Chapter One

FDR BIOGRAPHIES

Kenneth E. Hendrickson, Jr

Historians have long debated whether history is a science or an art, and some have concluded that the question is moot because science and art are closely related. In History as Art and as Science: Twin Vistas of the Past (Hughes 1964: 2), E. K. Carr argued that, “Scientists … and historians are … engaged in different branches of the same study: the study of man and his environment … the object … is the same: to increase man’s under- standing and mastery over his environment.” While this assessment may seem logical and persuasive at first glance, it is, in fact unsustainable. True, there may be some similarities between the goals of historians and scientists, but the similarities are, at best, superficial and in no way tie the two disciplines together. There is nothing scien- tific about history. It is a form of literature; it is a highly sophisticated but utterly unscientific art. Unlike the scientific process where objectivity is the essential ingredient and all examinations of the same evidence must produce the same result, the historical process is inevitably subjective. All historians – sometimes by design, sometimes unintentionally, but neverthe- less in all cases – impose themselves upon their subjects and the cumulative result is often chaos. That is, the outcomes produced by various historians dealing with theCOPYRIGHTED same topic are never the same MATERIAL and thus result in confu- sion. Put another way, if one examines all the historical literature on a given topic, the answers to the fundamental question of how human beings seek to understand and control their environment are never clear. Moreover, in no subdiscipline of history is this phenomenon more obvious than in biog- raphy, and no subject of biography has generated more literary chaos than Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

A Companion to Franklin D. Roosevelt, First Edition. William D. Pederson. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2011 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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Roosevelt became the subject of historians and other writers long before his death, has continued to attract attention to the present time, and with- out doubt will be targeted by many writers with various agendas well into the future. The total number of books on Roosevelt is staggering. In addi- tion to biographies, there are works dealing with topics such as the Great Depression, World War II, and general politics, and all of them, of course, include some biographical material. But this chapter, for the most part, deals only with those works intended to be biographical in the strictest sense of the word. Even this approach leads to more than 80 books, and not all of them are discussed. Instead, the most important biographies are selected and divided into four categories: those written by professional his- torians, journalists, close associates, and relatives. The discussion of them suggests the imperfect nature of Roosevelt biographical literature.

Historians

Emil Ludwig comes first in the discussion. A Pole who lived at various times in Poland, Switzerland, the United States, and Germany, he could be classified as either a historian or a journalist, but I have chosen to include him with the former because of the quantity and quality of his biographical and historical works. His biography, Roosevelt: A Study in Fortune and Power (Ludwig 1938 – English translation by Maurice Samuel), was released in the United States in 1938. Though he attempted to enshrine Roosevelt’s greatness as the savior of the capitalist system and democracy, the result is overly sentimental and not especially persuasive. Nearly a decade and a half lapsed before another historian attempted a Roosevelt biography, but once Frank Freidel began, he maintained his interest in Roosevelt for the remainder of his life After spending most of his academic career at Harvard, he concluded it at the University of Washington. His four-volume biography appeared over the course of 20 years. First was Franklin D. Roosevelt: The Apprenticeship (1952), followed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt: The Ordeal (1954), Franklin Delano Roosevelt: The Triumph (1956), and FDR: Launching the New Deal (1973). The delay in the publication of the fourth volume was caused by the controversy that blazed about the New Deal during the Red Scare of the 1950s and the search for additional documents. While generally sympathetic to Roosevelt, Freidel’s work is also critical when the need is obvious, in such cases, for example, as the Supreme Court fiasco and his intervention in the congres- sional election of 1938. It is one of the best written and most comprehen- sive of all the FDR biographies and remains today an excellent example of biographical literature, although it is not definitive. The next historian to publish a Roosevelt biography was James McGregor Burns. Professor Burns is a well-known presidential biographer and an

