Even being raised in the country from the opposite end of the World Political Spectrum, I heard from my school days about who Franklin D. Roosevelt was and what he did. I have learned the three most well-known facts about FDR from my history class in school and, later, from newspapers and TV.
1. He was an American president in the first part of the 20th century.
2. He was one of the three most powerful world leaders who had joined together to form a coalition to overturn fascist Germany. The coalition has succeeded, and Germany was defeated by joint forces of the US, the USSR, and Great Britain.
3. Franklin D. Roosevelt was one of the most popular presidents of the US who was elected to serve in office four times.
If with the first two facts all was clear, the last one made me curious. No one before him and no one after him, up to implementing the 22 Amendment, could beat that record. So, I was always wondering what is so special about this man? Why is he so popular? I could understand why in my own country, any leader once appointed to rule the country stayed in this position till the very end when he died. It is was a part of our political system. No dictator ever voluntarily gave up his/her power. But here, in America, it was unprecedented. The US belonged to the free World, where people had the power to pick or re-elect those who were considered worthy. But four times in the row? It was strange and not understandable to me.
Of course, I had my own guesses and assumptions based mostly on what I have learned from the history classes. However, they also were infected by Communist propaganda. I needed to look at a subject from a different angle. So, when I got a chance to conduct my own research, I hopped on this idea.
Unfortunately, the quarantine tossed our ability to use real libraries with printed books and documents. Since I am not so good at working with electronic libraries and digital copies, I decided to try a different approach. It is much easier for me to google information directly. Thus, for this project, I used only open sources I found via searching the Internet with one exception: a hard copy of an American history textbook.
When the prime question is so broad and not quite specific, it is hard to decide where to begin from. So, my starting point was the textbook named 'The American Promise.' I love this book because it gives the largest possible picture of what was going on in this or that particular period. It has a lot of names, dates, and references regarding different historical events. It helped me get the first impression of FDR's biography, his career milestones, and how it connected to his personal qualities. Though, the book focused more on FDR's deeds than on what he was. I used it as a road map for the following searches.
My next step was to define keywords and phrases to start searching the Internet. It was the easier part. First, I used my original question for searching. It yielded me hundreds and hundreds of references. Usually, I pick articles from reliable (in my opinion) sources among domain names such as .edu, .org, .gov. When I looked through about a dozen or so sites, I noted that they repeated approximately the same information and narrative. Like my textbook, almost all information from official cites is concentrated on biographical facts: the chronology of reasons, decisions, acts, and consequences. Although I understood that events and circumstances surrounding a person significantly influence this person's identity and form his or her inner traits, there is a back reaction. A person with a pronounced individuality, strong-willed character, and determined mindset can change the course of history by making crucial decisions at the right time. Thus, I was more interested in discovering if FDR had such a strong personality or his success was only the result of luck and concatenation of circumstances. So, I decided to modify my request and accentuate what kind of personal traits make FDR so popular.
In response to the modified request, I received a variety of links again. However, the meaning of the results was not as homogeneous as it was in the first time. Among the comparable articles overviewing FDR's biography and his achievements, I got some extremes that either sing the praises of his personality and presidential skills or lashed out with sharp criticism. It was interesting and kind of unexpected, though. Most previous articles I read highlighted how many goods did Roosevelt to the country's well-being. After reading a new portion of sources, I suddenly discover that it all was not as unequivocally as I thought when I started my research.
Not all of the interesting articles I found were from the official or educational websites. Some of them were from news outlets, some from the different private websites dedicated to politics, analytics, or history. Nevertheless, I think it is good to get various outlooks on the same subject because the picture you get in this way might be more representative and complete. So, after I read a decent number of articles, I still could not decide which two of them I should pick as my prime sources. Finally, I ended up with nine websites. Each of them adds some details to the whole (almost) picture. So that I simply decided to pick two of them, which impressed me more than others.
