So what is the evidence for the claim that polio made Roosevelt more sensitive to the suffering of Americans affected by the Great depression? I've seen this claim repeated for at least five decades but I don't know what it's based on other than hagiography. I'm not opposed to the claim, but I do think we need evidence for it.
This is an apt question. In Traitor to His Class, I answer it at length. The subtitle of the book - The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt - articulates the book's theme. In short, FDR was born a rich kid and for his first 39 years showed no special concern for the less fortunate. Then he contracted polio. He spent much of the next several years in Georgia trying to regain his strength. There he had personal encounters with the poor farmers of the state, some of whom he befriended and from whom he learned what it was like to be left behind as the American economy surged forward. He remembered them when he became president, and the effect was revealed in New Deal policies.
Thanks, I was concerned because I remember reading of this trait of Roosevelt in the Glory and the Dream by William Manchester, so I need the stories went way back, but Manchester did no footnotes :-)
I believe it was at the 1984 Democratic Party convention that Jesse Jackson had a great line in one of the opening speeches. Referring to people with physical and mental challenges, Jackson said: "I'd rather have Roosevelt in his wheelchair than Reagan on his horse."
Wasn’t there going to be a fdr statue in dc? it was designed depicting fdr standing up but then physical handicapped advocate groups protested. So the statute was put on hold. the advocate groups believed it was a misrepresentation of history if the fdr statue was standing. But most people alive when fdr was president didn’t know he was handicapped.
Thanks for clarifying that for me. I read about the controversy in a book of trivia maybe published fifteen years ago but didn’t follow up on what happened. I guess Samuel arbeson is right when he write that facts have half-lives.
Fabulous reflection. So much depends on timing and small things, not just wheelbarrows. Thanks for writing.
Thank you for this Substack.
So what is the evidence for the claim that polio made Roosevelt more sensitive to the suffering of Americans affected by the Great depression? I've seen this claim repeated for at least five decades but I don't know what it's based on other than hagiography. I'm not opposed to the claim, but I do think we need evidence for it.
This is an apt question. In Traitor to His Class, I answer it at length. The subtitle of the book - The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt - articulates the book's theme. In short, FDR was born a rich kid and for his first 39 years showed no special concern for the less fortunate. Then he contracted polio. He spent much of the next several years in Georgia trying to regain his strength. There he had personal encounters with the poor farmers of the state, some of whom he befriended and from whom he learned what it was like to be left behind as the American economy surged forward. He remembered them when he became president, and the effect was revealed in New Deal policies.
Thanks, I was concerned because I remember reading of this trait of Roosevelt in the Glory and the Dream by William Manchester, so I need the stories went way back, but Manchester did no footnotes :-)
I believe it was at the 1984 Democratic Party convention that Jesse Jackson had a great line in one of the opening speeches. Referring to people with physical and mental challenges, Jackson said: "I'd rather have Roosevelt in his wheelchair than Reagan on his horse."
Wasn’t there going to be a fdr statue in dc? it was designed depicting fdr standing up but then physical handicapped advocate groups protested. So the statute was put on hold. the advocate groups believed it was a misrepresentation of history if the fdr statue was standing. But most people alive when fdr was president didn’t know he was handicapped.
Here is the FDR memorial in Washington.
https://www.nps.gov/frde/index.htm
You can see him in his wheelchair.
Thanks for clarifying that for me. I read about the controversy in a book of trivia maybe published fifteen years ago but didn’t follow up on what happened. I guess Samuel arbeson is right when he write that facts have half-lives.
The FDR memorial is very impressive, one of my favorites.