#fdrlibrary

I very much enjoyed seeing the bedroom that Bertie slept in when he visited the Roosevelts at their home Springwood in Hyde Park NY in 1939. Hope he was comfy there!

This was Elizabeth's room. (Their rooms were connected through a bathroom)

...and the library where the King and FDR stayed up late discussing the fate of Europe on the eve of war.

... the Music Room that FDR's mother Sarah redecorated for the King and Queen's visit. Notice some familiar faces?

The famous front porch, then and now. (and yes I stood right in the spot where the King was sitting for this photo op. 😉)

The specially adapted car that FDR drove himself with hand controls. He gave the King & Queen a spin around the estate and apparently was quite a reckless driver!

I love how Bertie is holding onto his hat in the back seat in the first photo. LOL. Hang onto your hat, Your Majesty!

In the second, he looks a bit overcome by the heat, poor Bertie! It was unusually hot and humid while the royals were in the US and it was a little too much for him at times.

Luckily FDR had a pool on the property and so the King had a private swim with the President and his sons. I'm sure it refreshed him

Their Majesties and the Roosevelts attended services at St.James Episcopal Church on Sunday morning prior to the famous Hot Dog picnic. The church still stands and I was surprised how small it is.

And finally, the Hyde Park train station where the Roosevelts waved goodbye to Bertie & Elizabeth as they left on the Royal Train, is still standing, though no longer an active station. An Amtrak train sped by on the tracks along the Hudson while I walked around, but nothing stops there anymore.

Just me, I guess!

The station definitely feels a little haunted to me - but not in a bad way. Haunted with history. And a little bit of time travel.

Instructing nurses on use of an iron lung for a polio patient, 5/23/1958. Online here.

POLIO STRIKES BACK By Miriam Kleiman, Public Affairs

Child at "French clinic for polio victims" , Marshall Plan records, NARA ID 19992258.

Like COVID, polio is an infectious disease that once terrorized people worldwide and led to quarantines, shutdowns, illness and death. Some polio patients relied on not ventilators to breathe but an “iron lung” - a large pressurized cylinder wherein victims would lie and oxygen would be drawn into the person’s lungs by creating a vacuum.

Polio timeline: 1894-1st documented US Polio epidemic 1921 - FDR contracts polio at age 39 (see FDR and Polio) 1954- Salk polio vaccine trials begin for 1.8 million children. 1955 - Scientists deem polio vaccine safe and effective. 1979 - Polio considered "eliminated" from the US thanks to widespread polio vaccination.

But IT'S BACK. 2022 - CDC announces (9/13/22) polio cases in New York.

Patient in an iron lung, USAF # A52930AC, NARA ID 204964233.

Student Robert Henninger gets the polio vaccine in 1954. Photo by Getty Images.

President Eisenhower’s support for the vaccine drive (NARA ID 12166372).

WW2 drawing by Charles Henry Alston for the Office of War Information. NARA ID 535617.

Prescription for FDR's leg braces that includes his note that the braces don’t fit, 7/5/1926. FDR Family records, FDR Library.

One president was directly affected by polio - FDR, who contracted polio while on vacation in 1921 at age 39 and became paralyzed from the waist down. While he hid this condition from the public, for the rest of his life he tried to find a way to rehabilitate himself and others afflicted with infantile paralysis. He established the March of Dimes on January 3, 1938, with the original name "National Foundation of Infantile Paralysis."

More online:

FDR and Polio, FDR Library

POLIO Vaccine Trials began #OTD 1954

Letter from FDR to Dr. Egleston Regarding his Polio Attack

WORLD IMMUNIZATION WEEK

FLASHBACK: How NOT to Promote Vaccines

The Man He Became: How FDR Defied Polio to Win the Presidency, FDR Library program with James Tobin

Almost seventy-nine years ago today on May 9, 1939, the Polish ambassador, Count Jerzy Potocki (left, above), visited the White House along with Polish government ministers Antoni Roman and Aleksander Bobkowski. They came in full diplomatic regalia--top hats, cutaways, and striped trousers. Only I must admit to being shocked (yes, shocked!) due to the fact that the ambassador himself eschewed striped trousers in a glaring breach of protocol.

