Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt was the twenty-sixth President of the United States (served 1901-1909). Roosevelt was born in New York, but in 1884, he purchased a cattle ranch in the Badlands of the Dakota Territory. Roosevelt spent three years in the saddle learning how to be a cowboy. A prolific writer, Roosevelt produced two books about his experiences in the American West: Hunting Trips of a Ranchman (1885) and Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail (1888). When war broke out with Spain in 1898, Roosevelt organized many of his cowboy friends into the First U.S. Volunteer Calvary Regiment. Roosevelt's exploits with the Rough Riders made him a national celebrity, and in 1900, he was elected Vice President of the United States. When President William McKinley was assassinated a year later, Roosevelt became the nation's youngest chief executive at the age of 42. Republican Senator Mark Hanna was said to have uttered: "Now look! That damned cowboy is president of the United States." Although some critics feared that he would be reckless and domineering, most Americans found Roosevelt's cowboy spirit invigorating. He ultimately became a personification of the nation's vitality in the early twentieth century. While none of Roosevelt's immediate successors possessed either the background or the demeanor to qualify as a "cowboy president," the image was never far from the White House. Having found the cowboy an appealing and useful political metaphor, journalists continued to apply the term to presidential behavior and policies long after Roosevelt.