The First Lady Who Tamed the Bull Moose

Summary

HISTORY This Week — The First Lady Who Tamed the Bull Moose

Podcast: HISTORY This Week
Host: The HISTORY® Channel | Back Pocket Studios
Episode Date: September 15, 2025

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Episode Overview

This riveting episode of HISTORY This Week centers on Edith Roosevelt, a First Lady whose influence reshaped the White House and touched the core of one of America's most legendary presidencies. Through expert interviews with historian Kathleen Dalton and Edward O’Keefe (CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Library Foundation), the show explores Edith’s overlooked life, her pivotal partnership with Theodore Roosevelt, her radical transformation of the office of First Lady, and the personal sacrifices she made for the sake of her family and her husband’s political ambitions. The episode traces Edith’s story from childhood to her defining moments in the Executive Mansion, asking why she later tried to erase herself from the historical record.

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Key Segment Breakdown and Insights

1. The Midnight Summons: Theodore Roosevelt Becomes President

[00:50–03:25]

• The episode opens on the night of September 14, 1901, in the Adirondacks, where Theodore and Edith Roosevelt receive word of President McKinley’s death.
• Theodore rushes back to be sworn in, becoming the youngest president in U.S. history.
• Edith’s diary entry on that historic day is strikingly ordinary, focusing on her children rather than her husband’s new title.
  • Quote: “She says one of the children has a cold. Theodore Jr. had this lovely time with one of his girlfriends. Oh, and by the way, Theodore became president today.” — Edward O’Keefe [02:41]

2. Childhood Connections: Edith’s Early Life with the Roosevelts

[03:25–08:21]

• Story flashes back to their 1860s New York childhood. Edith Carow is a constant presence in the Roosevelt household, seen as “the bonus sister.”
• Both families have contrasting fortunes; the Roosevelts rise while the Carows’ spiral due to her father’s alcoholism.
• Edith and Theodore share a bond as outsiders: both are sickly, bookish children, finding solace in each other’s company.

3. A Broken Engagement and Tragedy

[08:22–16:02]

• As young adults, Theodore and Edith nearly become engaged but have a mysterious falling out (August 22, 1878), the details of which they take to their graves.
  • Speculation: Edith later claimed she rejected Theodore because “you either want me for me or you’re not gonna have me at all.” — Edward O’Keefe [10:55]
• Theodore meets and marries Alice Hathaway Lee, who dies tragically just hours after his mother, leaving him devastated.
• Edith attends both funerals, mourning deeply but remaining dignified and present.

4. Love Rekindled and Marriage

[17:54–19:56]

• After nearly two years in the Dakota Badlands, a changed Theodore returns to New York, where Edith’s and his paths cross again (with crafty help from his sister “Bamie”).
• Within 40 days, they are secretly engaged; their whirlwind reunion marks a turning point for both.
  • Quote: “Tragedy had befallen Theodore’s really gilded life and I think it matured him in a way that now he could meet Edie on her terms.” — Edward O’Keefe [19:07]
• Their 1886 marriage in London is followed by an “idyllic” hunter honeymoon and the beginnings of a powerful political partnership.

5. Edith as Political Adviser and Family Anchor

[20:35–23:05]

• Edith thrives in Washington, providing both intellectual stimulation and prudent political counsel for Theodore as he ascends in national politics.
  • Quote: “He really respected her viewpoint and her wisdom… she could say things to him because he felt that unconditional love that other people couldn't.” — Kathleen Dalton [20:46]
• She manages the household and supports his career, even when she disagrees with his risk-taking (e.g., Spanish-American War).
  • Quote: “She knew he had to serve in this war or the dishonor would linger… she was willing to potentially raise six children alone…” — Edward O’Keefe [22:37]

6. The Reluctant Second Lady and First Lady

[23:34–29:57]

• Edith is skeptical (and vocal) about Theodore becoming vice president, fearing both boredom and financial drain.
  • Quote: “I don't want him to be vice president, you disagreeable thing.” — Edward O’Keefe [24:37]
• Nonetheless, following McKinley’s assassination, she finds herself First Lady and immediately sets about professionalizing the role.
  • Hires the first social secretary, institutionalizing the office for future First Ladies.
  • Hosts 40,000+ guests in her first year, setting a cultural and social precedent.

