National Park Service;cover photo courtesy of the Library of Congress
2006 Theodore Roosevelt: The Adventurer
“It was a wonderful and insightful event. The speakers were great...and the tour of the Elkhorn Ranch was absolutely memorable.”
“Thanks for the wonderful weekend. We’ve been singing the praises of DSU and the symposium to friends and family!”
“Great programs, wonderful speakers, delightful food. Thoroughly enjoyed it all!”
2007 Theodore Roosevelt and America’s Place in the World Arena
“Dr. [John Milton] Cooper’s presentation was superb. He was personable, informative and humorous. I was intrigued with his comparisons and contrasts between TR and Woodrow Wilson.”
“I was thrilled with the opportunity to attend this event. The speakers were excellent and the hospitality events were well planned and enjoyable.”
2008 Theodore Roosevelt: The Conservationist in the Arena
“This is our first symposium adventure and we loved it; very organized variety of activities. Excellent.”
“This is my second year at the symposium and I thought the speakers among the best ‘history lecturers’ I’ve ever heard – superior.”
Dickinson State University, in cooperation with the Library of Congress and the National Park Service, has undertaken to digitize Theodore Roosevelt’s documents. This monumental project, when completed, will offer the world's most comprehensive Roosevelt library and archive. DSU has already obtained more than half a million digital images, including diaries, scrapbooks, cartoons, photographs, films and letters by, to, and about Roosevelt.
DSU has just begun making these documents available on its Theodore Roosevelt Center web site and has an interactive kiosk dedicated to the project in the university’s Stoxen Library. Two additional kiosks have been installed in the region, one of which is in the visitors’ center at Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Just minutes from the university, the park preserves the Dakota badlands, including the Elkhorn Ranch, Roosevelt’s beloved second home in western North Dakota.
Symposium guests will have the opportunity to explore the Theodore Roosevelt Center in Stoxen Library and, by pressing the kiosk touch screen, be transported to an electronic world utterly unimaginable in the era of America’s 26th president.
THE THEODORE ROOSEVELT CENTER AT DICKINSON STATE UNIVERSITY
ATTENDEES PRAISE PAST SYMPOSIUMS
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“It is no use to preach to [children] if you do not act
decently yourself.”
Theodore Roosevelt, Speech to Holy Name
Society, Oyster Bay, New York, 1903
GUEST SCHOLARS
Theodore Roosevelt emergedfrom a prominent Victorian family that was exceptionally child-centered for its time. TR built his political and literary career using his own talents, but he often acknowledged that he became the uncommon adult he was because of the formative love of his parents and his extended family. He admitted, too, that his second wife Edith supported him and made his career possible. Together he and Edith raised six children and built their own rambunctious family life upon a commitment to leading an active outdoor life and making intellec-tual curiosity a bond between parent and child. American family life, in TR’s eyes, faced new challenges in the twentieth century from immorality, easy divorce, and economic injustice. During his presidency TR recommended both moral and economic reforms that he believed would save the American family from ruin.
About Kathleen DaltonKathleen Dalton is Cecil F.P. Bancroft Instructor of History and co-director of the Brace Center on Gender Studies at Phillips Academy Andover as well as an external fellow of Boston University’s International History Institute. Author of Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life (2002) and A Portrait of a School: Coeducation at Andover (1986), she has spoken widely about Theodore Roosevelt, including appearances on C-SPAN’s Book TV, the History Channel, the Arts and Entertainment Channel, and public television.
People who knew them bothinsisted that the child most like Theodore Roosevelt temperamentally and intellectually was Alice. She had a unique relationship with him as the daughter of his first marriage. Alice Roosevelt Longworth ultimately embraced the fame that came to her as First Daughter, and enjoyed being the epicenter of Washington politics. Fiercely independent and ferociously intelligent, her personality was shaped by the absence of her mother but even more by the presence of her father. TR is the key to understanding the long life and interesting choices of Alice Roosevelt Longworth.
About Stacy CorderyA historical biographer by inclination, Stacy Cordery has spent the last decade studying the Roosevelt family, culminating in her highly acclaimed biography, Alice Roosevelt Longworth: From White House Princess to Washington Power Broker (2007). Professor of History and Archives Curator at Monmouth College in Monmouth, Illinois, Dr. Cordery has also authored Theodore Roosevelt: In the Vanguard of the Modern (2003) and provided the text for Historic Photographs of Theodore Roosevelt (2007).
