FDR
Franklin Delano Roosevelt served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 - 1945. Often known as FDR, Roosevelt served as the governor of New York prior to the presidency. He served four terms as president, leading during the Great Depression and World War II.
FDR died on April l2, 1945, while still serving as president.
Resources
- FDR, ArchivistFranklin D. Roosevelt was a man of diverse interests and talents. At various times in his life, he considered himself to be a historian, genealogist, philatelist, ornithologist, bibliophile, tree farmer, sailor, and architect (sometimes at the same time). In the spring of 1934—just one year after taking the oath of office as President of the United States—Roosevelt developed an interest that he would retain for the rest of his life. FDR became an archivist.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt: White HouseAssuming the Presidency at the depth of the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt helped the American people regain faith in themselves. He brought hope as he promised prompt, vigorous action, and asserted in his Inaugural Address, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
- The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and MuseumThe Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum fosters research and education on the life and times of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, as well as their continuing impact on contemporary life.
Archives & Primary Sources
- FDR ArchivesArchives and digital collections from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt, Papers as PresidentThe President's Secretary's File, or PSF, is one of five major collections of FDR's Papers as President. The PSF contains Roosevelt's special or confidential documentation housed in the custody of his personal secretary. This collection includes incoming and outgoing correspondence, memoranda, printed material, and newspaper clippings. Materials date from the beginning of FDR's first term as President, to the months directly following his April 12, 1945 death while serving his fourth term. These papers represent the documentation most highly protected and heavily used by the Roosevelt White House.
FDR: The War Years
Story of President Franklin Roosevelt's leadership during the momento us years of World War II and his controversial international policies that helped shape the post-war world.
Source: Kanopy
Perspectives
The Era of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933-1945
The 45 primary sources found in Era of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933-1945 provide you with a rich context to understand the multifaceted role FDR had as president, reformer, policymaker, and commander-in-chief.
The Roosevelts
An extraordinarily vivid and personal portrait of America's greatest political family and its enormous impact the United States. It is the companion to to the PBS documentary to air in the US in the fall of 2014. This handsome, engaging, revelatory book is an intimate history of three extraordinary individuals from the same extraordinary family-Theodore, Eleanor, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Geoffrey C. Ward, distilling more than thirty years of thinking and writing about the Roosevelts, and the acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns help us understand for the first time that, despite the fierce partisanship of their eras and ours, the Roosevelts were far more united than divided. All the history the Roosevelts made is here, but this is primarily a book about human beings, each of whom somehow overcame obstacles that would have undone less forceful personalities, and all of whom wrestled in their lives with issues still familiar to the rest of us-anger and the need for forgiveness, courage and cowardice, confidence and self-doubt, loyalty to family and the need to be oneself. This is the story of the Roosevelts-no other American family ever touched so many lives.
The Roosevelts: An Intimate History
Profiles Theodore, Franklin, and Eleanor Roosevelt, three members of the most prominent and influential family in American politics. It is the first time in a major documentary television series that their individual stories have been interwoven into a single narrative. This seven-part, 14 hour film follows the Roosevelts for more than a century, from Theodore's birth in 1858 to Eleanor's death in 1962. Over the course of these years, Theodore would become the 26th President of the United States and his beloved niece, Eleanor, would marry his fifth cousin, Franklin, who became the 32nd President of the United States. Together, these three individuals not only redefined the relationship Americans had with their government and with each other, but also redefined the role of the United States within the wider world. The series encompasses the history the Roosevelts helped to shape: the creation of the National Parks, the digging of the Panama Canal, the passage of innovative New Deal programs, the defeat of Hitler, and the postwar struggles for civil rights at home and human rights abroad. It is also an intimate human story about love, betrayal, family loyalty, personal courage, and the conquest of fear.
American Experience: FDR
'American Experience: FDR - Part 1' is part of a series of films from PBS. The longest-serving president in U.S. history, and leader through the Great Depression and World War II -- two of the nation's worst crises -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt is considered by many to be our greatest president. In his early years, as a pampered, sheltered scion of a wealthy family, FDR exhibited no outward signs of greatness. With his cousin Theodore as a role model, however, FDR purposely forged a successful political career for himself, until his devastating paralysis from polio seemed to crush his dreams. With the support of his wife, Eleanor, FDR not only recovered, but remade himself into a strong, optimistic national leader. An aristocrat beloved by "ordinary" citizens and despised by many of his own class as a traitor, FDR, for better or worse, forever changed the American people's relationship with their government. The governmental "safety net" he created would be his greatest legacy -- and the source of ongoing controversy today.
Source: Kanopy