When Theodore Roosevelt took the oath of office in September 1901, he presided over a country that had made tremendous change over the last fifty years. Slavery had long been abolished and Blacks were moving from the rural, agrarian South to the urban, industrial North. The population of the United States had almost doubled from 1870 to 1900 as immigrants came to U.S. cities to work and capture the "American Dream." As the United States became increasingly urban and industrial, it acquired many of the negative attributes common to industrial nations; overcrowding, poor working conditions, great economic disparity, and domination by big business. There were many problems that America ought to have addressed as the Industrial Age was fully ushered in at the turn of the twentieth century and Theodore Roosevelt was the perfect president to do just that.
Growing up, Theodore Roosevelt was afflicted by asthma which made him a sickly child. For much of his childhood he was a small weak boy. However, when he became a teen he decided he would make himself healthy by taking up gymnastics and weightlifting; these sports are what gave him his rugged stature he is known for. From that point on, Roosevelt endorsed exercise and athletic activities to stay healthy. Much later, he lost his mother and wife on the same day and was devastated. He threw himself into his political work to stay busy, but only found solace when he embarked on a journey out West. He adopted the frontier lifestyle and learned how to fend for himself. Unfortunately for him, he had to return to the East in 1886 because a frigid winter had wiped out his cattle. He found love again and continued his political career.
Roosevelt was the nation's first conservationist President. Due to his many travels across the West, he fell in love with its natural landscape. Everywhere he went, he chimed on the need to preserve woodlands and mountain ranges as places of refuge and discovery.
