The subtitle changes the false impression the title gives: The Women Who Created a President makes clear this is not a salacious tale of Teddy Roosevelt’s love life. Instead, as the author puts it in the Preface, “Theodore Roosevelt was not the impossibly hardy, self-made man of myth and lore. Far from it. The most masculine president in the American memory was in fact the product of largely unsung and certainly extraordinary women.”
The women O’Keefe writes about are his mother Martha Bullock Roosevelt (Mittie), his sister Anna Roosevelt Coles (Bamie), an astute political advisor, his sister Corinne Roosevelt Robinson (Connie), good at publicity, his first wife Alice Lee Roosevelt, and his second wife, Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt. O’Keefe describes Roosevelt’s mother, Mittie, as “witty and decisive” who was a strong role model for her son.
He met his first wife Alice through her brother, a friend at school. Alice’s family included Cabots and Saltonstalls, and Roosevelt loved the lively, progressive talk of that clan. He was influenced by Alice and her family and wrote a paper supporting equal pay for women and moved from his initial interest in science to become interested in the political world. After only four years of marriage, the beautiful and lively Alice died after their daughter Alice was born. It was an especially horrific day for Roosevelt as his mother also died that day.
From the outset his sister Bamie was the one who helped him see how to have a successful political career. They wrote to each other almost daily throughout their lives. Connie, his younger sister, was good at keeping his name before the public.
His second wife Edith had been a close friend of the family from their childhoods and they had been sweethearts for a time. They married two years after Alice’s death and had a long and loving marriage, producing five children.The picture O’Keefe gives us of Edith and her influence is the clearest and most interesting. She was a dour introverted person and found being a hostess a difficult role. But Edith was politically astute, considered her involvement in Roosevelt’s work important, and could impose her will on him. Others observed that she ruled the roost. O’Keefe says she created the modern role of First Lady; she redocorated the White House and created a space so that she was “in the room” when Roosevelt met with others. She quietly knitted as they talked until the others left, then exerted her influence on him. She was the first to have a press secretary and she invited musicians to perform in the White House. Pablo Casals performed there twice, first at her invitation in 1904 and again in 1961 for the Kennedys. Despite her work which was surely fulfilling, she was happy when it was over.
My only disappointment was the lack of recognition of the work of Roosevelt’s daughter Alice. According to Stacy Cordery’s Alice, she was sent by Roosevelt as a goodwill ambassador to East Asia. She visited the Philippines, China, Japan, and Russia and acquitted herself very well. While it’s true she was probably not a formative influence on her father, she was an important element in his political life.
The author has worked in the media industry at ABC News, CNN, and as founder of NowThis, a start-up that distributes news in social media. His work in the news media explains his excellent work as the narrator of the audiobook. According to Wikipedia, he is now CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Foundation. His interest of Roosevelt came from his having been born in North Dakota, which claims Roosevelt because of his love of the Badlands.
In case this is not clear, let me say how much I enjoyed listening to this book. Such a great pleasure.
Edward F. O’Keefe, The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt, Simon & Schuster, 2024, 446 pages (I listened to the audiobook). Available in the public library.