Theodore Roosevelt

This 1967 statue of Theodore Roosevelt by Paul Manship stands in the the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial on Theodore Roosevelt Island.

 1858 Theodore Roosevelt 1919

 

 Paul Manship Sculp.

Manship originally proposed an Armillary Sphere as the centerpiece of the Roosevelt Memorial. But Alice Roosevelt Longworth and other members of the public objected. Alice described it as a "celestial jungle gym."  In the end, the sphere was replaced by the large statue of Roosevelt. See Paul Manship's Armillary Sphere, NPS.

The Roosevelt Statue was dedicated on Oct. 27, 1967, Roosevelt's 109th birthday. Park Rangers posed with the statue at the dedication. See Art Inventories Catalog, Smithsonian American Art Museums

 

Roosevelt makes a distinctive rhetorical gesture with his right hand.

Roosevelt's characteristic gesture is captured in this 1902 Underwood & Underwood photo.

Wandering around, we find ourselves on beautiful Roosevelt Island, formerly Analostan Island about which James Kirke Paulding wrote  these verses:

On either side, and all around,

The weltering wave is seen to flow,

Noiseless, or, if you hear a song,

'Tis but a murmur, soft and low.

The great trees, nodding to and fro

In stately conclaves not a few,

Whisper as secretly and slow

As bashful lovers ever do.

The tinkling bell, the plashing oar,

The buzzing of the insect throng.

The laugh that echoes from the shore,

The unseen thrush's vesper song—

And when I count the earthly hours

That I shall cherish most of all,

That walk in Analostan's bowers

Will be the first that I recall.

This poem is quoted by John Clagett Proctor in his article “Analostan Island Once Mystery Tract” in the Washington Star, May 4, 1930.

See also:

Roosevelt Island, Anne E. Kidd,  HABS
Evolution of Roosevelt Island, Anne E. Kidd et al., HABS