Welcome to the May edition of The Throwback, your monthly hit of entertaining and informative history tales that will make you say, “Wait! What?” If you are receiving this e-mail, you have signed up on my website or at one of my lectures or author events.
I can’t think of many historical figures more fascinating than Theodore Roosevelt. Bubbling with a seemingly superhuman energy, TR was not satisfied with living just one incredible life, he seemed to live several at once—naturalist, adventurer, writer, soldier, politician, president, historian. Even will all that he had going on, Roosevelt authored more than 30 books. (30!? The one downside of learning about TR is you’ll quickly get an inferiority complex.)
So naturally, I’m looking forward to watching the History Channel’s two-night Theodore Roosevelt docuseries, which premiers on Memorial Day and is executive produced by presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. The program is similar to one on Abraham Lincoln that ran in February, which I thought was well done, particularly since the actor portraying the Great Emancipator had to follow in the sizable footsteps of Daniel Day-Lewis.
In addition to TR’s public life, his personal story can be a source of inspiration as well. Renowned for his vigor as president, Roosevelt possessed little of it as a child. Malnourished from a lack of appetite, the scrawny boy with a sunken chest suffered from frequent colds, coughs, nausea, headaches, cramps and fevers. Let alone dream that their young “Teedie” could one day occupy the White House Roosevelt’s parents feared he wouldn’t survive his fourth birthday.
If TR was anything, though, he was a survivor. Challenged by his father (and certainly aided by his family wealth), Roosevelt remade his body. A human whirlwind for whom idleness was an enemy, Roosevelt threw himself into the drudgery of exercise to surmount his limitations. Click here to read the story I recently wrote for History.com about how TR developed his resilience, drive, and intellectual rigor as a boy growing up in Manhattan.
It was in New York City that TR first cut his (sizable) political teeth—maneuvering his way from the state assembly to the New York City police department to the governor’s mansion. After becoming the youngest man ever elected to the New York State Assembly, he endured terrible tragedy when his beloved mother and wife, who had given birth to their first child two days earlier, passed away just hours apart in the same house on Valentine’s Day in 1884.
The devastated Roosevelt sought solace in the Badlands of the Dakota Territory before returning to the city in 1886 to resume his political career, including a memorable stint as New York City police commissioner when he tried to tame a city teeming with vice, which you can read more about in this new article of mine.
Roosevelt extolled “the doctrine of the strenuous life,” as he called it in an 1899 speech, and few have lived their lives more vigorously than TR.
WHAT I’M WATCHING:In case you missed it, 60 Minutes ran a fascinating piece on Sunday about an Air Force veteran who discovered the new house he purchased in Virginia held quite a secret—it was once the seat of a plantation where his ancestors were enslaved. Behind the ornate house is a tin-roofed, dilapidated shack that once served as a slave quarters and further in the woods are the unmarked graves of the homeowner's enslaved ancestors. Click here to watch this fascinating story about how this hidden history was unearthed.
WHAT I’M READING:There are news days—and then there are NEWS days. January 22, 1973, was one of those days. That was the day that the U.S. Supreme Court announced its historic Roe v. Wade opinion, which of course is very much in the news today. While the network evening news broadcasts led with that story, news came in of the death of former President Lyndon B. Johnson. This video shows Walter Cronkite taking a phone call while on the air during the CBS Evening News and relaying the news to America. Oh, and U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was off to Paris that day to negotiate an end to the Vietnam War. This fantastic piece from the Washington Post website recaps the historic day and its long-lasting ramifications on American history. (If you get caught up in a paywall, some local libraries provide short-term access to the Post website through a library card.)
WHAT I'M WRITING ABOUT: Here's a roundup of some of the history-themed articles of mine that were published last month.
What Happened at the Wounded Knee Massacre?
White settlers feared the Lakota's Ghost Dance presaged an armed uprising. But US troops on December 28, 1890, carried out a bloodbath in which some 300 Lakota men, women and children were killed. The massacre marked a tragic coda to decades of violent confrontations between the United States and Plains Indians.
How German U-Boats Were Used in WWI—And Perfected in WWII
After terrorizing trans-Atlantic ships in World War I, including vessels in American waters, German U-boats grew even more fearsome in World War II. In both World Wars, U-boats sank 8,000 Allied merchant vessels and warships and killing tens of thousands. Conditions inside were hardly roomy. Sailors couldn’t shower or even change their clothes during patrols that could last two months at sea. Fifty men shared two toilets—one of which doubled as a food locker at the start of patrols—that couldn’t function when 80 feet or more below the surface.
PLEASE SUPPORT INDIE BOOKSTORES! The publishing industry has hardly been immune from the economic impact of the coronavirus. For businesses operating on small margins and struggling to compete with Amazon.com to begin with, the shutdown has inflicted deep blows on independent bookstores. When shopping for your next read, please consider making a purchase from your local independent bookstore or through Bookshop.org, which supports local bookstores. Every little bit helps.
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