Behind Theodore Roosevelt stood a team of supportive women—two sisters whose taste for politics and adventure matched his, a wife who sometimes treated him as her most rambunctious child, and two daughters who vied for his attention. His mother died when he was only 25, but her wit and taste had already become family legend. A closer look at these remarkable women helps round out our view of TR—and of the Roosevelt family legacy.
About Betty Boyd CaroliA graduate of Oberlin College, Betty Boyd Caroli holds a master's degree in Mass Communications from the Annenberg School of the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. in American Civilization from New York University. A Fulbright scholar to Italy, she also held fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, the Hoover Presidential Library, and others. After studying in Salzburg, Austria, and Perugia, Italy (but before joining the faculty at the City University of New York), she taught in Palermo and Rome, Italy. Caroli is the author of several books, including The Roosevelt Women (1999), America’s First Ladies (1996), and Inside the White House (1992).
A New Look at the Roosevelt WomenBetty Boyd Caroli
Alice Blues: Revisiting the First DaughterStacy CorderyMonmouth College
“Those Roosevelts” in the ArenaKathleen Dalton Phillips Academy Andover
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“The one thing I want to leave my children is an honorable name.”
Theodore Roosevelt,Chicago, April 10, 1899
James Marten will attempt to assess the Roosevelts in the broader context of American family life at the turn of the twentieth century. To what extent were the Roosevelts typical of their era—though more visible—and to what extent were they the product of unique family dynamics? What was the “cost” of being America’s most prominent First Family in at least half a century, at a time when the American media was in a position to exploit that visibility? What impact did Theodore Roosevelt’s larger-than-life personality and his zeal for “the strenuous life” have on his family, particularly his children? How can we best make sense of the complicated relations between Roosevelt and the sole child of his first marriage, Alice Roosevelt Longworth? How do the Roosevelts stack up against other prominent American families, particularly Presidential families? About James MartenJames Marten is professor and chair of the history department at Marquette University. He is founding secretary-treasurer of the Society for the History of Children and Youth and current president of the Society of Civil War Historians. He has written or edited a dozen books, including Children and Youth in a New Nation (2009); Childhood and Child Welfare in the Progressive Era: A Brief History with Documents (2004); and The Children’s Civil War (2000). The latter won the Alpha Sigma Nu Jesuit National Book Award for History in 1999 and was named an “Outstanding Academic Book” by Choice Magazine.
Amy Verone Chief of Cultural Resources, Sagamore Hill National Historic Site, the Roosevelt family home in Oyster Bay, New York
PANEL: THE ROOSEVELT CHILDRENCo-moderatorsClay Jenkinson and Amy Verone
Stacy Cordery “Alice and Ethel”
Gary CummiskDSU Associate Professor of Geography and Anthropology“Kermit”
Steven DohertyDSU Assistant Professor of Political Science “From Martha to Malia: Presidential Families/Archie”
David Meier Chair of DSUDepartment of Social Sciences, Professor of History “Quentin”
Frank Varney DSU Assistant Professor of History“Growing Up Roosevelt/Ted, Jr.”
The Burden of Being Roosevelt: Rooseveltand the Idea of FamilyJames MartenMarquette University
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“I tell you, Kermit, it was a great comfort to feel, all during the last
days when affairs looked doubtful, that no matter how things
came out, the really important thing was the
lovely life I have with Mother and with you
children and that compared to this home life everything else was
of small importance from the standpoint
of happiness.”
