Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Born	Franklin Delano Roosevelt 30 1, 1882
Birthplace	Hyde Park, New York, United States
Died	Template:Death date and age Warm Springs, Georgia, United States
Nationality	American
Occupation	Politician, lawyer
Known for	32nd President of the United States; New Deal; leading the United States through World War II; only president elected to four terms
Education	Harvard University (A.B.); Columbia Law School (attended)
Spouse(s)	Eleanor Roosevelt (m. 1905)
Children	6
Awards	Time Person of the Year (1932, 1934, 1941)
Website	[https://www.fdrlibrary.org/fdr-biography Official site]

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882 – April 12, 1945), commonly known by his initials FDR, was an American politician and lawyer who served as the 32nd President of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. Born into one of the most prominent families in New York, Roosevelt navigated a life shaped by privilege, ambition, and profound personal adversity — most notably the paralytic illness that cost him the use of his legs at age 39 — to become one of the most consequential figures in American political history. He is the longest-serving president in American history and the only one elected to more than two terms in office, winning four consecutive presidential elections between 1932 and 1944. Roosevelt's presidency encompassed the two defining crises of the twentieth century in the United States: the Great Depression and World War II. His domestic agenda, collectively known as the New Deal, fundamentally reshaped the role of the federal government in American life, while his wartime leadership helped forge the Allied victory over the Axis powers. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served in the New York State Senate and as the 44th Governor of New York before ascending to the presidency.

Early Life

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born on January 30, 1882, at the family estate in Hyde Park, New York, to James Roosevelt I, a wealthy landowner and businessman, and Sara Ann Delano. Both the Roosevelt and Delano families were long-established and prominent members of the New York aristocracy. Franklin was their only child together, and Sara Roosevelt remained a formidable influence on his life well into his adulthood.

Roosevelt grew up in an environment of considerable privilege. The family traveled frequently to Europe, and young Franklin received his early education from private tutors and governesses. He developed an interest in stamp collecting, bird watching, and sailing — hobbies that would remain with him throughout his life. At the age of 14, he was enrolled at Groton School, a prestigious Episcopal preparatory school in Massachusetts, where he came under the influence of the school's headmaster, Endicott Peabody. Peabody instilled in his students a sense of Christian duty and public service, values that Roosevelt later credited as formative to his political outlook.

Roosevelt was a distant cousin of President Theodore Roosevelt, who served as a significant role model for the young Franklin. Theodore Roosevelt's energetic brand of progressive politics and his ascent from the New York governor's mansion to the White House provided a template that Franklin would, in many respects, follow. The family connection was further cemented when Franklin married Theodore's niece, Eleanor Roosevelt, in 1905.

As a youth, Roosevelt displayed a sociable and confident personality, though he was not considered an exceptional student at Groton. He was active in school activities and cultivated relationships with classmates that would serve him in his later political career. His upbringing gave him an ease in social settings and an ability to connect with people from various backgrounds — qualities that would become hallmarks of his political style.

Education

Roosevelt entered Harvard University in 1900, where he studied history and government. While at Harvard, he was active in campus life and served as editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson. He completed his undergraduate degree in three years, earning a Bachelor of Arts in 1903, but remained at Harvard for a fourth year to continue his work on the Crimson.

After leaving Harvard, Roosevelt enrolled at Columbia Law School in New York City in 1904. He did not complete his law degree but passed the New York State bar examination in 1907 and left Columbia without graduating. He subsequently joined the Wall Street law firm of Carter, Ledyard & Milburn, where he practiced admiralty law and corporate law. Although Roosevelt's legal career was brief, it provided him with professional connections and an understanding of finance and business that informed his later policy work.

Career

New York State Senate and Early Political Life

Roosevelt entered politics in 1910 when he ran for the New York State Senate as a Democrat from the traditionally Republican district around Hyde Park in Dutchess County. Capitalizing on the Roosevelt name and running an energetic campaign that employed one of the first automobile-based campaign tours in the state, he won an upset victory. He took his seat in the state senate in January 1911, at the age of 28.