Only a couple of months earlier, on March 28, 1939, the Spanish ambassador had visited the White House to confer with President Roosevelt. Fernando de los Rios represented the Republican government of Spain, recently defeated by Franco. The ambassador sports the appropriate cutaway and striped trousers, thank goodness, though he clutches what looks like a silk-banded bowler. The rules were so complex, and times were tough in 1939 to be sure.

To be fair to these gentlemen, who both wound up living in exile, other more ominous topics were the focus of attention. When the British Ambassador Lord Lothian and French Ambassador Rene Doynel Saint-Quentin visited President Roosevelt in 1939 and spoke with reporters afterwards, they didn't bother with diplomatic extravagances. The days of fancy clothes were coming to an end as fascist armies swept across Europe.

Helen Keller with Anne Sullivan in 1888.

Helen Keller Met Anne Sullivan #OTW in 1887 Suffragist, Rights Activist, & Humanitarian By Miriam Kleiman, Public Affairs

“The two most interesting characters of the 19th century are Napoleon and Helen Keller.” –-Mark Twain

Keller and Mark Twain, 1902, Keller left her records to the American Federation for the Blind (AFB). Our National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) helped fund online access to this collection. Happy Women’s History Month! 135 years ago this week, 6-year-old Helen Keller began working with Anne Sullivan (later dubbed “the miracle worker” & immortalized by Hollywood). Undeterred by her deafness and blindness, Keller became a suffragist, activist, educator, writer, and co-founder of the ACLU. Of course we have related records!

Interesting related fact Keller and Sullivan’s were inseparable for nearly 50 years (from 1877 until Sullivan’s death) and remain together today–interred in DC’s National Cathedral crypt, marked by a bronze plaque in braille. Sullivan was the first woman interred at the Cathedral (source here).

Suffragist Helen Keller Keller participated in the 1913 “Woman Suffrage Parade” in DC and spoke/wrote/advocated in support of not only women’s suffrage but also civil rights, labor rights, reproductive rights, and disability rights.

Petition to support the Federal Suffrage Amendment,6/15/1916, NARA ID 167059922.

We demand the right to vote, not because we think we are better or wiser than men, but because it is our right as much as it is theirs. And… we cannot abuse this right more than the men have done by themselves.

Excerpt from Keller’s speech: “Why Woman Wants to Vote” 1920, made available in part thanks to a grant from the NHPRC.

Helen Keller and Eleanor Roosevelt The two first met in 1936 and remained friends for decades. They had much in common as famous women actively involved in human rights, women’s rights, and global cooperation. Our FDR Library holds correspondence between Keller and both Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Eleanor wrote about Keller in her July 3, 1945, My Day column, emphases added:

Last week I went to the office of the American Federation for the Blind to receive the resolution… which Miss Helen Keller wanted to present to me personally… commemorating my husband’s services as honorary chairman. As I stood and listened to Miss Keller speak, I thought how wonderfully both Miss Keller and my husband typified the triumph over physical handicap. Many of you may not know that Miss Keller, with her faithful friend and interpreter, has visited a number of our service hospitals. Some people felt that she might discourage our wounded men. Instead of that, the men recognized the greatness of her personality and the serene and courageous spirit which has made of her life a rich and full existence. She carried comfort to the men who were facing their own handicaps and trying to find the courage to build normal lives in spite of them.

Eleanor and Helen at Martha’s Vineyard, 8/25/1954, FDR Library, NARA ID 195945.

Letter from Keller to President Hoover, 2/5/1933, Hoover Library, NARA ID 7722949.

Helen Keller and President Hoover Keller asked President Hoover to visit the American Foundation for the Blind’s NY recording studio to see “talking books recorded on a phonograph disc.”

Excerpt:

Your presence at the Foundation studio would give a tremendous impetus to this project, and the blind in this country would be gladdened by a message from you saying that a new pathway of light is being blazed through their darkness.

See also:

Helen Keller wrote to 8 U.S. Presidents, from Teddy Roosevelt to LBJ, including: Letter from Keller to President Hoover

Helen Keller and the Hoovers, Hoover Heads blog

Research the Americans with Disabilities Act

Disability History from the Presidential Libraries, Pieces of History

HAPPY #NATIONAL HOT DOG DAY!

By Miriam Kleiman, Public Affairs, who's loyal to Hebrew National, with mustard only.

Here are some of our favorite hot dog-related records!

Hot dogs in Space!

Mission specialist Don Thomas holds hot dog with two hands on Space Shuttle Columbia, 1997. NARA ID 23187629.