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authority on leadership studies, serving as the Woodrow Wilson Professor Emeritus, of Political Science at Williams College. His two-volume biogra- phy is Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox (1956) and Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom, 1940–45 (1970) The second volume won a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award in 1971. The former is a fine example of historical literature, in which Burns evaluates FDR as a leader and politician during the Great Depression. Finding both weakness and strength, many fans of the president did not like the book; nevertheless, it was for the most part well received by reviewers. In Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom, Burns once again exhibited his skill as a literary craftsman. More critical of FDR than in the first volume, he describes the president as a deeply divided man who provided inadequate leadership to a fragmented nation. He censures Roosevelt especially for his treatment of the Japanese Americans and his insensitivity to civil liberties. Professor Dexter Perkins was known throughout the western world as a prominent authority on US history. During his long career, he taught at the University of Rochester, Cornell University, the University of London, and Cambridge. He was the official US historian at the San Francisco Security Conference that preceded the organization of the United Nations in 1945. His biography, entitled The New Age of Franklin Roosevelt, 1932–1945 (1956), is an account of FDR’s leadership through the Great Depression and World War II. Though only 193 pages, mostly anecdotal, not based on primary sources, and bereft of anything unknown up to its date of publica- tion, it is a well-balanced, fair-minded summary of what many have styled the beginning of America’s modern era. It is also beautifully written and thus attracted many readers who were not likely to seek out the massive multi-volume works of other well-known authors. One of those who, like Frank Freidel, successfully attempted a huge multi-volume biography was Kenneth S. Davis, who graduated from Kansas State University in 1934 with a degree in journalism and received a Master of Science degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1935. He taught journalism at New York University, was a war correspondent during World War II, and later taught history at both Kansas State and the University of Kansas. Though a biographer of Charles Lindbergh, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Adlai Stevenson, his best known biography is on FDR. Davis intended to produce five volumes, but the last was never com- pleted due to his illness and death in 1999. Volume I, FDR: The Beckoning of Destiny, 1882–1928 (1972) is based largely on secondary sources, mainly from Burns and Freidel, but also includes some new information. The major thesis of this book is that character develops and persists; it does not appear full blown at birth, nor does it change to meet each new responsibility. He pictures Roosevelt not as a hero, but as a man whose character exhibited significant flaws. FDR: The New York Years, 1928–1932 (1985) features Roosevelt as governor of New York and as candidate for the Democratic

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presidential nomination. Again, the author is both sympathetic and critical. The best parts of this volume are the description of Roosevelt’s assembling of the Brains Trust and its persuasive argument that Roosevelt represented a significant political alternative in 1932. He entitled volume III FDR: The New Deal Years, 1933–1937 (1986). Here, he focused on the period known to historians as the First New Deal, considering issues such as currency reform, banking, agriculture, labor, the regulation of labor relations, wel- fare, and especially social security. Roosevelt, says Davis, was essentially conservative in his outlook and succeeded not because of any particular piece of legislation, but because of his grasp of his historic role. His approach to practically all problems was both pragmatic and erratic. FDR: Into the Storm, 1937–1941 (1993), was Davis’s fourth and last volume. It covers the efforts to sustain the New Deal, the Supreme Court controversy, the failed purge of conservative Democrats, the successful bat- tles over wages and hours, farm tenancy, housing bills, and the third-term struggle. With respect to the latter, Davis is at his best as an analyst. For example, he shows that Roosevelt knew Wendell Willkie represented a seri- ous threat, but was mistaken in his belief that Willkie was a puppet of the far right. Davis is very critical of the president for his handling of events leading up to US entry into World War II. He pictures Roosevelt as a cau- tious and ineffective leader, who had an opportunity to deter Hitler and failed. How Davis would have interpreted Roosevelt’s wartime leadership will never be known, but it was obvious that as each volume appeared, Davis’s work became more critical and more controversial. At the same time it received significant recognition. Volume I won the Francis Parkman Prize in 1973 and was nominated for the National Book Award. The New York Times ranked volumes I and II among the 10 best books of the years when they appeared. Gerald D. Nash, Distinguished Professor of History at the University of New Mexico, produced a biographical work entitled Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1967), not written by himself but consisting of excerpts from the works of other authors, including Richard Hofstadter, James McGregor Burns, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr, and Roosevelt himself. The president’s section, Part I, features comments about the first 50 years of his life and career. Part II consists of comments by people who knew Roosevelt, includ- ing his mother, American politicians, journalists, and world leaders. Part III includes well-known interpretations by Hofstadter, Burns, Schlesinger, and John Gunther. All the entries are very brief, running from a few paragraphs to five or six pages. Nash’s goal was to combine the intimacy of autobiog- raphy, the immediacy of eyewitness observations, and the “objectivity” of modern scholarship. Whether or not he was successful can be determined only by the reader. John Morton Blum has long been regarded as one of the preeminent political historians in the United States. One of his best known works is a

