History Forum: How Radical Was He? The Contradictory Politics of Theodore Roosevelt

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Join Kathleen Dalton of Phillips Academy and Boston University, for a lecture in which she asks the question "was Theodore Roosevelt a radical and how much did his words and policies impact the nation’s future?" Roosevelt stands astride the Progressive Era like a colossus. Believing that government must be "the steward of the public welfare," Roosevelt committed to protecting American consumers from industrial irresponsibility and corporate monopolies and fought for the conservation of America’s wild places. A firm believer in racial equality, he shocked the South by inviting black activist Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House. After his presidency, he became a staunch public supporter of woman suffrage. Roosevelt also set America on the road to international empire and agitated for U.S. entry into World War I.

Kathleen Dalton is the Cecil F.P. Bancroft Instructor of History at Phillips Academy Andover and an external fellow of Boston University’s International History Institute.