7. Redesigning the White House and the First Lady’s Role

[29:57–32:57]

• Edith launches major renovations: separates private family quarters from the West Wing (the real origin of today’s White House layout).
  • Quote: “She said, look, this needs to be a residence in addition to an office space... We need to reconstruct a private residence on the second and third floor… segregate working functions in an east wing and a west wing.” — Edward O’Keefe [31:37]
• Sits close to her husband’s office, reading multiple newspapers daily to provide strategic advice.
  • Quote: “She was this secret force, and people knew if you wanted to get a message to the president, you ought to talk to Edith.” — Edward O’Keefe [32:27]

8. Political Judgement and Family Tragedies

[33:12–37:35]

• Edith is more astute than Theodore about political maneuvering; warns against choices like declaring himself a lame duck and naming Taft as his successor.
  • Quote: “She really saw the political chessboard much more clearly than her husband.” — Edward O’Keefe [33:12]
• Theodore’s failed return as a third party (“Bull Moose”) candidate devastates the family. Their son Quentin is killed in WWI, and Edith’s stoic response is legendary.
  • Quote: “You do not raise your children to be eagles and expect them to become sparrows.” — Edward O’Keefe [37:35]

9. Legacy and Why Edith Tried to Erase Herself

[37:47–39:49]

• After Theodore’s death, Edith supports some progressive causes (like women’s suffrage) but also harbors regressive, racist views in private.
• She systematically destroys her correspondence with Theodore, perhaps to protect his legacy or reclaim privacy.
• Despite her efforts, Edith leaves an indelible mark:
  • Quote: “I don't think Theodore Roosevelt could have been President… without his wife Edith. Yet Edith had no interest in Theodore Roosevelt being President… I think Edith understood Theodore better than he understood himself.” — Edward O’Keefe [39:01]
  • Quote: “Edith might arguably be the most influential first lady in American history.” — Edward O’Keefe [39:41]
• The portrait gallery and the Rose Garden, both her creations, stand as lasting tributes.

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On Edith’s priorities (02:41):
  “That’s the diary entry that tells you everything you need to know about Edith Roosevelt… the fact that her husband became president… was third on her list.” — Edward O’Keefe

• On Edith as First Lady (29:57):
  “There is the role of First Lady before Edith Roosevelt and the role of First Lady after…” — Edward O'Keefe

• On raising children (37:35):
  “You do not raise your children to be eagles and expect them to become sparrows.”

• On legacy (39:41):
  “Edith might arguably be the most influential first lady in American history.” — Edward O’Keefe

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Key Timestamps

• 00:50: Episode opening: McKinley’s death and TR’s midnight dash
• 02:41: Edith’s famously understated diary entry
• 10:55: Speculation about the failed engagement
• 19:07: Rekindling of romance and secret engagement
• 20:46: Edith as political confidant/advisor
• 24:37: Edith’s resistance to Theodore’s vice presidency
• 29:57: Edith professionalizes the First Lady’s role
• 31:37: Edith architects the modern White House layout
• 32:27: Edith’s intelligence/political strategy for TR
• 33:12: Edith’s political judgement
• 37:35: Quentin’s death; Edith’s “eagles/sparrows” quote
• 39:41: Edith’s legacy as most influential First Lady

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Conclusion

Edith Roosevelt emerges from this episode as a foundational—but too-often hidden—figure in American political history. Introspective yet influential, private yet powerfully public in her legacy, she redefined what it meant to be both a presidential wife and an architect of the modern White House. Her enduring partnership with Theodore Roosevelt—and her determination to enable his vision while carving out space for herself and her family—makes Edith a First Lady worth remembering not simply for standing beside a Bull Moose, but for having tamed one.