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college textbook, The American Experience, still in use by many universi- ties, but he also was the author of another important work, The Progressive Presidents: Roosevelt, Wilson, Roosevelt, and Johnson (1980). Blum, an out- spoken liberal, argues that the progressive presidents, including FDR, suc- cessfully protected capitalism from both right and left wing extremists by pushing successfully for significant domestic reforms. Their achievements, he declares, far outweigh any of their activities that might be regarded as abuses of power. They performed well despite their imperfections. One of the best one-volume Roosevelt biographies came from the pen of “Ted Morgan,” the pseudonym of a French-American writer whose real name is Comte St Charles Armand Gabriel de Gramont. In 1977, he became an American citizen and adopted the name “Ted Morgan,” which is an anagram of De Garmont. In addition to his biography of FDR, he has writ- ten much admired biographies of Winston Churchill and Somerset Maugham. In FDR: A Biography (1985), he covers Roosevelt’s entire life and career in 800 pages. He is neither a great admirer nor a hateful critic, but attempts to capture the character of a man he saw as at once judicious, rash, cunning, naive, mean, and generous. To do this, he reconstructs the atmosphere of Roosevelt’s day, recounts anecdotes, recreates events, and by implication asks readers to judge for themselves. This technique is interest- ing, but of course produces mixed results. Geoffrey C. Ward is both an historian and a screenwriter. Early in his career he was an editor for American Heritage magazine, and he later col- laborated with Ken Burns on the television mini-series The Civil War and several documentaries, including Jazz, Baseball, The War, and The West. His biography of FDR, Before the Trumpet: Young Franklin Roosevelt, 1882–1905 (1985), won the National Book Critics Award and the Francis Parkman Award. It begins with FDR’s birth and concludes with his marriage to Eleanor. He intended to add a second volume but never did, although he published several articles dealing with various aspects of Roosevelt’s life and career. Among the best parts of Before the Trumpet are Ward’s discussions of Roosevelt’s relationship with his mother, and his courtship of Eleanor. He also focuses on the source of certain aspects of Roosevelt’s character, espe- cially his boldness, caution, deviousness, charm, and self-assurance. Professor Patrick J. Maney contributed his Roosevelt biography in 1992. Maney received his PhD from the University of Maryland in 1976. He taught for several years at the University of South Carolina and Tulane, and later at Boston College. In The Roosevelt Presence: The Life and Legacy of FDR (1992), he pictures Roosevelt as a decisive figure in American history largely because, in one way or another, he influenced many of his successors – Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Clinton, and even Reagan. The Roosevelt administration contributed, among other things, social security, unem- ployment insurance, minimum wage law, public housing, bankruptcy insur- ance, farm subsidies, and regulation of the stock market. These became

