On January 30, 1882 in Hyde Park, New York Franklin Delano Roosevelt was
born. James Roosevelt, Franklin's father, was a prosperous railroad official and
landowner(Lawson 25). His predecessors, when they came from the Netherlands,
were succes Roosevelt learned from private tutors, not going to school until the
age of fourteen.
He had already studied German, Latin and French by the time he had started
school(Freidel 6). Sailing, bird hunting and stamp collecting were among his
hobbies. On his In 1896, at the age of fourteen his parents sent him away to
Groton, Massachusetts, to a private, boys only, boarding school. He was not very
popular among the students, but was respected by his peers and was never the
object of pranks pulled by the ol From there, Roosevelt went on to enter Harvard
in 1900.
There too Roosevelt remained an average student, making it through with a C
average most of the time(Hacker 19). At Harvard, his social activities took
preference over his academic pursuit and the In 1903 Roosevelt graduated from
Harvard and entered the Columbia Law School. He dropped out in his third year
after passing the New York bar examination(Hacker 24).
Soon after, Roosevelt started practicing law with a New York law firm. While
still in law school, Roosevelt met Anna Eleanor Roosevelt a distant cousin, only
a few years younger than him(Alsop 28). They were married on St. Patrick's day,
March 17th, 1905(Freidel 13). He was twenty-three and she was twenty-one. Her
fathe A few years later in 1910, Roosevelt accepted the Democratic nomination
for the New York State Senate(Freidel 17).
He won the elections, and in the following January he entered the Senate at
the young age of twenty-eight(Freidel 18). Later in 1912 he ra In July of 1921,
while vacationing at Campobello Island, he went sailing with his children. One
day, they saw, what appeared to be a forest fire, on a nearby island they
quickly sailed to shore to help put out the fire. It took a couple of hours and
w was able to walk in the pool unaided.
His disease, poliomyelitis, had affected him on land but in the water
he was as quick as anyone. In 1926 he bought Warm Springs for $200,000(Hacker
40). In 1927 he contributed two-thirds of his wealth(Freidel 47) a His physical
disabilities didn't hinder his climb of the political ladder. In 1928 Roosevelt
ran for governor of New York and won the election with a large margin. One of
his main goals was that the state should own the electric companies and other
util In October of 1929, when Roosevelt was still Governor, the stock market
suddenly collapsed.