My first source is the usnews.com website with the article 'FDR: The President Who Made America Into a Superpower' by Kenneth T. Walsh. The author lists the key points that made Roosevelt as outstanding president as were Washington or Lincoln. Also, he mentioned the most significant FDR's achievements during his presidential terms. From this source, I have learned how a profound impact on the nation and the world FDR made during his presidency. Robert Dallek, who wrote a new biography of FDR, said that Roosevelt "...was a major transformative leader." Indeed, he was a great experimenter who was not afraid of making radicals decisions to improve Americans' lives. Even encountering strong resistance from those who refused to accept his New Deal, he continued moving forward. Another significant trait of Roosevelt's character mentioned by the author is " his ability to empathize with his fellow citizens, to show that he cared for them and would do everything he could to help them." His famous "fireside chats," when he spoke to the nation via radio, was one of the best ways to win over Americans. Dallek adds: "He had a brilliant intuitive feel for American politics, and you can't teach that; you can't teach how to be a great politician." He used his communication skills to shape public opinion and create grass-roots support for his ideas that converted to support for his legislation in Congress.
The second source that I chose is the article 'Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life' Examines The Personal Traits That Marked FDR For Greatness' by Ron Elving that I found on the npr.org website. This author also went through FDR's personal traits. Further, he analyzed Roosevelt's success and downturns, linking them to the president's personality. The author stresses the same strengths of Roosevelt's character as others did but adds that there were enough people who dislike FDR very much despite great popularity. Those people saw the backside of Roosevelt's personality. According to the author, they claimed he was "the closest thing to a dictator the nation had ever known." Still, they considered him the greatest figure of our time because of his significant political leadership skills. The author also refers to Dallek, FDR's biographer, who in turn emphasizes the human scale of FDR's life. For example, the author says that Roosevelt was so self-reliant sure of his course that he went too far with the "court-packing" scheme, which becomes one of his significant downturns. Other mentions of achievements and failures show Franklin D. Roosevelt more as a live person than a legendary figure from a poster.
I found both articles pretty interesting. They helped me understand why Franklin D. Roosevelt was so popular that people gave him their voices four times in a row, contrary to the historical tradition that the president should not be in office for more than two terms. Also, during the researching process, my perception of FDR has changed. The more I see his nature's drawback, the more real and human-like he seems to me. It is much easier to win over people's hearts if you are a superman, but far harder if you an ordinary person but albeit with unordinary personal traits.
Citations:
Primary Source:
1. ‘FDR: The President Who Made America Into a Superpower’ from usnews.com
2. ‘'Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life' Examines The Personal Traits That Marked FDR For Greatness’ from npr.org
Secondary Source:
1. ‘Was FDR A Good President?’ from thefreemanonline.org
2. ‘FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT: IMPACT AND LEGACY’ from millercenter.org
3. ‘The Real Reason for FDR's Popularity’ from mises.org
4. ‘FDR’s third-term election and the 22nd amendment’ from constitutioncenter.org
Hi Julia! I really enjoyed your research story. I also kind of love Ron Elving (Is that weird? 😂) and listen to him on NPR--he's got such a wealth of knowledge of political history. I am also really intrigued by the initial search question. It is so unusual for an American president to be elected so many times and I always think about the historical context of WWII and how that affected both his decision to run so many times and his popularity. (In contrast, think about how well-regarded Abraham Lincoln is today--he almost lost his second election in the context of the Civil War.)
One thing I would love to see is your rich analysis of FDR's rhetoric and style. I'm interested especially in how you perceive his personality in his speeches and/or fireside chats. The FDR Library has a collection of recordings of his voice (and transcripts too)--would love to know what you think in the unessay?
Before reading your post, I only had an idea that he was popular because he was elected four times more than any other presidents. But I got to see different points of why he was also popular. Your essay helped me understand more about FDR. Nice Job!
I like the topic of your question Julia! During my research I came across a lot about FDR during WWII particularly in regards to the Holocaust. There is no denying that FDR was a great president and did much for this country during his long presidency but it is sobering to remember that he too was just a man, a man with faults and perhaps even prejudices. One such fault was his inability to take action to help the Jewish people being murdered by Nazi Germany. His efforts came too little, too late, and in the grand picture of the Holocaust. At the same time this does not negate all the positive things he did. Thanks for sharing all that you found on what made him so popular :)
Overall enjoyable read and a interesting topic he was a very interesting president, if I remember correctly I think he would have boxing matches in the white house.