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Transcript

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

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[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

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[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

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[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

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[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

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[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

Original podcast.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

History this week, September 14th, 1901. Sally I'm Sally Helm. It's a nearly moonless night in the Adirondack Mountains. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt is asleep inside a little vacation cottage, along with his wife Edith and their children. They're exhausted from a day spent exploring the mountains. But just before midnight, a loud knocking at the cottage door jolts them awake. There's an urgent message. President William McKinley is in critical condition. He'd been shot about a week before, but had seemed stable. So stable that the Roosevelts went on vacation. But now things have suddenly changed.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

Theodore has to rush down in a midnight ride.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

That's Edward o', Keefe, who runs the Theodore Roosevelt Library Foundation.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

He's in the darkness, descending one of the peaks of the highest points in New York State and goes to the train station.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

At the train station, Theodore gets a message. He relays it to his wife back at the cottage in a simple telegram. President McKinley died at 2:15 this morning. That's all. Even though this man is hours away from becoming the youngest president in U.S. history. And Edith, his biggest supporter, seems equally unfazed.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

I looked at her diary for the date that McKinley died and that her husband is about to become president. And she says one of the children has a cold. Theodore Jr. Had this lovely time with one of his girlfriends. Oh, and by the way, Theodore became president today. That's the diary entry that tells you everything you need to know about Edith Roosevelt. Her sun and moon and stars are her children and her family. And the fact that her husband became president of the United States was sort of third on her list of important things that day. She was an incredible woman.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

Today, the story of that incredible, overlooked woman. How did Edith Kermit Carot rekindle a childhood romance and become Edith Roosevelt, the woman who helped make a legendary president. She reinvented the role of first lady and recreated the White House as we know it. So why did she try to erase herself from history? To understand the beginnings of Edith and Theodore's relationship, let's jump back 36 years to an earlier assassination. It's April 1865. President Abraham Lincoln's body is making its way from Washington D.C. to Springfield, Illinois where he'll be laid to rest. Millions will pay their respects as the coffin passes through seven states. And today it's New York City's turn. There's a photograph, you may have seen it, of Lincoln's memorial procession moving up Broadway. A massive crowd has gathered to watch the hearse which is pulled by 16 horses and escorted by a parade of soldiers, many of them survivors of the Civil War. The procession passes a beautiful stately mansion. In the picture, two small faces peek out from the mansion's second story window. One of them is six year old Theodore Roosevelt. The other is his brother Elliot. And what you can't see in the photo is that inside that mansion there is also at that moment a curly haired crying three year old who will someday become the first lady of the United States. But for now she's trapped in a closet.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

Young Theodore Roosevelt is at his grandfather's home with his brother Elliot and Edie, their childhood friend and companion, Edie Carot.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

Edie is a toddler and a citywide death parade full of weapons and pipes and drums. To a three year old, that's a nightmare.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

She shrieks in horror at the sight of the disfigured Union soldiers who are accompanying Lincoln's casket. So, so irritated are young Teddy and his brother that they lock Edie in a closet so she cannot see Lincoln's funeral as it processes up Broadway.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

It sounds a bit mean, but the Roosevelt boys don't have any issue treating Edie like just another sibling.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

Edie Carot is around so often she's best friends with Connie, his youngest sister that she is indeed referred to as the bo sister.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

Theodore and Edith's fathers are old friends and their families move through the same circles of the New York City elite. But Edith's father has a problem.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

The Corot family sort of has this diametric inversion to the Roosevelts. As the Roosevelts family fortunes are increasing, the Corots are decreasing. Her father was an alcoholic. He took over the family business far too young and he really couldn't handle it very well.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

And in this era, not much could be worse.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

This is the Gilded Age, right? The Roosevelts, the Corot. And actually this other Edith lives in the neighborhood. Edith Jones, who's actually the origin of the phrase keeping up with the Joneses.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

Little Edie Carot is at her best friend Connie Roosevelt's house all the time. And Connie's mom notices something.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