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permanent fixtures in American society and have remained so whether sup- ported, ignored, or opposed by those leaders who came after Roosevelt. After a hiatus of a decade, historians once again turned their attention to Roosevelt and produced some interesting work. One of the first authors in this group was the Englishman, Roy Jenkins, the author of many books, including the prize-winning Winston Churchill. He was a politician, having served in the House of Commons as Minister of Aviation, Home Secretary, and Chancellor of the Exchequer, as well as Chancellor of the University of Oxford, and was raised to the House of Lords in 1987. His biography of FDR, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (2003), was unfinished at the time of his death, but was completed by Richard E. Neustadt. Although only 208 pages, it is insightful. In very stylish prose, Jenkins deals with the peculiari- ties of Roosevelt’s character, his skill and flexibility as a politician, and his ability to charm and dazzle both close associates and casual acquaintances, while at the same time keeping them at arms length. He gives Roosevelt high marks as commander-in-chief, arguing that he successfully oversaw the complex mobilization of the economy and the military during World War II. Emphasizing the importance of Roosevelt’s relationship with Eleanor – who, he reminds readers – was not only his wife but an important adviser, despite their peculiar relationship. Two historians, Allan Winkler and Jeffery W. Coker, published Roosevelt biographies in 2005. Coker’s work, Franklin Delano Roosevelt: A Biography (2005), appeared in May, and Winkler’s Franklin Delano Roosevelt (2005) came out in July. Coker, an Assistant Professor of History at Belmont University, had two books to his credit before embarking on the Roosevelt project. His work is part of Greenwood’s Biographies Series and is brief. Nevertheless, he traces Roosevelt’s life from his childhood through the New Deal and the war, and concludes with a discussion of the various con- troversies concerning his legacy. Though critical of Roosevelt and not rank- ing him as one of the greatest presidents, at the same time he admits that Roosevelt was one of the most influential presidents; that influence being not entirely positive. Allan Winkler is Distinguished Professor of History at Miami University in Ohio. His work, an addition to Longman’s Library of American Biography Series, is also brief. Though little more than a sum- mary from earlier, more extensive studies, it is clear and concise and much less judgmental than Coker’s volume. Two longer Roosevelt biographies by Jean Edward Smith and H. W. Brands appeared in 2008. Professor Brands is the Dickson Allen Anderson Centennial Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin, who has also published biographies of Andrew Jackson and Benjamin Franklin, among others. Professor Smith is the author of 12 books, including biogra- phies of Ulysses S. Grant, John Marshall, and Lucius D. Clay. He taught at the University of Toronto for 35 years before joining the faculty at Marshall University, where he is the John Marshall Professor of Political Science.

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Brands’s volume, Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (2008), is a big book weighing in at 896 pages. Based on both primary and secondary sources and featuring attractive prose, Brands deals with the president’s early life, of course, and devotes two-thirds of the book to the New Deal and World War II, but adds little that is new to the Roosevelt story. So, his work attracted some unfriendly evaluations. For example, in its November 4, 2008 edition, Publishers’ Weekly summarized the overall value of Brands’s effort as fol- lows: “It’s fitting that Roosevelt commands the amount of scholarly atten- tion that he does, but sad that so much is wholly redundant with what has come before.” FDR (2008) is Professor Smith’s contribution. In summing up Roosevelt’s legacy, Smith argues that the president engineered fundamental changes in the relationship between the American people and the government, revolu- tionized the art of campaigning, and used the media more effectively than anyone else to gain the support of the public and at the same time calm their fears. Very persuasive in arguing its conclusions, Smith’s work is one of the most powerful accounts of Roosevelt’s career. One of the most unusual and engaging contributions to Roosevelt litera- ture is Joseph E. Persico’s Franklin and Lucy: President Roosevelt, Mrs. Rutherfurd, and the Other Remarkable Women in His Life (2009). Using never before revealed documents from Lucy Rutherfurd’s estate, Persico demonstrates that Roosevelt’s affair with her was much more intense and much longer than has been generally believed. He also explains more clearly than any of his predecessors how Roosevelt’s infidelity transformed his wife from a repressed Victorian girl into one of the greatest women of the twen- tieth century. By focusing on Roosevelt’s relationship with the women in his life, Persico creates a unique portrait of this complex American leader. The most recent Roosevelt biography is the work of Alan Brinkley, Allan Nevins Professor of History at Columbia University. His Franklin Delano Roosevelt (2009) is brief (128 pages) and features an unusual twist. He summarizes FDR’s entire career with an emphasis on the New Deal, refer- ring not to its impact on American society and the size of the federal bureaucracy during the 1930s, but its relationship to the efforts of later administrations and the implementation of deficit spending. Although strictly speaking not a biography, one cannot ignore the mag- nificent work of Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr, who did his graduate work in history at Harvard, but never completed a PhD. During World War II, he served in the Office of War Information and the Office of Strategic Services. He began his teaching career at Harvard in 1939, returned after the war, and stayed there until 1961. After serving as an adviser to the Kennedy administration, he again returned to teaching in 1966, as Albert Schweitzer Professor of Humanities at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, retiring in 1994. Between 1939 and 2007, he produced 29