US Coastguard: "EVEN THE CODFISH GO FOR THEM"!!!

Coast Guardsmen ice fishing in the frozen fjord use hot dogs for bait. NARA ID 205580253.

Watch out for... EXPLODING KETCHUP!

Early ketchup was made from fermented skins and cores - tomato "leftovers" that could explode and burst their containers, so benzoate of soda was added a preservative.

The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 regulated ketchup—and its rotting, explosive tomato ingredients. In 1909, the company making “Squire Tomato Catsup” was prosecuted and fined $50 for making ketchup from “Decomposed Material!"

Enjoy ketchup with your hot dogs, but not the stuff “made from decomposed material”!  National Archives ID 5710028.

HOT DOGS... and CORSAGES? Michigan State football game, 1950. NARA ID 45648833.

HOT DOGS FIT FOR A KING!

State visit of the British King and Queen (6/11/1939) included FDR picnic with hot dogs! Story from the Washington Post, menu from the FDR Library: The British Royal Visit. 

MORE Historic Hot Dogs!

WWI hot dogs, Navy Training Camp in Seattle, WA, 1918. NARA ID 45512144.

NYC pushcart advertising “frankfurts” with sauerkraut or onions, 1939. NARA ID 535710.

More online:

What’s Cooking Wednesday–Exploding Ketchup! Pieces of History post by Hilary Parkinson.

Tumblr: National French Fry Day

Online exhibit: What’s Cooking Uncle Sam?

Union members march in Newark, NJ, to protest Prohibition, 10/31/1931. FDR Library.

HAPPY NAT'L BEER DAY!

By Miriam Kleiman, Public Affairs

#OTD in 1933, the Beer and Wine Revenue Act went into effect, legalizing the sale of beer as a step to ending Prohibition.

One of the most popular achievements of FDR's legendary first 100 Days had nothing to do with banking, farms, or public works, but with BEER! FDR had campaigned against prohibition and early in his Administration he signed into law the Beer-Wine Revenue Act that legalized (and taxed) beverages containing no more than 3.2 percent alcohol—defined under the new law as "non-intoxicating.” Millions of Americans celebrated the return of legal beer.

“I think this would be a good time for beer.”

--- FDR, 3/13/1933, upon signing this Act

FDR's Message to Congress re: the Beer and Wine Revenue Act, from Master Speech File. FDR Library.

Citizens ride on carts loaded with alcohol ready for shipment at the end of Prohibition. (Still from Universal News Vol. 5, Rel. 197).

ICYMI exhibit: SPIRITED REPUBLIC: Alcohol in American History.

More online:

Spirited Republic: Alcohol in American History

Spirited Republic eBook

A Spirited Republic in Motion: Prohibition is Repealed! by Heidi Holmstrom in The Unwritten Record blog.

Japanese-American internees mark New Year’s Eve, 12/31/1944, at the Central Utah Internment Camp in Topaz, UT. Photo by Charles E. Mace. Joseph Aoki portrays Father Time and his son Tommy, Baby New Year. Records of the Department of the Interior, War Relocation Authority, NARA ID 539711.

Executive Order 9066, issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, led to the forced relocation of approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans living on the West Coast. More than two-thirds of these people were native born American citizens. They were confined for the duration of World War II in 10 inland internment camps operated by the military. Professional photographers, including Dorothea Lange, were commissioned by the War Relocation Authority to document their daily life. 

[The] photographs documenting the notification, assembly, relocation and incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans from 1942 until 1945... are an extraordinary record, taken by some of our greatest photographers, of a terrible injustice and the incredible dignity and resilience of its victims.

--Paul Sparrow, Director, FDR Library, from here.

Related online resources:

Japanese American Internment - main page outlining the National Archives’ extensive holdings that chronicle the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

Teaching With Documents: Japanese-American Internment During World War II.

Images of Internment, post by Paul M. Sparrow, Director, FDR Library, Forward with Roosevelt blog.

Japanese American Internment Curriculum Guide, FDR Library.

Images of Internment: The Incarceration of Japanese Americans During World War II, FDR Library exhibit.

“Democracy Starts Here”: 11-minute National Archives film features Cherry Tsutsumida, Civil Rights Activist and Director, National Japanese American Memorial Foundation, who was incarcerated as a child with her family and later fought for justice for Japanese Americans: