Category Archives: Quentin Roosevelt

This weekend: the 99th TRA Conference

26 Friday Oct 2018

Posted by in Quentin Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace (NPS), Theodore Roosevelt Jr (President)

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Theodore Roosevelt writing at his desk, circa 1905

This weekend here in New York City is the 99th annual Theodore Roosevelt Association conference. I am not attending any of the events today but will be at the Harvard Club tomorrow for the symposium. While I have irons in many fires, at the end of the day the Roosevelts are my primary intellectual interest. What I find fascinating about them is that one can interpret pretty much any aspect of American, and often even international history, through the prism of the Roosevelt clan. One hundred years ago right now Theodore Roosevelt’s health was in rapid decline. In 1917 he seemingly sensed that the end was near and began sending his papers to the Library of Congress for posterity. It was a burdensome time, with his health in decline and five of his children in danger serving in the Great War. Quentin of course would be killed on Bastille Day 1918, and the other boys would be gassed and/or wounded before it was all done. Ethel and her surgeon husband Richard Derby were in Paris dealing with the wounded.

Roosevelt was writing his weekly newspaper column well into the later months of 1918 but eventually stopped as he reached his final illness. When he finally died in January 1919 the output from his brief sixty-year life was incredible: 100,000+ letters, 30+ books, reams of journalism, and so much more. The Library of Congress this week, coincidentally or not in time to commemorate Roosevelt’s 160th birthday, has made digitally available a significant portion of that life’s work. They have done us a yeoman’s service.

(image/Library of Congress)

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney’s Mitchel Square

12 Wednesday Sep 2018

Posted by in Great War centennial, John Purroy Mitchel, Monuments and Statuary, New York City, Quentin Roosevelt

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Yesterday I put the final touches on my upcoming talk this Sunday at Camp Doughboy on Governors Island about John Purroy Mitchel. Later I did a dry run for a friend in my department to work out the kinks. A dress rehearsal always helps with these things in turns of timing, avoiding ambiguity, and just making certain that are sufficiently clear. I am as ready as I am going to be.

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney sculpted this doughboy statue in Upper Manhattan in 1923 and later founded the Whitney Museum of Art. Quentin Roosevelt was engaged to her daughter when killed in an airfight in France in July 1918.

In part of the talk I discuss the ways the JP Mitchel is remembered in New York City. Mitchel Square at 168th and Broadway is just one memorial to the Boy Mayor. There too is this beautiful statue that we see above, which was not sculpted expressly for Mitchel himself but for the men on Washington Heights who fought in the war. I happened to be in northern Manhattan a few weeks ago on my way to somewhere else when I stumbled upon it. Yesterday after my walk through my friend and I were discussing Mitchel and breaking down some of the details of his life and times. Color me ignorant but I did not know that the statue in Mitchel Square was designed by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. Gertrude was the mother of Flora Payne Whitney, Quentin Roosevelt’s fiancée. Of course Quentin himself died in a military plane incident above France just two weeks after Mitchel was killed in Louisiana two weeks earlier.

Check out the schedule for Camp Doughboy 2018 here.

 

Oyster Bay’s Kaiser Wilhelm II

28 Saturday Jul 2018

Posted by in Libraries, Lusitania, Quentin Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt Jr (President)

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Back in December I wrote about a portrait of Kaiser Wilhelm II in the collection of the Brooklyn Museum of Art that was saved from destruction during the anti-German hysteria of the First World War. Six months later in July and August 1918 the fate of another portrait of the Kaiser ended differently. This event took place in Oyster Bay, Long Island not far from Brooklyn.

Carl Henry Pollitz’s WW1 draft card. Mr. Pollitz remained in Oyster Bay after the incident and lived until 1966.

The destruction of the painting was covered in the German diaspora press. This article appeared in the Drumheller (Alberta) Mail on 19 September 1918.

Apparently during Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency (the exact date is unclear), the German ruler gave the American president an autographed portrait of himself. Colonel Roosevelt eventually donated the painting to the Oyster Bay Public Library, which had the likeness on display until the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915. Old newspaper accounts vary slightly in the details, but the painting eventually came into the possession of one Carl Henry Pollitz and his wife Matilda. Mr. and Mrs. Pollitz were both naturalized Americans born in Germany. They owned the painting for three years until early on the morning of Sunday 28 July 1918 an angry mob gathered outside their home demanding the portrait. The couple had escaped to the roof with the painting and eventually handed it down. A sailor quickly put his foot through the Kaiser’s face. Similar events had taken place around the country but apparently the immediate cause of this one was the recent death of Quentin Roosevelt and the anger it caused.

Secret servicemen were dispatched to look into the matter and Mr. Pollitz, who said he knew some of the perpetrators, demanded action. That is where things stood for a few tense days until on Thursday 1 August an angry gathering of 1500 turned out in the public square. The painting was displayed on the tip of an old Revolutionary War musket bayonet for the angry crowd to see. They also sang the “Star Spangled Banner” and various anti-German songs. Eventually they doused the painting in gasoline and burned it.

 

The funeral of General Ted Roosevelt, July 14, 1944

14 Saturday Jul 2018

Posted by in Film, Sound, & Photography, Quentin Roosevelt, Theodore (Ted) Roosevelt, WW2

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General Theodore Roosevelt funeral, July 14, 1944

For reasons that I and others have discussed today, July 14 is an important date in Roosevelt family history. Less well-known than the fact that Quentin was killed in France on Bastille Day 1918 is that General Ted Roosevelt was buried on this day in 1944. General Theodore Roosevelt died of a heart attack in France on July 12, five weeks after landing on the beaches of Normandy. I would go more into the story of General Roosevelt’s burial but we already have the narrative as told by the photographer who took the images we see above and below. PFC Sidney Gutelewitz happened to have his camera on his person when he saw Omar Bradley, George Patton and at least four more (other article say at least eight more) generals marching solemnly in the funeral. As Gutelewitz tell it, he did not know it was the funeral of General Roosevelt for another decade. Thankfully the images survived. The photographer turned them over to the United States Army Center of Military History.

General Omar Bradley attends the funeral of General Theodore Roosevelt, July 14, 1944. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle said: “The funeral procession was awe-inspiring for its solemnity and military simplicity.”

One note: many articles discussing Mr. Gutelewitz and his photographs have the funeral as happening in July 13, 1944, To the best of my knowledge–and I researched it pretty closely to check the discrepency–that is almost certainly incorrect. All of the contemporary accounts I read and watched have the funeral as happening on the evening of July 14. It is a lesson in always checking these types of details and not taking them at face value. Apparently twenty-six images of the funeral exist. I have only seen 5-6 online. Maybe next year they will do more with this for the seventy-fifth anniversary of General Roosevelt’s death.

(images/US Army Pfc. Sidney Gutelewitz)

More on Quentin

14 Saturday Jul 2018

Posted by in Memory, Monuments and Statuary, Quentin Roosevelt, WW1

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Quentin Roosevelt stone marker, Sagamore Hill

Quentin Roosevelt stone, Sagamore Hill

Thankfully there has been a great deal of interest in the life and times of Quentin Roosevelt this summer. Sagamore Hill for one is hosting a number of events and exhibits in this anniversary year of his death. Margaret Porter Griffin, author of The Amazing Bird Collection of Young Mr. Roosevelt, has a piece out today about the significance of Quentin. Above is the marker that Margaret mentions in her article. I took these photographs at the Theodore Roosevelt Association conference in October 2016.