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books, two of which won the Pulitzer Prize, but his best known work is his three-volume study of Roosevelt and the New Deal. The titles are: The Crisis of the Old Order: 1919–1933 (1957), The Coming of the New Deal: 1933– 1935 (1958), and The Politics of Upheaval: 1935–1936 (1960). Schlesinger meant to complete his study of Roosevelt with two additional volumes cov- ering the last days of the New Deal and the war, but instead went to work as an adviser to JFK in 1961 and never returned to this project. Throughout his life, Schlesinger remained an unapologetic liberal and his written works reflect that stance. These three lengthy volumes (1976 pages), devote considerable space to both the life and career of Roosevelt and are, for the most part, biased in favor of the president. He notes Roosevelt’s shortcomings, but is more understanding than many of his biographers. As a result, conservatives do not care much for Schlesinger, but be that as it may, all serious students of recent American history must reckon with him, whether they like him or not.

Journalists

Ernest K. Lindley was an internationally known journalist and foreign affairs expert. He and his wife, Elizabeth, were friends with Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, so Lindley was chosen as the first authorized Roosevelt biogra- pher. Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Career in Progressive Democracy (1932) was, of course, a campaign biography, which stressed Roosevelt’s service during the Wilson administration and his physical fitness in public service. At about the same time that Lindley was at work, reporter Earle Looker, who had been a friend of the Oyster Bay Roosevelts, challenged Franklin to undergo a thorough examination to determine his physical fitness and, satisfied, he wrote several articles and produced two pro-Roosevelt books. This Man Roosevelt (1932) is another campaign biography, and a very good one. It is vivacious in style, but not maudlin or hopelessly eulogistic. FDR liked it. Two years later, Looker published The American Way: Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Action (1934). Here, he begins with a description of the earliest efforts of the National Recovery Administration, but he also devotes considerable space – two-thirds of the book, in fact – to Roosevelt’s life before the presidency. Even though Looker was a lifelong Republican, he continued his praise for FDR. Gerald White Johnson was a journalist, editor, essayist, historian, biogra- pher, and novelist. A professor of journalism at the University of North Carolina, who worked at the Baltimore Evening Sun for many years, he was a friend of H. L. Mencken. In 1941, he published a review of the Roosevelt administration entitled Roosevelt: Dictator or Democrat?, which was the first major defense of the New Deal in American historical literature. The work is skillfully done, the arguments are persuasive, and the writing style is

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appealing. Johnson’s work is included in the realm of biography because, in addition to his analysis of the New Deal, he considers Roosevelt’s early life and career. Among those who hated Roosevelt, the most virulent was John T. Flynn. By the time of Roosevelt’s drive for the White House, Flynn was one of the best known political commentators in the country and at first he supported the New York governor. But soon after the election he began to criticize the New Deal, and by 1936 he had broken completely with Roosevelt and began to call him a fascist. Flynn also detested Roosevelt’s foreign policy and was one of the founders of the America First Committee. After that group disbanded in 1941, Flynn renewed his savage attacks on the New Deal, referring to it as a degenerate form of socialism. In 1948, he pub- lished The Roosevelt Myth (1948), the most scandalous attack to appear to that date. In it, Flynn accused FDR of ruining the nation with the New Deal and plunging it into the war in a quest for personal power and glory. His book was little more than a study in pathological hatred, but Roosevelt was not his only target. Later in his life, he supported Senator Joe McCarthy, was rejected by such reasonable conservatives as William F. Buckley, and joined forces with the John Birch Society. Two years after the appearance of Flynn’s assault on FDR, the renowned journalist John Gunther published Roosevelt in Retrospect (1950). Despite his fame as a journalist, Gunther had only met FDR socially on four or five occasions. Nevertheless, his book is replete with details, pertinent anecdotes, and interesting sidelights that appear to reflect significant personal contact but in fact represent an affective culling of the previously published works of those who were close to the president. Like most of Gunther’s writings, it is beautifully done and was happily received by Roosevelt admirers, but as Gunther himself stated, it was not intended to be definitive. Instead, he saw it as a preliminary sketch summarizing the existing journalistic and personal literature on Roosevelt, and encouraging further research. After the appearance of Gunther’s work, there would not be another Roosevelt biography by a journalist for 11 years. Then, in 1961, Nicholas Halasz published Roosevelt through Foreign Eyes (1961). A native of Slovakia, which was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the time of his birth, Halasz was trained in both the law and journalism but devoted himself to a writing career after coming to the United States in 1941. The purpose of his book was to analyze Roosevelt in light of his impact on world opinion. He succeeded in producing a reasonably accurate appraisal of the interest in and the understanding of the New Deal among serious writers in England, France, Switzerland, and even Germany, at least until the late 1930s. The result was useful, but by no means complete. In 1982, Joseph Alsop published FDR, 1882–1940: A Century Remem- bered (1982), a sentimental celebration of Roosevelt’s centennial birthday. The following year, a journalist attempted a more serious biography. This

