Existing comment:
Theodore Roosevelt's family in the White House
When this photograph was taken, the president's family was preparing to leave the White House, and Roosevelt's hand-picked successor, William Taft, was expected to become president. Immediately after his presidency, Roosevelt would travel to British East Africa (present-day Kenya). He had been planning, in conjunction with the Smithsonian Institution, a large safari to collect specimens for the natural museum. Roosevelt would just be fifty, young for an ex-president but not for the formidable risks of hunting big game. He had decided to take along his nineteen-year-old bookish son Kermit (second from left), and he wanted to toughen up the fragile young man and remove him from the influence of his mother. Edith Roosevelt had reconciled herself to her husband's craving for risk and adventure, trusting that Theodore's seeming invincibility would protect her more vulnerable son.
Harris & Ewing Studio, 1908-9
Theodore Roosevelt posed for this photograph at Montauk, Long Island, shortly before his First Volunteer Cavalry Regiment-which fought in Cuba during the Spanish-American War-was mustered out of service in September 1898. Later, Roosevelt described in a letter how he looked and dressed in the war. Unlike his image here, he said, "In Cuba I did not have the side of my hat turned up." |