In the state senate, Roosevelt quickly established himself as a reform-minded legislator. He opposed the Tammany Hall political machine that dominated the New York Democratic Party, a stance that earned him both attention and enemies within his own party. His independent streak attracted national notice and helped align him with the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

Roosevelt served in the state senate from 1911 to 1913. During this time, he supported conservation legislation, agricultural reform, and labor protections — positions that foreshadowed the policy priorities of his later career.

Assistant Secretary of the Navy

In 1913, President Woodrow Wilson appointed Roosevelt as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, a post he held until 1920. The position was one that Theodore Roosevelt had previously held, and Franklin embraced it with similar enthusiasm. He proved to be an effective administrator and advocate for naval expansion, pressing for a larger and more modern fleet in the years leading up to and during World War I.

During his tenure, Roosevelt gained substantial executive experience, managing the Navy's civilian workforce of tens of thousands and overseeing procurement and logistical operations. He traveled to Europe in 1918 to inspect naval facilities and observe the war effort firsthand. The experience deepened his understanding of international affairs and military strategy, knowledge that would prove essential during World War II.

In 1920, the Democratic Party selected Roosevelt as the vice-presidential candidate on the ticket with presidential nominee James M. Cox of Ohio. The pair ran on a platform supporting American membership in the League of Nations, but they were defeated decisively by the Republican ticket of Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge. Despite the loss, the national campaign raised Roosevelt's profile considerably within the Democratic Party.

Illness and Return to Politics

In August 1921, at the age of 39, Roosevelt contracted a paralytic illness — long attributed to poliomyelitis — while vacationing at Campobello Island in New Brunswick, Canada. The illness left him permanently paralyzed from the waist down. Roosevelt spent much of the 1920s focused on rehabilitation, spending extended periods at a therapeutic spa in Warm Springs, Georgia, which he later purchased and developed into a treatment center for polio patients.

Roosevelt's disability had a profound impact on both his personal character and his public image. He went to considerable lengths to conceal the extent of his paralysis from the public, using leg braces, leaning on aides and family members, and carefully choreographing his public appearances to avoid being seen in a wheelchair. The press of the era largely cooperated with this effort, rarely photographing or reporting on his disability. This careful management of his public image was unprecedented and has since become a significant subject of study in the history of disability in the United States.

Partly through the encouragement of his wife Eleanor, Roosevelt returned to active political life. In 1928, he ran for and won the governorship of New York, succeeding Al Smith. As governor from 1929 to 1932, Roosevelt promoted programs to combat the effects of the Great Depression, including public works projects and unemployment relief measures, positioning himself as a leader capable of addressing the growing economic crisis.

Presidency: The New Deal (1933–1939)

Roosevelt defeated incumbent President Herbert Hoover in a landslide victory in the 1932 presidential election, carrying 42 of 48 states. He entered office on March 4, 1933, amid the worst economic crisis in American history. Approximately one-quarter of the American workforce was unemployed, thousands of banks had failed, and industrial output had fallen dramatically.

In his inaugural address, Roosevelt promised prompt, decisive action and conveyed a sense of confidence and optimism to a shaken nation. His first 100 days in office were marked by an unprecedented burst of federal legislation. Working with a compliant Congress, Roosevelt pushed through a sweeping array of programs and reforms that collectively became known as the New Deal. These initiatives were aimed at providing immediate relief to the unemployed and destitute, promoting economic recovery, and reforming the financial system to prevent a recurrence of the crisis.

Major programs and agencies established during the New Deal included the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), which put young men to work on conservation and infrastructure projects; the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA), which sought to raise farm prices by paying farmers to reduce production; the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), which brought electrification and flood control to the impoverished Tennessee Valley region; and the National Recovery Administration (NRA), which attempted to regulate industrial production and labor standards.