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time it was Nathan Miller, an award-winning author of 12 books of biogra- phy and history. FDR: An Intimate History (1983), a lengthy tome (563 pages), is based largely on well-documented secondary sources and thus adds no new facts or interpretations that would be of interest to Roosevelt scholars. However, it is skillfully written and was popular with the general reading public when it appeared. The major problem with the book is its lack of balance. More than 300 pages are devoted to the period before the presidency and only 40 pages to World War II. By far the best Roosevelt biography by a journalist, Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom (2005), has come from Conrad Black. Formerly the chairman and chief executive officer of Hollinger International, Inc., whose newspaper holdings include the Daily and Sunday Telegraph and The Spectator in London, the Chicago Sun-Times, and the Jerusalem Post, Black entered the British House of Lords as Lord Black of Crossharbour in 2001. Although his political views are generally conservative, he is a great fan of Roosevelt. He argues that FDR was the most important person of the twentieth century because he transformed the United States and the world with unequaled skill as a politician, war leader, strategist, and vision- ary. His interpretation offers a stark and persuasive contrast to those of Burns and Davis.

Associates

The first of Roosevelt’s closest associates to attempt a biography was Frances Perkins, in The Roosevelt I Knew (1946). The first woman to hold a cabinet position, serving as Secretary of Labor, Perkins was a loyal Roosevelt sup- porter who helped pull the labor movement into the New Deal coalition and worked hard supporting most New Deal reform legislation. She was one of only two cabinet members – the other being Harold Ickes, Secretary of the Interior – who remained in office through Roosevelt’s entire presi- dency. Her book is divided into four parts: “The Man,” “The State,” “The Nation,” and “The World,” where she places the president, his character, and his polices in the relevant context. Her writing is clear and strong, and even though she was openly biased, she was by no means uncritical of Roosevelt as a man or a leader. But whether he was right or wrong, she believed that Roosevelt’s leadership was the means by which the people’s voice was heard. The Perkins biography was followed by Grace Tully’s effort. Tully went to work for Eleanor Roosevelt when FDR was running for governor of New York in 1928. When he was elected, she became assistant to Roosevelt’s personal secretary, Marguerite “Missy” LeHand. Tully was ill at the time of Roosevelt’s move to the White House, but joined the staff in 1934 and became the president’s personal secretary in 1941. She remained in that

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position until Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, at Warm Springs, Georgia. She was with him on that day. FDR: My Boss (1949) is not a complete biog- raphy, but it is an important memoir of 17 years of close association with one of the great leaders of the twentieth century, in which the author affirms her belief in his simplicity, courage, and honesty. More important than the efforts of Perkins and Tully are those of Rexford Tugwell. Holding a PhD in economics from the University of Pennsylvania, he joined the faculty of Columbia University in 1922, and then joined the Roosevelt team in 1932, playing a key role in the presidential campaign as a member of the Brains Trust. He was named Assistant Secretary of Agriculture in 1934 and was promoted to Under Secretary that same year. In 1935, he was named director of the Resettlement Administration. Tugwell pursued other interests from 1937 to 1940, but was appointed Governor of Puerto Rico in 1941 and held that position until 1946. His first book about the president, The Democratic Roosevelt (1957), deals with both Roosevelt’s political and personal lives and explains the latter from a psychological viewpoint. It is sympathetic but much less personal than the works by Perkins and Tully, and actually tries to be objective. He drew heavily on his own relationship with Roosevelt, but did not attempt to place himself in the forefront of events. His book was regarded by many as the best Roosevelt biography for that time. Ten years later, Tugwell brought forth a second biography, FDR: Architect of an Era (1967). In the preface, he informs readers that his goal is to describe the changes during the Roosevelt years that were intended to improve the lives of the American people and bring permanent peace to the world. His description and analysis of Roosevelt’s polices, followed by a brief evaluation, leaves more questions than it answers. His third book, In Search of Roosevelt (1973), consists of a series of essays drawn from previ- ously published material. They were carefully chosen to capture a sense of intimacy and nostalgia, to demonstrate Roosevelt’s response to various cir- cumstances, but not to provide a final understanding of his character. In 1977, Tugwell published his last book on the president, Roosevelt’s Revolution: The First Year (1977). Part autobiography and part analysis, it dealt with the first year of Roosevelt’s administration and was extremely critical, with an emphasis on politics, corruption, and incompetence.

