The Roosevelts: An Intimate History

"Between them Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt for nineteen of the first forty-five years of the twentieth century, years during which much of the modern world -- and the modern state -- was created." (Ken Burns)

No other American family has touched more lives than the Roosevelt's.  Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt shared a common love for politics and people.  They shared a common courage in the face of fear and perseverance in the face of adversity.  They also shared a common relative, Eleanor Roosevelt.

Ken Burns series The Roosevelts:  An Intimate History courtesy http://www.weta.org/tv/program/roosevelts-intimate-history.

Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States, had his finger on the pulse of America.  He was a Populist, concerned about the farmers, about grassroots America.  He was also concerned about nature, making a pilgrimage to Yellowstone, the first of America's National Parks.  Theodore Roosevelt was fearless.  While delivering a political speech on one occasion, an assassin shot him. The bullet lodged within a quarter inch of his heart.  However, Theodore insisted on delivering the speech, which lasted a full hour.  Only then did he let his attendants take him to the hospital.

Speed reader Theodore Roosevelt used to read a book a day courtesy

http://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/president-theodore-roosevelts-1903-visit-wyoming.

Theodore's fifth cousin, Franklin Roosevelt, became the 32nd President of the United States.  While Theodore was a Republican, Franklin was a Democrat.  The two shared much in common.  Both were fearless.  After contracting polio at Campobello Island at the age of 39, Franklin insisted on learning how to "walk" again using braces and crutches.  Suffering immense pain, he would practise standing so he could deliver a speech, determined to make a political comeback.  Franklin campaigned in every county of New York State in his bid for governor.  Later he ran an extensive presidential campaign.  No stranger to pain and suffering, it was Franklin who led the nation through the Great Depression, building moral through his fireside radio chats.  It was Franklin who delivered the famous "Today will live in infamy speech" after the Pearl Harbor attack. 

A young FDR courtesy 

 http://www.pbs.org/show/roosevelts/.

Franklin married Eleanor Roosevelt, Theodore's niece.  The couple raised five children.  Eleanor, always supportive of her husband's political career, helped him campaign.  More than any other First Lady, she worked diligently to promote her husband's career.  Eleanor wrote a column in a daily newspaper.  She promoted childhood literacy.  She furthered the cause of Black Americans.  And long after her husband passed away, Eleanor was still working.

Eleanor Roosevelt courtesy https://prezi.com/aslc1oru9fmw/eleanor-roosevelt/. 

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

He La.  Two syllables.  To the average person, they mean nothing.  But to the average scientist they mean something.  And to Deborah Lacks, they meant everything.  These two syllables changed history.

He La is the world's first immortal cells.  Over the past six decades, scientists have studied them to research everything from cancer to polio to infertility.  They have travelled across the country, around the world, even to the moon.  He La spawned a multimillion dollar industry.  He La is big.  Yet its beginnings were small.

Henrietta & David Lacks courtesy www.blackpast.org.

He La stands for a real person, Henrietta Lacks.  A Black American woman, she was born and raised in the 1920's in Clover, Virginia.  Still a teenager, she married her first cousin.  The couple had five children.

Henrietta's husband, however, was a philanderer, infecting his wife with both gonorrhea and syphillis (and likely HPV, the human papilloma virus, an unidentified condition in the 1950's).  Offered treatment at the local hospital, she turned it down, likely because she couldn't afford it.

After the birth of her youngest child, Henrietta said she had a "knot" inside her.  Her husband took her to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland where she was diagnosed with a tumor on her cervix. Henrietta underwent an operation where the surgeon removed part of her cervix, and stored some of her cancer cells.  Doctors treated her with radiation, but the cancer continued to spread.  At the tender age of 31, Henrietta Lacks passed away, leaving five young children motherless.

www.issues4life.org

Unknown to her husband or children, doctors at Johns Hopkins started experimenting with her cancer cells. While previous cells had only survived for a short time, Henrietta's cells continued to regenerate.  It became apparent that her cells were immortal.  While the original doctor who took her cells seemed content to use them for research alone, other recipients of the cells started to use them for profit.

As the cells continued to multiply, their identity was kept top secret.  At one point, someone mistakenly claimed that He La stood for Helen Lane, a mistake that many mistook for the truth.  Others suggested that He La stood for Helga Larsen.  Will the real He La please stand up?

He La cells courtesy www.2palomar.edu.