It's Mrs. Roosevelt, Mitty, Theodore Roosevelt's mother, who sees that Teddy has a connection with Edie.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

And that's a big deal to her because her son Theodore, forget the strong, mustachioed guy who will come to epitomize cowboy masculinity right now. The future Rough Rider is pretty sensitive.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

Theodore Roosevelt as a child is an oddball. He's rather short in stature. He has this habit of putting his leg on his knee, almost stork, like, while he's reading. He is so sickly with asthma most days that he can't go outside and enjoy nature with the rest of the family and his friends. So Mitty sees in Edie this boon companion. They're both literary, they love to read. Just a good match for each other in terms of temperament. And so Mittie invites Edie, the neighborhood child, to come be homeschooled with the Roosevelt children.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

For Edith, that means retaining access to the gilded life, vacationing at the Roosevelt summer home, and forming literary clubs in their elite social circles. All the while, her father is quickly running through the family fortune, maybe because of those troubles. Edith is an introspective kid, a little somber, an asthmatic. Teddy is an outsider, too. He doesn't value lavish displays of wealth in the way that some people around him do. Both of them seem committed to a family focused life. And by the time Theodore is off to Harvard, everyone assumes that he and Edie will soon be engaged. During his sophomore year, tragedy strikes. Theodore's father dies suddenly. He's devastated. But when he comes home, he finds comfort in his old companion.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

He comes back from school for the summer, and he renews this romance with Edie Carot. And edie is turning 17, so she is now of age in the Victorian age to potentially be engaged.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

She's invited once again to Tranquility, the Roosevelt's summer home in Oyster Bay, New York. And this time, Theodore seems to have a motive.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

He buys her a birthday present. They go picking water lilies. They go out for a row in Oyster Bay. Everything seems to be setting up. A proposal from Theodore Roosevelt.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

Theodore and Edie walk together up the hill toward the summer house at Tranquility.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

And something happens. They have an explosive fight. And whatever words were exchanged between Theodore Roosevelt and Edie Carot Inside Tranquility on August 22, 1878, no one believed they were ever getting back together.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

Did he make a presumptuous move, bring up her family's fortunes? They took the secret of what happened between them that day at Tranquility the to their graves. But Edward o' Keefe has a guess.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

Edith very, very late in life will tell a descendant that Theodore Roosevelt proposed and she rejected him. And then he got very upset. If we're going to speculate now because we don't have any documentary evidence of what happened inside that home at Tranquility, I think that, you know, Theodore had lost his father and he sort of took Edie for granted. She had been the bonus sister. She was the one who was always there. And when he came back and decided, well, now I would like to replace the loss of my father with the love of a wife, she said, no, no, look, you either want me for me or you're not gonna have me at all. She'll say to a descendant years later that she always knew someday, somehow, she would marry Theodore. But at that moment when she could have had him, she didn't want him because he wasn't doing it for the right reasons or he wasn't ready. He wasn't mature enough.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

Their love story pauses there. Theodore returns to Harvard, and he falls in love at first sight.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

On October 18, 1878, he meets Alice Hathaway Lee, the most beautiful, beguiling, eligible bachelorette in all of Boston.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

Soon enough, Edith gets the letter she'd been dreading. She learns that Theodore is engaged to Alice, a pretty, happy young woman from the top of Boston high society. In a rare moment of vulnerability, Edith confides her shock to her old friend Theodore's sister Connie.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

Obviously, she knew she had potentially lost Theodore forever, but she wasn't going to give Theodore the satisfaction of knowing she was disappointed. It was said that at Theodore and Alice's wedding, to which Edith was invited and attended, that she danced the soles off her shoes.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

A happily married man, Theodore starts to transform into a vigorous, ambitious adult. And he's soon drawn to politics. At 23, he's the youngest person ever elected to the New York State assembly. Then, Valentine's Day, 1884, a day that's become a tragic legend in the Theodore Roosevelt story. In the Roosevelt home in New York City, Mittie, Theodore's mother, dies from typhoid fever. Hours later, Alice, Theodore's beautiful young bride, dies after giving birth to their only daughter, little Alice, named for her. In his diary, Theodore can write just one sentence. The light has gone out of my life.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