Relatives

Roosevelt’s mother, Sara, was the first of his blood relatives to produce a biography, with My Boy Franklin, as told to Isabel Leighton and Gabrielle Forbush (1933). It covers the first 50 years of Roosevelt’s life, with an empha- sis on his childhood and youth, and his political career from the time he served in the New York State legislature to the beginnings of his presidency.

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Anecdotal rather than scholarly, it is beautifully written and entertaining to the general reader even today. With the help of journalist Sidney Shalett, Roosevelt’s oldest son, James, wrote Affectionately, F.D.R.: A Son’s Story of a Lonely Man (1959), which makes clear from the beginning that he adored his father; James uses many intimate family stories to lend depth to his claim. One of the most engaging confessions of the younger Roosevelt comes from his description of his relationship with FDR, revealing that he often felt as though he had not one but three fathers. First was the glamorous, vigorous man of the pre- polio period, second was the man of the recovery period, when James and the other children felt as if they had no father, and third was the father as a public figure. James was closer to this version of his father than his brothers and sister because, as the oldest, he was at times FDR’s legs, his unofficial aid, and finally an official White House assistant. The book is revealing in many ways, but is best described as a study in hero worship. James Roosevelt’s younger brother, Elliott, published two biographical studies of his father, An Untold Story: The Roosevelts of Hyde Park with James Brough (1973), and A Rendezvous with Destiny: The Roosevelts of the White House (1975). The former includes valuable insight into FDR’s campaign for the vice presidency in 1920, his two terms as governor of New York, and his quest for the presidential nomination in 1932, with the aid of Louis Howe. The Untold Story also reveals details about Franklin and Eleanor’s marital life, and makes specific references to FDR’s intimate rela- tions with Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd and Marguerite “Missy” LeHand. While the book is equally as personal as James’s effort, it is much less heroic. Elliott’s second volume follows the Roosevelt saga from the days of the Great Depression to World War II. While it describes the conclusion of FDR’s dalliance with Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd, it adds little to what was well known at the time of publication.

Conclusion

There is one large category of Roosevelt biographies that has been omitted from this discussion: children’s books. Amazingly, since 1946 more than two dozen Roosevelt biographies aimed at the young readers’ market have been published. They are, for the most part brief, bland and un-analytical, and their inclusion here would neither clear nor further cloud the effort to answer the fundamental question concerning Roosevelt biographies. That question is: After examining all the major discussions of Roosevelt’s life, is it possible for the serious reader to come away with a clear picture of the man? Probably not. As mentioned earlier, historical research is not scientific. Therefore, it is inevitable that the work of various researchers produces various results. Of

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course, the issues faced by all presidential biographers are similar. They include questions of character, leadership skill, domestic policy-making skill, foreign policy-making skill, communications skill, personal relations, political philosophy, family matters, and so on. It is true that practically all biographers approach these questions and attempt to deal with them, but it is also true that even if their conclusions are similar they are infrequently given equal weight, and this leads to distortion of the final picture; that is, “literary chaos.” Among the accepted definitions of the term chaos is “extreme confusion or disorder.” The serious student of Roosevelt biogra- phy is likely to experience confusion and disorder, but an examination of the 34 essays that follow should help to deal with these problems.

