A Most Glorious Ride

Description

Finalist for the 2015 ForeWord INDIEFAB Book of the Year Award in the History Category

A Most Glorious Ride presents the complete diaries of Theodore Roosevelt from 1877 to 1886. Covering the formative years of his life, Roosevelt's entries show the transformation of a sickly and solitary Harvard freshman into a confident and increasingly robust young adult. He writes about his grief over the premature death of his father, his courtship and marriage to his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee, and later the death of Alice and his mother on the same day. The diaries chronicle his burgeoning political career in New York City and his election to the New York State Assembly. With his descriptions of balls, dinner parties, and nights at the opera, they offer a glimpse into life among the Gilded Age elite in Boston and New York. They also recount Roosevelt's first birding and hunting trips to the Adirondacks, the Maine woods, and the American West. Ending with Roosevelt's secret engagement to his second wife, Edith Kermit Carow, A Most Glorious Ride provides an intimate look into the life of the man who would become America's twenty-sixth president.

Brought together for the first time in a single volume, the diaries have been meticulously transcribed, annotated, and introduced by Edward P. Kohn. Twenty-four black-and-white photographs are also included.
Preface: Theodore Roosevelt as Diarist

Introduction: Theodore Roosevelt’s Life until 1877

Harvard: Volume I (1877)
Diary Entries

“Trust in the Lord, and Do Good”: Volume II (1878)
Diary Entries

Chestnut Hill: Volume III (1879)
Diary Entries

Married: Volume IV (1880)
Diary Entries

photo gallery follows pages 176

Politics: Volume V (1881)
Diary Entries

Albany: Volume VI (1882)
Diary Entries

1882 Legislative Diary: Diary of Five Months in the New York Legislature

Albany and “Dakotah”: Volume VII
Diary Entries

“The light has gone out of my life”: Volume VIII (1884)
February 14 Entry (Image)
Diary Entries

“E. K. C.”: Volume IX
Diary Entries

Conclusion: Theodore Roosevelt’s Life after 1886

Glossary of Latin Names of Wildlife Observed and Collected by Theodore Roosevelt

Works Consulted

Index

Sujets

• États-Unis
• History of the Americas
• 19th century
• United States of America
• USA

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 09 décembre 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438455150
• Langue: English

