There can be no question that women should have equal rights with men.
So began Theodore Roosevelts 1880 Harvard senior thesis, Practicability of Giving Men and Women Equal Rights.
He was shot by a would-be assassin and continued with his speech.
Theodore Roosevelt and his wife Edith Roosevelt.
I do not think the woman should assume the mans name.
I would have the word obey used no more by the wife than by the husband.
Roosevelt liked and listened to women in an age when womens pathways to power were narrow if non-existent.
Theodore Roosevelt and one of his granddaughters.
This was a revolutionary thought for someone of Roosevelts class and gender.
Roosevelt was raised in a house of strong women.
Theodore Roosevelt and one of his granddaughters.
Roosevelt’s first wife Alice Hathaway Lee, who died on February 14, 1884.
Theodores younger sister Conie was his confidante and emotional outlet.
It worked, and President Roosevelt counted a retinue of women activists among his fans.
Roosevelt liked and listened to women in an age when womens pathways to power were narrow if non-existent.
His family, especially these incredible women, informed his career path and his values.
Wharton recalled that being in the presence of TR glow in me like a tiny morsel of radium.
The author of such classics asThe Age of InnocenceandThe House of Mirthwas a frequent correspondent with the President.
Wharton was not the only woman of the age to correspond with Roosevelt.
Roosevelt took a stronger and more public stance against lynching than his presidential predecessors.
Famously, Roosevelt was the first president to invite a Black man to dinner at the White House.
The reaction was immediate and incendiary.
You are false to your duty as citizens and women if you fail to register and vote.
Roosevelts encouraging words in 1912 harkened back to his effusive defense of equality as a college senior in 1880.
Roosevelt graduated from Harvard College magna cum laude.
He was twenty-first in a class of 177.
Roosevelt’s first wife Alice Hathaway Lee, who died on February 14, 1884.
Halliday surmises the views in TRs senior thesis were largely the result of long conversations between the lovers.
It was not to be.
Tragically, Alice died on February 14, 1884, four years to the day of their engagement.
Edith was the opposite of Alice in just about every way.
They were secretly engaged and married in London.
Edith, along with his elder sister Bamie, was TRs most trusted advisor.
Roosevelt himself later confessed, Whenever I go against her judgement, I regret it.
And the women in his life prove no person is self-made, perhaps especially the great ones.