The funeral takes place at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian. Edie Carot is sympathetic and empathetic to her lifeline friend Theodore. I mean, Edie had a distant relationship with her own mother. She is mourning deeply the loss of Midi, who arguably was like a second mother to Edie.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

Imagine Edith there, sitting in the pews of the church. Around her, the massive Roosevelt family. Her own bonus family, is devastated at their unimaginable double loss. The two caskets pass down the aisle, then are placed into a carriage and brought to the cemetery.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

She's watching, essentially another mother to her be buried. And she is at the same time perhaps thinking, well, is this the turn of fate? That means that someday, somehow, I will marry Theodore Roosevelt.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

But Theodore is drowning in his grief. He's convinced he'll mourn forever. So he doesn't want to be anywhere near his old flame, Edith. He abandons his political career and exiles himself to the frontier. He leaves his daughter Alice with with his older sister. And he also leaves her with a warning.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

When he left, he gave his sister Bami one instruction. When I return to New York City, I am not to see Edie Carot.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

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[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

The victims were an elderly couple. It was up close and personal.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

I'm 48 Hours correspondent Erin Moriarty. I thought I had seen it all until I encountered the mastermind behind those murders.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

He's.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

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[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

When he came back from North Dakota, he was about 40 pounds heavier in muscle. He was bronzed and handsome and he had matured not just physically, but he had matured emotionally.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

A strenuous life in the Badlands had transformed this broken man. Now he's back in New York City, walking into Bami's foyer, here to visit the now nearly two year old daughter he left behind. But Bami has a surprise for him.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

Bami, Theodore's older sister, has invited Edie over for tea and she delays Edie in such a way that Edie is at the top of the stairs and Theodore arrives.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

Theodore arrives, Edie appears on the stairs and everything stops. They stare at each other in shock, soaking in the ways they've grown up over the last two years. We don't know exactly what they say to each other, but the comfort of an old friend, an old love, is clearly overwhelming.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

Within 40 days, they are secretly engaged. Tragedy had befallen Theodore's really gilded life and I think it matured him in a way that now he could meet Edie on her terms and see life perhaps a bit more from her perspective.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

We don't know a lot of details about the rekindling, not just because they kept it secret at first, but also because Edith later destroyed the evidence. She burns most of the letters they wrote to each other. We heard about it from author and historian Kathleen Dalton.

[Historian/Expert (Kathleen Dalton)]

Edith was a very private person and she didn't want some historian snooping in her business. And you know, who could blame her?

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

Edith and Theodore marry in London on December 2, 1886. After a three month Hunter honeymoon that Edith declares the most idyllic period of her life. The couple begins to build their family and their partnership. And Theodore, he starts building an astonishing political career. He joins Benjamin Harrison's presidential cabinet as head of the Civil Service Commission where he gains a reputation for fighting corruption and pushing progressive policies. Edith sets down the family's roots in Washington D.C. and she thrives.

[Historian/Expert (Kathleen Dalton)]

Edith loved the intellectual life in Washington. It was much more her speed and she had a lot of friends there.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

She also emerges as her husband's most important political advisor.

[Historian/Expert (Kathleen Dalton)]

He really respected her viewpoint and her wisdom. She could say things to him because he felt that unconditional love that other people couldn't Say, and he. He knew she was really smart.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

They became a true D.C. power couple, rare for that time period. Theodore, meanwhile, starts to move through various important jobs. He goes back to New York for a while to be City police Commissioner, then returns to D.C. as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. It's an important job. Tensions are rising between the US And Spain over who controls Cuba, and war might be on the horizon. In November 1897, Edith gives birth to their fifth child. And it's soon clear that something is wrong. Edith falls critically ill. Feverish for weeks, she finally undergoes surgery. And at some point during her slow recovery, Theodore makes a big decision. He does not consult Edith, his advisor, his partner. He decides. I'm going to war.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