Theodore Roosevelt to his son, after
winning re-election to the presidency, 1904
SYMPOSIUM SCHEDULEThursday, October 15, 20096:00 p.m. Registration – May Hall
7:00 p.m. Welcome and Introductions
7:30 p.m. Keynote address: Kathleen Dalton “‘Those Roosevelts’ in the Arena”
Friday, October 16, 2009 8:00 a.m. Registration/Continental Breakfast – May Hall
9:00 a.m. Opening Remarks
Dr. Richard McCallum, Dickinson State University President
Clay Jenkinson, Symposium Moderator
9:15 a.m. Stacy Cordery “Alice Blues: Revisiting the First Daughter”
10:15 a.m. Break
10:30 a.m. Panel on Roosevelt’s Children
Stacy Cordery, Gary Cummisk, Steven Doherty, David Meier, Frank Varney
Co-moderators: Clay Jenkinson and Amy Verone
12 - 1:30 p.m. Lunch – Student Center (Paid Event)
Hosted by Theodore Roosevelt Honors Leadership Program Scholars
Speaker: Kathleen Dalton
1:45 p.m. Betty Boyd Caroli – May Hall “A New Look at the Roosevelt Women”
3:15 p.m. Break
3:30 p.m. Clay Jenkinson “Hermann Hagedorn and the Roosevelts”
5:00 p.m. Social (Paid Event)
5:45 p.m. Dinner – Student Center (Paid Event)
Clay Jenkinson and Karen Nelson “A Dialogue between TR and Edith”
Saturday, October 17, 2009 (Field trip to Medora) (Paid Event)
7:30 a.m. Day registration for Medora Field Trip/ Continental Breakfast
Student Center
8:30 a.m. Buses leave for Rough Riders Hotel and Conference Center, Medora
9:30 a.m. James Marten “The Burden of Being Roosevelt: Roosevelt and the Idea of Family”
Open forum discussion with scholars
11:30 a.m. Pick up lunch – Rough Riders Hotel
11:45 a.m. Optional activities
Visit to TR’s Elkhorn Ranch
Guided hikes in Theodore Roosevelt National Park
Living History Walking Tours
Tour of Chateau de Mores
4:00 p.m. Reception and Closing Remarks – North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame
Dr. Richard McCallum and Clay Jenkinson
LECTURES AND PANEL DISCUSSIONSARE
FREE!
Sign up early and save – register online at www.theodorerooseveltcenter.com
MAJOR SPONSORS
I D E A S VA L U E S H I S T O R Y
The 2009 Theodore Roosevelt Symposium will be held on
the beautiful campus of Dickinson State University in
Dickinson, North Dakota, with a field trip to Theodore
Roosevelt National Park in Medora, North Dakota.
Discounted guest rooms are available for symposium
registrants at the following hotels:
AmericInn, 229 15th Street West, Dickinson
701-225-1400
Days Hotel, 532 15th Street West, Dickinson
701-483-5600
Holiday Inn Express, 103 14th Street West, Dickinson
701-456-8000
Badlands Motel, 301 5th Street, Medora
800-633-6721
When making reservations, ask for a room in the
DSU Theodore Roosevelt Symposium block.
Reservations must be made by October 1, 2009.
Friday Evening Dramatic Presentation:A DIALOGUE BETWEEN TR AND EDITHRoosevelt’s first marriage was the source of deep sentiment
and a grief so large that he could scarcely ever even mention
the name of his first wife. It was Roosevelt's long second
marriage to Edith Carow that gave him the stability and
happiness that propelled him to greatness. Although most of
the correspondence between Edith and TR was deliberately
destroyed, the few letters we possess indicate that their
relations were rich, learned, playful, and deeply passionate.
Edith was not an adviser to TR, but she knew how to keep him
focused and rein in his boyish exuberances and occasional
bullying. This set of dramatic vignettes explores the 32-year
marriage of Edith and TR, based on surviving correspondence
and the superb biography, Edith Kermit Roosevelt: Portrait of
a First Lady, by Sylvia Jukes Morris.
SYMPOSIUM LOCATION AND ACCOMMODATIONS
Sign up early and save – register online at www.theodorerooseveltcenter.com
*Pricing includes all meals (including receptions), Friday evening entertainment, transportation to and from Medora, and all tours in and around Medora, per schedule.
291 Campus DriveDickinson, ND 58601
NONPROFITORGANIZATIONU.S. POSTAGE
PAIDBISMARCK, NDPERMIT NO. 433
How to RegisterOnline with credit card: www.theodorerooseveltcenter.com
By mail:Complete this form and mail with check (made out to Dickinson State University) to:Office of Extended LearningDickinson State University291 Campus DriveDickinson, ND 58601
Questions?866-496-8797 or701-483-2166
Cancellation Policy
• Refunds will be subject to a processing fee• No refunds after October 1, 2009
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Early bird registration – receive a free hardcover copy of Kathleen Dalton’s Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life First 40 full symposium registrants only
FAMILY MAN IN THE ARENAOCTOBER 15-17, 2009THEODORE ROOSEVELTTHEODORE ROOSEVELT
