Melissa Maupin - Franklin D. Roosevelt

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Creative Spark: Mary McGavic, Project Director; Melissa McDaniel, Editorial
Director; Deborah Goodsite, Photo Research

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P HOTOS
Cover and page 3: White House Historical Association (White House Collection)
(detail); White House Historical Association (White House Collection)

Interior: The Art Archive: 8, 11, 16 and 39 (Culver Pictures), 24 (The Art Archive);
Associated Press Images: 22, 29, 34 and 39; Corbis: 5 and 38, 13, 14, 17, 18, 30
(Bettmann), 6 and 38, 15, 21, 28, 35 (Corbis), 7 (Underwood & Underwood), 10
(Hulton-Deutsch Collection); Courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library: 4,
12; Getty Images: 27, 32 (Getty Images), 36 (Popperfoto); The Granger Collection,
New York: 33, 37; The Image Works: 19 (Topham), 25 (Scherl/SV-Bilderdienst);
iStockphoto: 44 (Tim Fan); Jupiter Images: 23 (Ewing Galloway); Library of
Congress: 20 (Dorothea Lange); U.S. Air Force photo: 45.

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Copyright 2009 by The Childs World. All rights reserved. No part of this
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L IBRARY OF C ONGRESS C ATALOGING-IN- P UBLICATION D ATA
Maupin, Melissa, 1958
Franklin D. Roosevelt / by Melissa Maupin.
p. cm. (Presidents of the U.S.A.)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 9781602530607 (library bound : alk. paper)
1. Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 18821945Juvenile literature. 2.
PresidentsUnited StatesBiographyJuvenile literature. I. Title. II. Series.

E807.M335 2008
973.917092dc22
[B]

2008004368

Franklin Roosevelt
served as president
from 1933 to 1945.

Franklin Roosevelt
was the only child of
James and Sara Roosevelt.

ranklin Delano Roosevelt was a wealthy man
who was elected president of the United States
at a time when many people were very poor. Roosevelt
served as president during the Great
Depression. This economic down-
turn cost millions of Americans
their jobs. Businesses and banks
closed. Many families were
homeless and had no money
to buy basic items such as
food, clothing, or medicine.
Roosevelts goal as president
was to fix the problems faced
by average Americans, The test
of our progress is not whether
we add more to the abundance of
those who have much, he said. It is
whether we provide enough for those who
have too little.

Although Roosevelt was dedicated to helping
poor Americans, he had never been poor himself. In
fact, Roosevelt grew up in a wealthy family. His father,

James, was the successful president of a railroad com-pany. He had enough money to supply young Franklin with anything he needed or wanted.

Franklin Roosevelt was born in Hyde Park, New York, on January 30, 1882. He was schooled at his country mansion, as was the custom in wealthy fami-lies at the time. His mother, Sara, taught him when he was young. As he grew older, nannies and tutors took over the job of educating him.

As a child, Franklin enjoyed collecting stamps and searching for wildlife in the local woods. Each sum-mer, he could hardly wait to start the family vacation.

Roosevelt grew up in
this grand house in
Hyde Park overlooking
the Hudson River.
Roosevelt loved his
family home. Late in
life, he said, All that
is within me cries out
to go back to my home
on the Hudson River.

Franklins mother, Sara
Delano Roosevelt, was
26 years younger than
her husband. James
was a widower and
had one son from
his first marriage.

Franklin was a big baby
and had a difficult
birth. He was a bluish
color when he was
born, and the doctor
feared he might not be
alive. The doctor blew
into Franklins lungs,
and Franklin finally
gave a healthy cry. The
delivery was so difficult
that Sara had no more
children after Franklin.

James Roosevelt, shown
here with Franklin, was
a businessman, but he
preferred spending time in
the country. He enjoyed
riding horses and fishing.

The Roosevelts traveled to Campobello, an island off the Atlantic coast of Canada where they had a summer home, There, Franklin learned to sail and dreamed of working as a sailor one day.

When Franklin was 12, James Roosevelt wanted to send him to boarding school, but Sara refused. She couldnt bear to be without her son. Finally, at age 14, the Roosevelts enrolled Franklin in the Groton School in Massachusetts. He was older than most of the other boys in his classes and had a difficult time making friends. He did meet a boy named Lothrop Brown at Groton. The two boys became best friends and remained close throughout Roosevelts life.

At Groton, Franklin Roosevelt already had a strong interest in
politics. One reason for his keen interest was that his distant
cousin Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt was becoming important in
the Republican Party. In 1898, Teddy Roosevelt became a hero
during the Spanish-American War. In this war, the United States
fought to free Cuba from Spanish rule. Roosevelt led a troop of
soldiers called the Rough Riders to victory in a battle in Cuba.

In 1900, Theodore Roosevelt was elected vice president.
He became president when President William McKinley was
killed in 1901. As president, Roosevelt was devoted to trying to
improve the lives of average Americans. He called for laws that
would protect workers. Franklin was in college by this time. He
greatly admired Teddys energy and desire to improve the nation.
He began to think that he, too, might one day enter politics.

Franklin Roosevelt
(bottom row, second
from left) attended
the Groton School in