On September 6, 1901, at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, a young anarchist guns down President William McKinley. This tragic event marked the beginning of the youngest Presidency in U.S. history. A forty-two year old New Yorker named Theodore Roosevelt took control of the White House. Roosevelt's road to Pennsylvania Ave. is arguable the most unusual of all U.S. Presidents. Theodore Roosevelt was a naturalist, a writer, a hunter, a ranchman, and a soldier all before becoming a politician. Ten of thousands of pages have been written about the remarkable exploits of "Teddy's" life. In Edmund Morris's Pulitzer Prize winning biography, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Roosevelt's childhood and early life experiences have a profound effect on the man who later becomes President. Morris shows us the kind of childhood it takes to nurture a sickly child into a larger than life figure. .
Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. was born during the late afternoon on the twenty-seventh of October, in the year 1858 (Morris 3). Born to Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. and Martha Bulloch Roosevelt, Teddy was the second child and the first son the couple had. Teddy's birth took place in the Roosevelt's house, located on East Twentieth Street, in New York City. The house was located in a nice quiet neighborhood were the Roosevelts lived very comfortably. .
Theodore Senior was twenty-seven years old when his first son was born (4). Theodore Sr. was a partner in the firm Roosevelt and Son, an old importing company. Described as handsome, wealthy, and gregarious, Theodore Sr. was said to be at ease with millionaires and paupers, never acting the least bit snobbish (5). Theodore Sr. dedicated a large portion of his time to charity, always finding time to help-out the less fortunate. Theodore Sr. was a founder of the Children's Aid Society, an institution that sent street urchins west to work on farms (4). Morris states that the word power "runs like a leitmotif (recurring theme) through - descriptions of Theodore Sr.
