Sixty-eight years ago this week, Harry S. Truman succeeded Franklin D. Roosevelt as President of the United States, upon FDR’s death on April 12, 1945.
Photo: Harry S. Truman taking the oath of office, at 7:09 p.m. Bess and Margaret Truman stand to the right of Truman. Immediately behind Mr. Truman are (from left to right): Press Secretary Jonathan Daniels, Admiral William Leahy, Secretary of Agriculture Claude Wickard, receptionist William Simmons, and Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn.
from the Truman Library
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Franklin D. Roosevelt Whistle Stop Tour,
Campaigning aboard train “The Roosevelt Special” with son, James at New Albany, Indiana. October 22, 1932.
-from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.
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Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt were married on St. Patrick’s Day in 1905 in New York City. The wedding took place at the home of Eleanor’s aunt, Mrs. Henry Parrish Jr. The bride was given away by her uncle, President Theodore Roosevelt.
The newlyweds took their honeymoon over the summer and visited England, France, Germany, Italy, Scotland and Switzerland.
Here, Eleanor wears her wedding dress in a portrait from 1/20/05.
Source: fdrlibrary.wordpress.com
Franklin D. Roosevelt delivers his first Fireside Chat radio address to the nation from the White House. On March 12, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered the first of many radio addresses to the American people known as Fireside Chats. The first Chat concerned the actions taken by FDR to resolve the banking crisis that had confronted him upon his inauguration on March 4th.
Source: presidentialtimeline.org
Photograph of the Shibuya Family before relocation. April 1942
Original caption: Mountain View, California. Members of the Shibuya family are pictured at their home before evacuation. The father and the mother were born in Japan and came to this country in 1904. At that time the father had $60 in cash and a basket of clothes. He later built a prosperous business of raising select varieties of chrysanthemums which he shipped to eastern markets under his own trade name. Six children in the family were born in the United States. The four older children attended leading California Universities. Evacuees of Japanese ancestry will be housed in War Relocation Authority Centers for the duration.
In 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 which was used almost exclusively to intern Americans of Japanese descent. By 1943, more than 110,000 Japanese Americans had been forced from their homes and moved to camps. Forty-six years later, on August 10, 1988, President Reagan participated in a signing ceremony for the Japanese-American Internment Compensation Bill.
These are images from our archives of Japanese Americans relocated to interment camps between 1942-1945.
FDR, 1892.
Today in 1939, Albert Einstein signed a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt urging the creation of an atomic weapons research program.
Source: docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu
Franklin Delano Roosevelt + Jaw Fish + Houseboat = Florida, 1924
In 1924, FDR and friend, John Lawrence, purchased a second-hand houseboat that the two named the Larooco. At that time FDR was still coming to terms with his polio diagnosis and hoped that the fun and relaxation of seasonal houseboat life in the warm waters of Florida would benefit his health and recovery. Trusted friend and adviser, Louis Howe, presented FDR with a light-hearted gift of an illustrated ship log to commemorate the Larooco’s first voyage. The cover of the log is pictured above.
Roosevelt made three trips in all aboard the vessel, his last in 1926. The Larooco washed inland during a hurricane and was later sold as scrap in 1927. As FDR wrote to his mother:
So ended a good craft with a personality.
-from The Roosevelt Library
