Theodore Roosevelt: The White House Years

As part of the Kennedy Library Presidential Historian Series, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Edmund Morris discusses his new, best-selling book, Theodore Rex, the second of a proposed three-volume biography. Morris' first volume, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (1979), won a Pulitzer Prize.

President McKinley's assassination brought the 43-year-old Roosevelt a challenging presidency, which included persuading Congress to curb competition-stifling corporate trusts, monopolistic transcontinental railroads, and unhygienic food industries. He also faced labor and racial strife. Abroad, the American presence in Cuba and the Philippines brought criticism, the Russo-Japanese conflict threatened major power shifts in the Far East and Europe, and a politically and financially fraught decision on the Central American canal route, Panama or Nicaragua, loomed large. Despite the demands of family and social life, he read, wrote, and traveled extensively, and put national parks and conservation of natural resources on the legislative agenda.