He has six children, one of which was just born. He's got a good job. He's Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and his boss's boss's boss. The President of the United States has asked him not once but twice to stay in his position. We're gonna go to war, and I need you to stay in your job. And he says no. And he quits. And he rounds up the Rough Riders and charges up San Juan Hill, and the rest is history.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

Edith initially isn't a fan of her husband's quest for glory in battle. Very understandable. But eventually she accepts that this is the man she married.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

She comes around to the decision because she knows this is who he is, and if she doesn't let him do it, he'll be resentful for the rest of his life. She was willing to potentially raise six children alone because she knew that her husband had to serve in this war or the dishonor would linger over him for the remainder of his life.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

Lt. Col. Roosevelt does not die in battle. He comes home a national hero with a Medal of Honor to boot. And he is immediately inundated with demands that he run for governor of New York. He does, and he wins. But before he can finish his term, rumors start flying that he could be nominated to be the next vice president. Edith doesn't think it's a good idea.

[Historian/Expert (Kathleen Dalton)]

Edith understood who she was married to. And this is a person who liked action. He liked to make decisions. He liked to do a little bit of combat in the political marketplace. And the vice president has always been kind of sitting in the anteroom waiting for the president to die. No specific tasks until recent vice presidents have been given some tasks.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

One of her other concerns, money. The vice presidency doesn't really pay, and the Roosevelt family fortune is running thin.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

This is what Roosevelt writes to his key advisor, Henry Cabot Lodge. Even to live simply as vice president would be a serious drain upon me and would cause me, and especially would cause Edith continual anxiety about money.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

But their friends won't let it go. One night at a dinner party, one of their guests tells her to get excited for the applause Theodore will receive when he's nominated for VP at the upcoming Republican National Convention. And Edith loses it.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

Edith actually uncharacteristically loses her temper and said, I don't want him to be vice president, you disagreeable thing.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

But when they arrive for the convention on June 16, 1900, Philadelphia has TR fever. All around them, demonstrators are banging drums and shrilling fights and chanting we want Teddy. He's a war hero, a champion against corruption and four progressive policies. Edith is horrified. She helps him draft a statement making the case for why he best serves them by seeking another term as governor, not by being McKinley's impotent number two. When it's finally Theodore's turn to speak at the convention, Edith sits in her reserved gallery box watching the boisterous crowd. When Theodore strides in, her stomach drops. He's wearing his broad brimmed Rough Rider hat, the now famous symbol of his victory against Spain, and the crowd goes wild. From the stage, he gazes past the crowd chanting his name and spots Edith up in the gallery. His face breaks into the ear to ear smile that cartoonists so love to caricature, and he waves at her. At that exact moment, an act of God or political destiny, a beam of sunlight breaks through the convention hall roof and shines like a halo around his head. He's a Renaissance painting come to life and the crowd loses its mind. Edith gasps because now she knows her husband's ascendancy is inevitable.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

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[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

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[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

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[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

It doesn't seem like Edith was an I told you so kind of person, but she was definitely right. After the McKinley Roosevelt ticket wins in 1900, Theodore proves he's not cut out to be VP.

[Historian/Expert (Kathleen Dalton)]

She didn't want an unhappy husband, and that's what she got. When he was vice president, T.R. wasn't somebody to sit around, you know, he just didn't know what to do with himself.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

Edith, meanwhile, finds her new role as the Second lady to be a tedious chore. But things change quickly. Just six and a half months into the term, President William William McKinley is shot twice at point blank range by an unemployed factory worker turned anarchist in Buffalo, New York. Theodore rushes to the President's bedside as the country waits to learn the fate of the man. They just re elected to the White House. And despite a bullet lodged firmly in his body, McKinley seems to be be doing okay. He improves so much that after a few anxious days, Theodore leaves his side and joins his family on their Adirondack vacation to project confidence to the press. But then, a week later, on September 14, 1901, that knock on the cabin door. The President dies. Theodore Roosevelt races back to be sworn in as the youngest president in U.S. history. Now Theodore and Edith carry their partnership into the Executive Mansion, or as they'd soon start calling it, the White House. And Edith quickly realizes some things would need to change.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

