Franklin D. Roosevelt: Life Before The Presidency Analysis

As William E. Leuchtenburg, the consulting editor of the article, Franklin D. Roosevelt: Life Before the Presidency says Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born on January 30, 1882 in Hyde Park, New York. His father, James Roosevelt, was a land-owner and a businessman of considerable wealth from New York. His mother, Sara Delano, was one of six sisters and was known for her aristocratic manner and her independent streak. Franklin spent most of his youth near Hyde Park, fifty miles north of New York City. He lived on a large estate and farm tended by hundreds of workers. Franklin was an only child and until he was a teenager, he was home schooled by tutors and he had very limited contact with his peers. When Roosevelt was fourteen years old, his parents sent him to the Groton School which was an exclusive private school that educated the sons of some of the most wealthy and powerful American families. This School aimed to
After he graduated from Gorton, Roosevelt went to Harvard College in the year of 1900. A few weeks into his college career, his father had passed away from a heart ailment that he had been suffering with. During college, Franklin decided to do a wide variety of extracurricular activities which helped his social standings but hurt his grades, which were mostly average. In the year of 1903, he received his undergraduate degree and decided to return for a year of graduate work and more importantly he became the editor of Harvard's student newspaper, the Crimson. Although he remained fond of his cousin Theodore Roosevelt and the current president at that time, Franklin declared himself a member of the Democratic Party. In his second year at Harvard, Roosevelt proposed to Alice Sohier who turned him down, so he then turned his attentions to his distant cousin Alice Eleanor Roosevelt. On March 17, 1905 Eleanor and Franklin married and had six children, on e of which died as an infant (Leuchtenburg