Franklin Delano Roosevelt

January 30, 1882 — April 12, 1945

Franklin Roosevelt was at the start of a promising political career, having served as a New York State Senator (1910-1913) and Assistant Secretary of the Navy (1913-1919,) when he fell ill one afternoon in August 1921 during a trip to Campobello Island. His illness, diagnosed as infantile paralysis—polio—left him paralyzed from the waist down. But he continued on, propelled by his engaging personality, political advisors, and his wife Eleanor, to become governor of New York in 1929 and President of the United States in 1932. His first two terms were defined by the Great Depression and his administration’s at times controversial efforts to put the country back to work and on its feet. And as Europe hurtled towards war, he balanced the strong currents of post-World War I isolationism in American public opinion with his conviction that the United States should support the fight against Nazism, engineering the Lend-Lease Program to send aid to Britain before American entry into World War II. Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt were also the parents to six children, one of whom died as an infant. All four of their sons fought in World War II, as did their son-in-law, daughter Anna’s husband John Boettiger. While her husband was overseas, Anna moved into the White House and became one her father’s closest aides, particularly while his right-hand man, Harry Hopkins, was away receiving treatment for stomach cancer. At the major wartime conferences, FDR took at least one of his sons with him, not only as an aide-de-camp, but also as a physical source of support to help him stand and move from his chair. However, at Yalta, he left the physical support to his Secret Service guards and instead turned to Anna as the war in Europe hurtled to a finish.

Photograph: Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, public domain