Theodore “T.R.” Roosevelt

Teddy Roosevelt was the United States twenty-sixth president. His presidential term started on September 14, 1901 until March 4, 1909. He took the office after the assassination of our twenty-fifth President, WIlliam McKinley. At the age of forty-two Roosevelt became the youngest president in the nation’s history. He led Congress, and the American Public towards a strong foreign policy and progressive reforms. TR was also the first President to be awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906. Teddy Roosevelt was born on October 27, 1858 in New York City, and was the second child to Theodore and Martha Bulloch Roosevelt. His parents gave him the nickname Teedie ,and never actually used the nickname Teddy that we refer to him as. While he was growing up he lost the name Teedie and used, Theodore, his actual first name. As a child he was frequently ill and suffered from asthma attacks. Since Teddy and his siblings had various health problems, the Roosevelt children did not attend school outside of their homes.
Roosevelt attended the University of Harvard and studied natural history, and was considering to enter the career of teaching. He had troubles fitting into Harvard, and asked so many questions during a lecture that the professor actually yelled at him. When his father passed away in 1878, Roosevelt changed his major to history and government. Once he graduated from Harvard he enrolled in Columbia University Law School, and dropped out after the first semester.
In the month of October in the year 1879, Alice Hathaway Lee came into Roosevelt’s life. One year later Roosevelt, and Alice got married on October 27, 1880 on TR’s twenty-second birthday. While he was married to Alice she gave birth to their first and only child Alice on February 12, 1884. In the middle of an assembly that he was attending he was delivered the telegram of her birth, and shortly after was delivered another telegram saying that his wife was very ill. During that time his mother was also very ill, and the both of them had passed away within twelve hours apart. After he had heard of both of the deaths Roosevelt had said “ The light has gone out of my life.” (TR inaugural site).
Soon after his wife and mother had passed TR went to the Dakotas. While he was there he learned to rope, ride, and survive in the wilderness. Roosevelt had realized during the time he was there that the wild was responsible for individualism, love of liberty, and intellectual independence. He believed that if he wouldn’t have gone to the Dakotas he would not have become the president.
While on a visit back to New York TR ran into his childhood friend, Edith Kermit Carow. They would get together when he would visit New York, and eventually he proposed to her. After he proposed they sailed to England and got married there. Once they returned they became residence at Sagamore Hill, in Oyster Bay, Long Island. TR and Edith had five children together between the years 1887 and 1897. Their five children were named Theodore Jr., Kermit, Ethel, Archie, and Quentin Roosevelt.
In the year of 1889 Roosevelt and his family moved to Washington D.C. because President Benjamin Harrison had appointed him to the four-man Civil Service Commission. With the power he had in office he was able to instigate