Franklin Delano Roosevelt owned this copy of George Riddle's A Modern Reader and Speaker while attending Harvard College in 1902. He used the front endpapers and three blank pages at the end of the volume to record notes about many speakers, likely classmates, paying particular attention to their physical presence and demeanor; he commented on the speakers' postures, gestures, and voices. The final manuscript notes concern "F.D.R.," who displayed "not enough life" and "needed more ruggedness." Passages on pages 22, 193-196, and 249-254 include pencil notations.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born to James Roosevelt and Sara Delano in Dutchess County, New York, on January 30, 1882. He attended Groton School from 1896-1900 and matriculated at Harvard in 1900. After his graduation in 1904, he attended Columbia Law School, though he did not graduate, and had a legal practice. Roosevelt spent most of his adult years as a politician, serving as New York state senator, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, New York Governor, and, from 1933-1945, United States President. Roosevelt became famous for his New Deal programs during the Great Depression and his leadership during most of World War II; he died in office on April 12, 1945, the nation's longest-serving president. Roosevelt married his distant cousin Eleanor in 1905, and they had five surviving children.