Roosevelt also pursued significant financial and regulatory reforms. The Glass–Steagall Act of 1933 separated commercial and investment banking and established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to insure bank deposits. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was created to regulate the stock market and protect investors. Roosevelt also presided over the end of Prohibition with the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment in 1933.

Perhaps the most enduring legislative achievement of the New Deal was the Social Security Act of 1935, which established a system of old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, and welfare benefits for the disabled and for dependent children. The National Labor Relations Act (also known as the Wagner Act) of the same year guaranteed workers the right to organize and bargain collectively, fundamentally altering the balance of power between labor and management in the United States.

Roosevelt won reelection in 1936 in one of the largest landslide victories in American history, carrying every state except Maine and Vermont. However, his second term was marked by significant political setbacks. In 1937, he proposed a plan to expand the Supreme Court by adding additional justices, a move widely perceived as an attempt to pack the Court with sympathizers after the Court had struck down several New Deal programs. The proposal was defeated in Congress and damaged Roosevelt's reputation. The same year saw the formation of a conservative coalition of Republicans and Southern Democrats that effectively blocked further major New Deal legislation.

The New Deal realigned American politics, building a broad coalition of labor unions, urban ethnic minorities, African Americans, Southern whites, and progressive intellectuals that became the foundation of the Democratic Party for the next several decades. This political realignment is often described by historians as the Fifth Party System.

Presidency: World War II (1939–1945)

As war broke out in Europe in September 1939, Roosevelt initially maintained a position of neutrality while working to support the Allied cause. He successfully lobbied Congress to revise the Neutrality Acts to allow the sale of arms to belligerent nations on a "cash and carry" basis, a policy that primarily benefited Great Britain and France. In his Four Freedoms speech delivered to Congress on January 6, 1941, Roosevelt articulated a vision of a world founded on four essential human freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. The speech laid the moral and ideological groundwork for American involvement in the war.

In 1940, Roosevelt broke the long-standing tradition against seeking a third term and was reelected to the presidency. He subsequently secured passage of the Lend-Lease Act in March 1941, which provided military aid to the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, China, and other Allied nations without requiring immediate payment. The program was a critical step in the transition from neutrality to active support for the Allies.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, brought the United States directly into the conflict. Roosevelt addressed Congress the following day, describing the date as "a date which will live in infamy," and requested a declaration of war on Japan. Congress complied almost unanimously. Within days, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States, and the nation was fully engaged in a global conflict on two fronts.

Roosevelt supervised the massive mobilization of the American economy to support the war effort, converting peacetime industries to military production and overseeing the expansion of the armed forces to over 12 million personnel. He implemented a "Europe first" strategy, prioritizing the defeat of Nazi Germany over Japan, while still committing substantial resources to the Pacific theater. He also authorized the Manhattan Project, the secret program that developed the first atomic bombs.

As a wartime leader, Roosevelt worked closely with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin in coordinating the Allied strategy. He participated in several major Allied conferences, including those at Casablanca (January 1943), Tehran (November–December 1943), and Yalta (February 1945). At these meetings, the leaders discussed military strategy, the terms for the postwar settlement, and the creation of an international organization to maintain peace — an institution that would become the United Nations.

Roosevelt's wartime record also includes controversial decisions. In February 1942, he signed Executive Order 9066, which authorized the forced relocation and internment of approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans living on the West Coast. The internment, which uprooted families and resulted in the loss of property and livelihoods, has been condemned as one of the most serious violations of civil liberties in American history.

Roosevelt won a fourth term in the 1944 presidential election, defeating Republican nominee Thomas E. Dewey, but his health had deteriorated significantly. He suffered from advanced cardiovascular disease and appeared visibly weakened in his final months. On April 12, 1945, while sitting for a portrait at his retreat in Warm Springs, Georgia, Roosevelt suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage and died. He was 63 years old. His death came less than a month before the unconditional surrender of Germany on May 8, 1945, and approximately four months before Japan's surrender on September 2, 1945.