Finally, in the early 1970's, when the original scientist to work with He La, George Guy, passed away, his colleagues published an article about the cells and revealed their true origin, Henrietta Lacks.  The following decade, an Illinois high school science student, Rebecca Skloot, first heard about He La.  Her teacher planted a seed which would grow like the cells and eventually lead to a book, The Immortal Cells of Henrietta Lacks.  

www.theopennotebook.com

Ms. Skloot poured over documents, surfed the Internet and made connections to find out as much as she could about He La.  Then on day she hit the jackpot -- she tracked down Deborah Lacks, Henrietta's daughter.  While Deborah was dubious that Rebecca might want to profit from her mother's cells, she slowly came to the realization that she simply wanted to get to the bottom of her mother's story.  Deborah, a young child when her mother died, shared the same desire.  The two women bonded over the issue, forging an almost decade long friendship.

Today, He La cells continue to grow.  If measured on a scale, scientists estimate their weight to be 50 million metric tons.  Rebecca Skloot's book is a #1 New York Times Bestseller and has been translated into 25 languages.  Oprah Winfrey is producing a movie about He La.  Two syllables that changed history.

http://www.amazon.ca/The-Immortal-Life-Henrietta-Lacks/dp/1400052181

*First published in 2014.

George Eastman: Camera Magnate was Methodical Self-Educator

"The progress of the world depends almost entirely upon education.  I selected a limited number of recipients because I wanted to cover certain kinds of education and I felt that I could get results with those named quicker and more directly than if the money were spread." (George Eastman)

Millionaire businessman George Eastman was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth.  He lost his father at 7 and was forced to become the man of the household.  His adversity, however, seemed to drive him forward.  He amassed a fortune with the Eastman Kodak Company, which rather than spending on himself, he chose to invest in education.

George Eastman's parents were both born and raised in abolitionist households.  They believed in the importance of education.  Eastman's father founded a college which would serve as a prototype for America's first business schools.  Tragedy struck when he died, leaving his seven year old son to be the head of the household.  George's mother took in boarders, but he felt badly that she had to cook and clean for these strangers.  Tragedy struck again when George's sister fell ill with polio and died at 16.  

At 13, George quit school to start making money to support his family.  He worked both as a messenger boy and as an insurance salesman.  Following in his father's footsteps, he took a job at a bank where he would work all day, six days a week.  Evenings he spent tinkering with his new purchase, a camera.  George would work well into the night, experimenting with photo emulsions.  He would take catnaps, waking himself at regular intervals to stir the emulsions.  George was constantly trying to educate himself.  

George opened a camera and photography supply business which dominated the market by the turn of the last century.  He amassed a fortune which simply sat in a bank account, accumulating pennies for interest.  George decided to donate his money to the cause of education.  He built one of the best music schools in the world, the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York.  He donated upwards of $20 million to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and more than $50 million to the University of Rochester.  And in keeping with his abolitionist roots, he supported the cause of black education, donating to the Tuskegee Institute and Hampton Institute.  These donations were often done anonymously as George was not one for self-aggrandizement. 

Eastman relaxing in his library courtesy http://www.kodak.com/ek/US/en/George_Eastman.htm.

Dore Schary's "Sunrise at Campobello Island"

Sara Delano and her husband James Roosevelt purchased land on Campobello Island in the 1880's, a resort where wealthy Americans and Canadians stayed.  When Franklin Delano Roosevelt married Eleanor, they purchased a 34 room cottage on the island.  In 1921, Franklin fell ill and was diagnosed with polio, which left him permanently paralyzed. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_D._Roosevelt#Polio)

Dore Schary's play, Sunrise at Campobello Island, which premiered on January 30, 1958, focusses on the years 1921, when Franklin first contracted polio, to 1924 when he returned to the political scene.  The play stars Ralph Bellamy as a young FDR, Mary Fickett as Eleanor, Anne Seymour as the interfering mother in law, Sara Delano Roosevelt, and James Earl Jones in his first big role.

Franklin is depicted as someone who never gives up.  After having served in the New York State Senate and as Secretary of the Navy, Roosevelt ran for president of vice-president in 1920 and lost.   While FDR would pursue walking for seven years after his polio attack, he never did relearn how to walk unassisted.  Roosevelt's polio diagnosis could have spelled the end of his career.  But he made the best of it.

"On June 26, 1924, FDR stood at the podium in Madison Square Garden and nominated Alfred E. Smith as the presidential candidate for the Democratic Party." (http://www.amazon.com/Sunrise-Campobello-Play-Three-Acts/dp/0822211017)  Referred to as the "Happy Warrior Speech" this marked Roosevelt's return to politics.  Roosevelt was back in a big way.  In 1932, he was elected President of the United States, the first of four successful election bids.  His New Deal, his fireside chats, his "a date that will live in infamy" speech built the morale of a nation.

Sunrise at Campobello Island enjoyed a 556-performance run on Broadway.  In 1960, two years after the play debuted, the film version premiered, also starring Ralph Bellamy. Greer Garson played Eleanor Roosevelt.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/arts/television/mary-fickett-a-pillar-of-all-my-children-dies-at-83.html?_r=0