REFERENCES Alsop, J., 1982. FDR, 1882–1940: A Century Remembered. New York: Viking. Black, C., 2005. Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom. New York: Perseus. Blum, J. M., 1980. The Progressive Presidents: Roosevelt, Wilson, Roosevelt, and Johnson. New York: W. W. Norton. Brands, H. W., 2008. Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. New York: Doubleday. Brinkley, A., 2009. Franklin Delano Roosevelt. New York: Oxford University Press. Burns, J. M., 1956. Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox. New York: Harcourt. Burns, J. M., 1970. Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom. New York: Harcourt. Coker, J. W., 2005. Franklin Delano Roosevelt: A Biography. New York: Longman. Davis, K. S., 1972. FDR: The Beckoning of Destiny, 1882–1928. New York: Putnam. Davis, K. S., 1985. FDR: The New York Years, 1928–1932. New York: Random House. Davis, K. S., 1986. FDR: The New Deal Years, 1933–1937. New York: Putnam. Davis, K. S., 1993. FDR: Into the Storm, 1937–1941. New York: Putnam. Flynn, J. T., 1948. The Roosevelt Myth. New York: Devin-Adair. Freidel, F., 1952. Franklin D. Roosevelt: The Apprenticeship. New York: Little Brown. Freidel, F., 1954. Franklin D. Roosevelt: The Ordeal. New York: Little Brown. Freidel, F., 1956. Franklin D. Roosevelt: The Triumph. New York: Little Brown. Freidel, F., 1973. Franklin D. Roosevelt: Launching the New Deal. New York: Little Brown. Gunther, J., 1950. Roosevelt in Retrospect. New York: Harpers. Halasz, N., 1961. Roosevelt through Foreign Eyes. Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand. Hughes, H. S., ed., 1964. History as Art and as Science: Twin Vistas of the Past. New York: Harper Torch Books. Jenkins, R., 2003. Franklin Delano Roosevelt. New York: Times Books. Johnson, G. W., 1941. Roosevelt: Dictator or Democrat? New York: Harpers. Lindley, E. K., 1932. Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Career in Progressive Democracy. New York: Dobbs.

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Looker, E., 1932. This Man Roosevelt. New York: Brewer, Warren and Putnam. Looker, E., 1934. The American Way: Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Action. New York: Day. Ludwig, E., 1938. Roosevelt: A Study in Fortune and Power. New York: The Viking Press. Maney, P. J., 1992. The Roosevelt Presence: The Life and Legacy of FDR. New York: Twayne. Miller, N., 1983. FDR: An Intimate History. New York: Doubleday. Morgan, T., 1985. FDR: A Biography. New York: Simon and Schuster. Nash, G. D., ed., 1967. Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Perkins, D., 1956. The New Age of Franklin Roosevelt, 1932–1945. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Perkins, F., 1946. The Roosevelt I Knew. New York: Viking. Persico, J. E., 2009. Franklin and Lucy: President Roosevelt, Mrs. Rutherfurd, and the Other Remarkable Women in his Life. New York: Random House. Roosevelt, E., 1973. An Untold Story: The Roosevelts of Hyde Park. New York: Putnam. Roosevelt, E., 1975. A Rendezvous with Destiny: The Roosevelts of the White House. New York: Putnam. Roosevelt, J., 1959. Affectionately, F.D.R.: A Son’s Story of a Lonely Man. New York: Harcourt Brace. Roosevelt, S., 1933. My Boy Franklin. New York: Roy Long and Richard Smith. Schlesinger, A. M., Jr, 1957. The Crisis of the Old Order: 1919–1933. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Schlesinger, A. M., Jr, 1958. The Coming of the New Deal: 1933–1935. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Schlesinger, A. M., Jr, 1960. The Politics of Upheaval, 1935–1936. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Smith, J. E., 2008. FDR. New York: Random House. Tugwell, R. G., 1957. The Democratic Roosevelt. New York: Doubleday. Tugwell, R. G., 1967. FDR: Architect of An Era. New York: Macmillan. Tugwell, R. G., 1973. In Search of Roosevelt. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Tugwell, R. G., 1977. Roosevelt’s Revolution: The First Year. New York: Macmillan. Tully, G., 1949. F.D.R: My Boss. New York: Scribner’s Sons. Ward, G. C., 1985. Before the Trumpet: Young Franklin Roosevelt, 1882–1905. New York: Harper & Row. Winkler, A., 2005. Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Making of Modern America. New York: Pearson/Longman.

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