Skip to main content

Where It All Began

Franklin D. Roosevelt was born in New York on January 30, 1982. He was born to two very wealthy families, through which he had the luxury of meeting President Grover Cleveland, becoming conversant in German and French, and attending boarding school in Massachusetts. Needless to say, his success was not coincidental.

As much as today's political and activist climate is wary of privilege, we actually see Roosevelt as a giver- a face of welfare. So although many would look at FDR's past as an unfair advantage, his good works offset that disapproval. In fact, his Christian boarding school emphasized serving the less fortunate. An altruistic man with resources--what more can we ask for?

Unsurprisingly this President went to Harvard, during which his distant cousin Theodore Roosevelt became President. He's truly a man of connections. Not only did he become influenced by Teddy Roosevelt, but he was also influenced by Teddy's niece! In fact, FDR got married to his distant cousin, Eleanor Roosevelt. Despite the common belief about their relationship, word got out that Franklin had several affairs. I guess he was just too good to be true.

A misleading marriage

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Never Let Anyone Dull your Sparkle! (unless you're the 1920s)

Knowing that the Great Gatsby is set in the 1920s, I had been looking forward to reading the book for so long. This decade has always fascinated me because of its creation of a new society, which--for the first time in history--is relatable to ours. In my perspective, before the 1920s, history was bleak, the human lifestyle seemed near archaic, and nothing was the slightest bit comparable to the twenty-first century. But at the turn of a new decade, Roaring Twenties brought along the "New Woman" and the birth of mass culture, including a surge of trends and technology. A curtain for my car window? Of course, I'll buy it! However, in the Great Gatsby , I seemed to have forgotten that the book I was reading was about my favorite decade! Where's the excitement and innovation? Why aren't advertisements for the Model-T being shoved in my face? Needless to say, I was underwhelmed! But I don't think I was alone in thinking this. In fact, Fitzgerald's mess...
7 comments
Read more

SNL: Satire Now Loud

The concept of satire in comedy is fundamentally questionable, though it works. Society's rule is generally to avoid calling out people's flaws, yet comedy finds a loophole of balance to do so without offending the general population. The obvious face of comedy in America is Saturday Night Live. Although the program is known for its many parodies of electoral debates and "Weekend Updates," most of its production is not government-mocking. It varies from commercial parodies to high school skits and more; these clearly don't target specific individuals, allowing for wide entertainment. In other cases, the subject of the joke is so absurd that everyone can enjoy it--even the subject itself. Because the principal purpose of comedy is to entertain, those being made fun of must accept that they are only a small expense of this entertainment. And even more, because these jokes are exaggerations, the audience knows not to take the message too literally. These behaviors a...
3 comments
Read more

In Loving Memory of FDR

One of the most influential leaders of the democratic party and democracy as a whole, Franklin Delano Roosevelt left our world seventy-five years ago. Being such a huge part of America's development (and APUSH curriculum), I thought it would only be natural to examine FDR in history and  FDR's history. Now, let me take you along a brief, or not so brief, journey of Roosevelt's life.
Post a Comment
Read more