| Bio |

Who they were

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born on 30 January 1882 at Springwood, his family's Hudson River estate in Hyde Park, New York^{[1, p. 2]}. His father, James Roosevelt, was a well-off landowner with interests in coal and trade, and the family lived comfortably at Springwood^{[1, p. 2]}. After finishing at Groton School in 1900, Franklin entered Harvard University^{[1, p. 3]}. He belonged to the same extended family as former president Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president, while Franklin himself would later become the 32nd^[2].

On 17 March 1905, Roosevelt married Eleanor Roosevelt, his own fifth cousin^{[2][1, p. 3]}. In 1910, aged 28, he was elected to the New York State Senate, beginning his political career^{[1, p. 3]}. He went on to serve as Assistant Secretary of the Navy^[2]. In 1921, while vacationing at Campobello Island, he was diagnosed with polio and lost the use of his legs^{[1, p. 2]}. He taught himself to walk short distances using heavy leg braces^{[1, p. 2]}. He rebuilt his political career despite this, and was urged to run for Governor of New York by the outgoing governor, Al Smith^{[1, p. 4]}.

As president from 1933, Roosevelt faced the worst economic crisis in American history, the Great Depression^{[1, p. 1]}. He launched a sweeping programme of relief and reform known as the New Deal^{[1, p. 1]}. To explain his policies directly to ordinary Americans, he began broadcasting radio addresses that became known as his "fireside chats"^{[3, p. 1]}. In his first inaugural address in 1933 he told the country, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself"^[4]. After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Roosevelt led the United States into the Second World War^{[5, p. 7]}. He was elected president an unprecedented four times^{[1, p. 1]}.

Roosevelt won a fourth term in 1944, choosing Missouri senator Harry S. Truman as his running mate^{[1, p. 5]}. On 12 April 1945, at his cottage in Warm Springs, Georgia, he suffered a massive cerebral haemorrhage and died^{[1, p. 6][5, p. 26]}. Within hours, Vice President Truman was sworn in as his successor^{[1, p. 6]}. Roosevelt did not live to see the war end.

Roosevelt's New Deal permanently expanded the federal government's role in American life, including new programmes such as Social Security^[6]. His fireside chats set a lasting precedent for presidents speaking directly to the public over the media of the day^{[3, p. 1]}. As wartime commander-in-chief, he helped direct the Allied war effort against Germany, Italy and Japan^{[5, p. 10]}. His unprecedented four terms in office marked the high point of the modern, activist presidency^{[1, p. 1]}.

Away from politics, Roosevelt was a lifelong stamp collector; one biographer of the Roosevelt family wrote that "to him the postage stamp is mightier than the brass band"^[2]. It was a quiet, solitary hobby for a man who spent his public life surrounded by crowds and advisers, and who lived for over two decades with the physical limits of paralysis^{[1, p. 2]}.

| Legacy & Reputation |

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