There is the role of first lady before Edith Roosevelt and the role of first lady after Edith Roosevelt. She first hired a social secretary, which doesn't seem like a big deal, but it had never been done before. And that institutionalized the office of the First Lady. Every single first lady subsequent to Edith has had a social secretary, a private secretary. It made the role of first lady now not just a political spouse, but actually a partner and a real place in the office of the presidency.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

With her social secretary, Edith makes her role partly about being a cultural trendsetter. In their first year in the White House, she and Theodore host an estimated 40,000 guests. The new York Times Calls it the most remarkable social record ever made by a president's wife.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

She brought arts and culture into the White House in the form of salons and performances. Everything that you know about Jacqueline Kennedy, the template was Edith Roosevelt.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

Next, Edith decides that first lady means chief renovator.

[Historian/Expert (Kathleen Dalton)]

I think she looked at the White House as an opportunity to work with great architects and to make it a distinguished presidential home. Because she had traveled enough in Europe, she knew that Europeans at that time looked down on Americans as ruffians.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

It's also practical. Remember, she's responsible for six kids ranging from 17 to three.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

And so she said, look, this needs to be a residence in addition to an office space. Space, essentially. She said, we need to reconstruct a private residence on the second floor and the third floor of this home. And we need to segregate the actual working functions of the presidency in an east wing and a West wing. That really created the east wing and the west wing concept of the White House.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

Edith places her office right next to the presidents, so his most trusted advisor is right next door. Aides, cabinet members, congressmen, often reported that Edith had been in the corner of the president's meetings, listening, knitting quietly. After they'd leave, she'd drop the yarn and discuss TR's next moves.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

Probably Edith's most profound impact came in the decisions her husband made. She read four or five newspapers every day, different newspapers than her husband, so she could tell him what he needed to know. She would advise on every single cabinet nomination or every single major decision that he had to make in the White House. She was this secret force, and people knew if you wanted to get a message to the president, you ought to talk to Edith.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

Edith is also able to protect her husband from himself. Theodore's impulses for acting rashly and speaking his mind once made him an endearing political upstart. But they could be dangerous for a sitting president.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

She was somebody who really saw the political chessboard much more clearly than her husband. She was also a political pragmatist. I mean, she could kind of look at the situation and analyze it for what it was, not what Theodore hoped it would be.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

Theodore wins the 1904 election in a landslide. In his second term, though, he makes a critical error. On the very night he wins reelection, he announces that he won't run again, essentially making himself a lame duck.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

He had not consulted Edith, and had he done so, she certainly would have told him, don't make that announcement, even if you don't intend to run for the presidency again.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

Then he names his successor, the judge, William Howard Taft. But notorious comes to regret it. Edith had seen that Taft was the wrong choice.

[Historian/Expert (Kathleen Dalton)]

Taft was quite a yes man. She would read that for what it was, which is okay. This is a judge who isn't necessarily making judgments in his courts that are consistent with TR's policies, but he kisses up to TR all the time. Flattery worked with TR. TR Flattery did not work with Edith.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

Taft wins in 1908 and ends up undermining his predecessor's legacy by scaling back countless progressive efforts. TR is furious, but Edith, she misses their old life, but she's also glad to be out of the White House. She'd worried for her husband's safety all the time. After all, he became president when another president was killed. And though TR starts mumbling about running again, after all, Edith says it's a bad idea. You'd never win. One day In September of 1911, Theodore and Edith and their son are out horseback riding. Edith's horse gets spooked and throws her. She's instantly unconscious. She's in a coma for two days, in and out of consciousness for nine more. And unbelievably during this time, Theodore Roosevelt makes another enormous decision, just as he did about the Spanish American War. While his wife is sick.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

