Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography

Overview
Theodore Roosevelt’s 1913 autobiography is a vigorous, first-person account of a life shaped by duty, reform, and adventure. He traces his path from a sickly New York boy to rancher, soldier, reformer, and the 26th president, using crisp anecdotes to explain decisions and principles. The narrative serves both as self-portrait and as a defense of progressive, practical governance, what he calls the Square Deal, anchored in character, civic responsibility, and national purpose.

Childhood and Formation
Roosevelt begins with his fragile health, his father’s stern kindness, and the self-discipline that turned asthma and weakness into the credo of the strenuous life. Early interests in natural history and fieldwork foreshadow his later conservationism. At Harvard he cultivated scholarship and debate, but he also learned the value of action over mere talk, a lesson he credits to family example and the boxing ring as much as to books.

Apprenticeship in Reform
Entering public life in the New York State Assembly, he confronted machine politics and discovered the lever of publicity. Losing the New York mayoralty and suffering devastating personal loss in 1884, he decamped to the Dakota Badlands. Ranching was a moral crucible and a practical education in labor, risk, and frontier justice. Returning to appointed offices, Civil Service Commissioner and New York Police Board president, he pressed merit over patronage, enforced the law against the well-connected, and learned to pair principle with administrative craft.

The West and War
As Assistant Secretary of the Navy he prepared for conflict with Spain, then resigned to form the Rough Riders. The Cuban campaign, culminating at San Juan Heights, gave him combat-tested legitimacy and a network of loyal supporters. Roosevelt portrays war not as glory but as proof of collective grit, insisting that preparedness and measured boldness deter greater bloodshed.

Governor to President
Elected governor of New York, he forced utility regulation, labor protections, and civil service reforms, alarming machine leaders who shunted him to the vice presidency. McKinley’s assassination brought him to the White House in 1901. He frames his presidency as an effort to make the federal government an honest broker between labor and capital, using lawful executive energy to meet industrial-era problems.

Domestic Policy: The Square Deal
He recounts trust prosecutions like Northern Securities to show that big business must be controlled, not demonized. Mediating the 1902 coal strike, he accepted unions as legitimate while demanding public-minded compromise. The Hepburn Act expanded railroad oversight; the Pure Food and Drug and Meat Inspection Acts protected consumers. He argues for opportunity, not guaranteed outcomes, and urges assimilation and Americanization, reflecting both reformist ambition and the limits of his era’s views on race and inequality.

Foreign Policy and the Canal
“Speak softly and carry a big stick” summarizes his posture: diplomacy backed by credible force. He celebrates the Panama Canal as an engineering feat and strategic necessity, recounts the delicate recognition of Panama’s independence, and describes sending the Great White Fleet to signal readiness. His mediation of the Russo-Japanese War, which earned a Nobel Peace Prize, illustrates his belief that order and balance preserve peace.

Conservation Ethic
Roosevelt’s love of wild places culminates in a national conservation program: forests reserved, monuments proclaimed under the Antiquities Act, and resource management professionalized. He insists that stewardship is patriotic economy, using without wasting, so future Americans inherit abundance.

Private Life and Belief
He writes warmly of family, from the searing loss of his first wife and mother to the steady partnership of Edith Carow and the exuberance of the White House children. Character, he argues, is forged by work, honesty, and cheerful courage, and public life is only justified by service to the common good.

Return to Citizen and 1912
After leaving office he hunted and collected specimens in Africa, then reentered politics to challenge his successor. The Progressive Party campaign of 1912, with calls for direct democracy, social insurance, and continued regulation, ends the book. He accepts defeat but claims the cause of progressive nationalism endures, reform must keep pace with a changing nation.