The Man Who Refused to Sit Still: Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt was born on October 27, 1858, in New York City, into a wealthy and prominent family. From childhood, he suffered from severe asthma that left him frequently bedridden, but instead of surrendering to his fragile constitution, he threw himself into a lifelong pursuit of physical activity and outdoor adventure. By the time he reached adulthood, he had transformed himself into one of the most vigorous and restless figures in American public life.
Roosevelt attended Harvard College, graduating in 1880, and briefly studied law at Columbia before abandoning it to enter politics. He was elected to the New York State Assembly at just twenty-three years old, becoming one of its youngest members. In 1884, within a span of about twelve hours, both his mother and his young wife, Alice Lee Roosevelt, died on the same day in the same house. The grief broke something in him temporarily. He retreated to the Dakota Territory, where he worked as a rancher and hunted big game, using the wilderness as a kind of therapy for his shattered nerves.
He returned to politics and held a series of increasingly important roles, including U.S. Civil Service Commissioner, President of the New York City Police Board, and Assistant Secretary of the Navy. When the Spanish-American War broke out in 1898, he resigned from the Navy Department and helped organize the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, popularly known as the Rough Riders. His charge up Kettle Hill during the Battle of Santiago de Cuba made him a national hero, and he rode that fame directly into the New York governorship later that year.
In 1900, the Republican Party chose him as the vice presidential candidate alongside William McKinley. After McKinley was assassinated in September 1901, Roosevelt was sworn in as the twenty-sixth President of the United States at forty-two years old, making him the youngest person ever to hold the office. He went on to win the 1904 election in his own right by a wide margin.
His presidency reshaped the relationship between the federal government and big business. He used the Sherman Antitrust Act aggressively, breaking up major railroad and oil trusts that had operated without meaningful oversight. His administration created the Food and Drug Administration and passed the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act in 1906. He also set aside roughly 230 million acres of public land for conservation, establishing national parks, national forests, wildlife refuges, and bird reserves at a rate no president before or since has matched.
In 1906, he became the first American to win the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded for his role in brokering the Treaty of Portsmouth, which ended the Russo-Japanese War.
Roosevelt left the presidency in 1909, handed power to his chosen successor William Howard Taft, and promptly left for a year-long safari in Africa. He never truly stopped moving. He died on January 6, 1919, at his home in Oyster Bay, New York, at sixty years old. His doctor said he simply went to sleep and never woke up.