Personal Life

Roosevelt married his fifth cousin once removed, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, on March 17, 1905. The wedding was given away by Eleanor's uncle, President Theodore Roosevelt. The couple had six children, one of whom died in infancy. Their children were Anna, James, Franklin Jr. (who died as an infant), Elliott, a second Franklin Jr., and John.

The Roosevelt marriage was complex. In 1918, Eleanor discovered Franklin's affair with Lucy Mercer, her social secretary. The revelation transformed the marriage, which became more of a political partnership than a romantic one. Eleanor went on to become a major public figure in her own right, serving as a tireless advocate for civil rights, human rights, and social justice, and later serving as a delegate to the United Nations.

Roosevelt's paralytic illness, which struck in 1921, shaped the remainder of his personal life. He devoted considerable time and personal resources to seeking treatments and established the Warm Springs Foundation (later the March of Dimes) to support polio research and treatment. He has become an important figure in the history of disability, though his efforts to conceal his disability from the public have generated substantial scholarly discussion about the relationship between disability, leadership, and public perception.

Recognition

Roosevelt's impact on American governance has been recognized through numerous honors and memorials. He was named Time magazine's Person of the Year three times — in 1932, 1934, and 1941 — more than any other individual at the time of his presidency.

The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, a seven-and-a-half-acre site in Washington, D.C., was dedicated in 1997. It features four outdoor galleries, one for each of his terms in office, and includes a statue depicting Roosevelt in his wheelchair — a representation that was added in 2001 after advocacy by disability rights groups. His presidential library in Hyde Park, New York, which he established in 1941, was the first presidential library in the United States and continues to serve as a major research institution.

Roosevelt's image has appeared on the United States dime since 1946, replacing the earlier Mercury dime design. The aircraft carrier USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CVB-42), commissioned in 1945, was named in his honor. Numerous schools, parks, highways, and government buildings across the United States and around the world bear his name.

In surveys of historians and political scientists, Roosevelt has consistently been ranked among the top three American presidents, alongside Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. His leadership during the Depression and World War II, his expansion of the role of the federal government, and his four electoral victories have made him a central figure in the study of the American presidency.

Legacy

Roosevelt's presidency reshaped the American political landscape in ways that endured for decades after his death. The New Deal programs he implemented — particularly Social Security, the FDIC, the SEC, and the National Labor Relations Act — became permanent features of the American governmental framework. The New Deal coalition he assembled dominated American electoral politics from the 1930s through the 1960s and established the Democratic Party as the majority party for a generation.

His wartime leadership helped establish the United States as a global superpower and shaped the international order that emerged after 1945. The United Nations, whose creation Roosevelt championed, became the primary institution for international cooperation and conflict resolution in the postwar era. The alliance structures and international institutions established during and immediately after the war continued to define American foreign policy for the remainder of the twentieth century.

Roosevelt's legacy is also marked by controversy. The internment of Japanese Americans during World War II remains a stain on his record, one that the United States government formally acknowledged through the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which offered reparations and a formal apology to surviving internees. His attempt to pack the Supreme Court in 1937 raised concerns about executive overreach that continue to resonate in American political discourse. His conduct at the Yalta Conference has been debated by historians, with some arguing that he conceded too much to Stalin regarding the postwar status of Eastern Europe.

Roosevelt's disability and the manner in which he managed it have become subjects of increasing scholarly attention. The National Park Service has described him as "an icon of disability history," noting that early biographies tended to minimize or omit his paralysis, while more recent scholarship has examined how his experience with disability may have deepened his empathy for those suffering hardship.

The question of presidential term limits, directly prompted by Roosevelt's four elections, was resolved with the ratification of the Twenty-second Amendment in 1951, which limits presidents to two terms. His unprecedented tenure continues to be referenced in contemporary political discussions about presidential power and its boundaries.