She was out cold for several days. That's when Theodore works with his sister Connie to conspire with seven progressive governors to publish a letter calling for him to run. So Theodore not only didn't listen to his wife, he waited until she was unconscious to make the moves to set up the run in 1912.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

Apparently, this reminder of mortality makes him resolved to seize his last chance to lead the progressive movement. But as Edith would have warned him, this was the wrong decision. His party had moved on. Plus, her worst fears do actually get realized. Theodore is shot while campaigning. He's miraculously saved by the thick speech folded up in his breast pocket. And his bull moose movement fails. He loses the election of 1912 to Woodrow Wilson.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

That loss absolutely devastated the whole family. It was a, you know, akin to a death in the family. Theodore was as abjectly depressed, and his daughter Alice was the only one who would ever use that word. You know, Theodore would say, black hair rarely sits behind a rider whose pace is fast enough. But he was depressed not being reaffirmed by the American people and elected in his own right in what he considered to be a righteous cause. And crusade really, really crushed him. In 1912.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

The Roosevelts withdraw from politics. They watch from their mansion on Long island as President Wilson navigates World War I. Their son Quentin Roosevelt is killed in aerial combat over France. Edith and Theodore become the only presidential couple in US history to lose lose a child in combat. Publicly, both honor their son as a hero. Proud of his service, Edith refuses to.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

Wear black, saying, you do not raise your children to be eagles and expect them to become sparrows.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

Theodore Roosevelt dies in 1919, but Edith lives decades more. She doesn't seem to be the happiest person. She says that she feels happy only in dreams. But she travels the world, provides the occasional political endorsement, speaks at conventions and campaigns. But mysteries about Edith remain. Among them, what some of her privately held politics were. Some of her beliefs were progressive. She spoke out in favor of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the vote. But historians have noted her tendency to use racist language and express racist views in what remains of her private correspondence. What remains? Because she burns her lifetime of letters back and forth with Theodore. Maybe to preserve his legacy as a self sufficient man and leader. Or because she was trying to reclaim what she always wanted but couldn't have. Married to Theodore a private life. She got a lot more than she'd planned for by marrying her childhood love and the work of her life became enabling his dreams and legacy.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

I don't think Theodore Roosevelt could have been President of the United States without his wife Edith. Yet Edith had no interest in Theodore Roosevelt being President to the United States. She did it for him. She supported him. She loved him. She knew that his restless nature and ambition needed to be fed with constant activity. I think Edith understood Theodore better than he understood himself.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

And despite trying to erase her private experiences from the historical record, she created a very real legacy of her own.

[Co-narrator/Commentator (Edward O'Keefe)]

Edith might arguably be the most influential first lady in American history.

[Narrator (Sally Helm)]

When Edith Roosevelt arrives at the White House, there's nothing dedicated to the women that had lived there previously. In her renovations, she includes a hallowed, warm and elegant portrait gallery for her predecessor herself and all the first ladies to come. In her own official portrait, Edith Kermit Roosevelt sits on a white bench surrounded by the garden she created, which would later be called the Rose Garden. Over her right shoulder, you can see the columns of the south portico of the mansion she remade into the White House for the President she loved her entire life, the man who she helped make into an American legend. Thanks for listening to History this Week, a Back Pocket Studios production in partnership with the History Channel. To stay updated on all things History this week, sign up at History this Week. And if you have any thoughts or questions, send us an [e-mail] Special thanks to our guests Kathleen Dalton, author of Theodore A Strenuous Life, and Edward o', Keeffe, author of the Loves of Theodore the Women who Created a President. O' Keeffe is also the CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, which you can visit in Medora, North Dakota, when it opens next year on the Fourth of July. This episode was produced by Phoebe Lett and produced and sound designed by Ben Dickstein. It was also produced by me, Sally Helm for Back Pocket Studios. Our executive producer is Ben Dickstein from the History Channel. Our executive producers are Eli Lehrer and Liv Fiddler. Don't forget to follow rate and review History this week, wherever you get your podcasts, and we'll see you next week.