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.