Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt 1858–1919

Born New York City

Pirie MacDonald described Theodore Roosevelt’s sitting in 1915 as one of his most difficult, and it is not hard to speculate why. Roosevelt had recently returned from an exploratory scientific expedition in South America, where he contracted malaria and an infection in his leg, both of which would plague him the rest of his life. Moreover, Roosevelt spent the first part of that year defending himself against libel charges levied by Albany Times-Union owner William Barnes Jr., whom the former president had accused of corruption and political meddling. In May of that year, a German U-boat sank the ocean liner Lusitania, resulting in the drowning of almost 1,200 passengers, among them 128 Americans. Afterwards, Roosevelt traveled the country speaking about military preparedness and decrying President Wilson’s attempts to stay out of World War I. He also engaged in unlovely politics, ridiculing immigrants from Germany and Ireland as unpatriotic.