In a famous episode, which he would retell often in later years, he knocked out cold a cattlehand who dared make fun of his glasses. Roosevelt threw himself into his new life with fierce determination, and soon, he earned the respect of the frontiersmen and settlers he met. At first, the cowhands and ranchers he met and worked with had little respect for the New York dandy come to pretend he was a cowboy, but it wasn't long before this changed.
settled on a ranch on the banks of the Little Missouri. Equipping himself richly, with expensive clothes and western accessories, T. It was there, amid the cowboys and Indians, that Roosevelt could escape his pain, and perhaps find new meaning. Through hunting, killing, taming nature, facing danger, a man might truly become a man. As it did for so many countless other Americans in the mid- to late nineteenth century, the frontier, wild and untamed, held the promise of reinvention. Defining MomentĪfter the death of his wife and mother on the same night in 1884, a young Theodore Roosevelt, heir to a wealthy and powerful New York family, fled west to the Badlands in Dakota Territory. Roosevelt would become the first cowboy president, influencing not just how the public viewed the presidency, but also the men who held the office. Afterward, he was able to utilize the symbols of the American West to his political advantage. got his most important education from cowboys and ranchers, from lawmen and outlaws whom he encountered amidst the wilds. Lured by the promise of adventure after a personal tragedy, T. He learned it, as many Americans did, on the western frontier. But Roosevelt, born and raised in New York, did not learn the art of manliness among the East Coast's high society or even in the tumultuous world of politics. In this view, masculinity was tough, adventurous, and uncompromising. R., as he was later known, is often credited with defining what it was to be a man at the turn of the century. Summary OverviewĪs president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt had a reputation for being a strong, brave, and rugged figure.
As president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt had a reputation for being a strong, brave, and rugged figure.
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