Extrait

A MOST GLORIOUS RIDE
A MOST GLORIOUS RIDE
T HE D IARIES OF T HEODORE R OOSEVELT ,
1877–1886

EDITED BY
Edward P. Kohn

AN IMPRINT OF STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS
Cover: Photograph of Theodore Roosevelt in his first year in the New York State Assembly, 1882. Courtesy of the Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University (call number 520.13-003).
Published by
S TATE U NIVERSITY OF N EW Y ORK P RESS , A LBANY
© 2015 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
Excelsior Editions is an imprint of State University of New York Press
For information, contact
State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Production and book design, Laurie Searl
Marketing, Anne M. Valentine
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858–1919.
[Diaries. Selections.]
A most glorious ride : the diaries of Theodore Roosevelt, 1877–1886 / edited by Edward P. Kohn.
pages cm — (Excelsior editions)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4384-5513-6 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4384-5515-0 (e-book)
1. Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858–1919—Diaries. 2. Presidents—United States—Diaries. 3. Presidents—United States—Biography. I. Kohn, Edward P. (Edward Parliament), 1968– editor. II. Title.
E757.A3 2015 973.911092—dc23 [B] 2014013125
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Preface: Theodore Roosevelt as Diarist
Introduction: Theodore Roosevelt’s Life until 1877
Harvard: Volume I (1877)
D IARY E NTRIES
“Trust in the Lord, and Do Good”: Volume II (1878)
D IARY E NTRIES
Chestnut Hill: Volume III (1879)
D IARY E NTRIES
Married: Volume IV (1880)
D IARY E NTRIES
photo gallery follows pages
Politics: Volume V (1881)
D IARY E NTRIES
Albany: Volume VI (1882)
D IARY E NTRIES
1882 Legislative Diary: Diary of Five Months in the New York Legislature
Albany and “Dakotah”: Volume VII (1883)
D IARY E NTRIES
“The light has gone out of my life”: Volume VIII (1884)
F EBRUARY 14 ENTRY ( IMAGE )
D IARY E NTRIES
“E.K.C.”: Volume IX (1886)
D IARY E NTRIES
Conclusion: Theodore Roosevelt’s Life after 1886
Glossary of Latin Names of Wildlife Observed and Collected by Theodore Roosevelt
Works Consulted
Index
Preface
Theodore Roosevelt as Diarist
Theodore Roosevelt was a compulsive list-maker and journal-writer. The Theodore Roosevelt Collection at Harvard University is full of notebooks with titles such as “Notes on Natural History,” “Zoological Record,” and “Remarks on the Zoology of Oyster Bay.” In addition to diaries Roosevelt kept during two tours of Europe as a boy and young adolescent, he also kept a diary as lieutenant colonel of the Rough Riders during the Cuban campaign of 1898.
The diaries from 1877 to 1886 cover a key time in Roosevelt’s life and reveal how Roosevelt changed from a homesick and frequently ill adolescent at Harvard, to a strapping and confident young man. The diaries recount Roosevelt’s many love interests before he finally won the hand of Alice Hathaway Lee. As well as love, the diaries recount loss. Heartbreaking entries cover the death of Roosevelt’s father, mother, and wife. In addition to Roosevelt’s personal life, the diaries offer a glimpse of Roosevelt’s start in New York politics and of his three terms in the New York State Assembly. Finally, the diaries also describe his first trips out West and a large part of his two-year Western sojourn before returning to New York in 1886 after he became secretly engaged to Edith Carow, his childhood friend and adolescent love interest.
Biographers of Roosevelt have necessarily relied on the diaries to gain insight into Roosevelt. In the 1950s Carleton Putnam drew heavily on the diaries when they were still in the possession of Roosevelt’s eldest daughter, Alice, and the resulting biography, Theodore Roosevelt: The Formative Years , is probably the best treatment of Roosevelt’s early life until 1886. In his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt , Edmund Morris calls the diaries “the most revealing documents to survive.” David McCullough also relies heavily on the diaries for the relevant chapters in his National Book Award-winning Mornings on Horseback . The diaries obviously helped bring to life Theodore Roosevelt in a way that pleased readers and critics alike. Since these volumes, most biographers have tended to quickly slide past the years covered by the diaries. As a result, the diaries have arguably been underused in exploring Roosevelt’s early life, or, as Putnam correctly called them, his “formative years.”
Such lack of utilization of a valuable biographical source may result from the fact that until now the diaries have never been published. The question is: Why? The failure to publish the diaries may result from several factors. First, unlike many of the thousands of letters published in Elting Morison’s The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt , all diary entries are handwritten rather than typed. Deciphering Roosevelt’s writing, spelling, penmanship, and use of colloquial and specialized language is a daunting challenge. The second factor may be simple logistics. The diaries are not held in a single place. The first and last volumes are part of the Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard College, and the other volumes are part of the Library of Congress’s Theodore Roosevelt Collection. Finally, Roosevelt was not a consistent diarist. The 1877 volume contains about fifty entries, while the volumes covering 1878–1881 contain more comprehensive entries. The diaries from 1882 to 1886 are once again sparser, with no diary at all for 1885. Moreover, Roosevelt had a tendency to rip out entries. This was particularly the case in his 1884 diary after the death of his first wife, Alice, in February of that year. After her death Roosevelt also destroyed many of her letters and photographs. As a result there exists a great lack of personal information about Roosevelt for the years 1884–1886—a “lacuna,” as Morris notes.
This volume presents the diaries published in their entirety for the first time. Annotations seek to explain the people, places, and events Roosevelt noted. Entries are presented as Roosevelt penned them, complete with misspellings and grammatical mistakes. The notation “sic” has been used sparingly, usually when the mistake is particularly egregious or potentially confusing, while the correct spellings of names and places are given in footnotes. As Roosevelt used a fountain pen, inkblots have rendered some entries illegible. An introduction and conclusion summarize Roosevelt’s life before and after the years covered by the diaries in order that this volume might serve as a single source covering his entire life. At the center are Roosevelt’s personal diaries from 1877 to 1886, covering his life from age eighteen to twenty-seven. They provide a fascinating and intimate glimpse into the life and early political career of the young man who would one day become one of America’s most important presidents.
Introduction
Theodore Roosevelt’s Life until 1877
Theodore Roosevelt was born in New York City on October 27, 1858, in a luxurious brownstone house near Gramercy Park. His father, Theodore Roosevelt Sr., was a partner in Roosevelt and Son with the Roosevelt family patriarch, the future president’s grandfather Cornelius Van Schaack Roosevelt. Theodore Roosevelt Sr. was a great philanthropist in his day, helping found the Newsboys’ Lodging House and Orthopedic Dispensary Hospital, as well as the American Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. During the Civil War, Roosevelt Sr. had paid a substitute rather than risk being conscripted into the army, a common practice among men of his class. Instead, he became one of three allotment commissioners, responsible for persuading soldiers to set aside part of their monthly pay for their families back home.
Theodore Roosevelt Sr.’s strong pro-Union sentiment inevitably clashed with his wife’s sympathy for the Confederacy. Martha “Mittie” Bulloch Roosevelt had grown up on a classic Southern plantation in Georgia called Bulloch Hall, and had regaled her children with stories of slaves and the Old South. Mittie even had two brothers, Irving and James, who served in the Confederate Navy. Having been transplanted from rural Georgia to New York City, Mittie was something of an alien in such an urban setting. She lived in terror of dirt and of the contaminated food and water that could lead to typhus, a common and deadly malady of the nineteenth century.
Theodore Roosevelt was the second of four children born to Theodore Sr. and Mittie. Anna or “Bamie” was born only three years before him, but acted almost as a second mother to her younger siblings, always sitting and conferring with the “big people,&#