After visiting Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and reading David McCullough's book Mornings On Horseback about TR's formative years, I have been trying to reconcile several ideas in my head. Roosevelt is celebrated for his advancement of "the strenuous life". He calls the outdoor life a "tonic" and points to his outdoor activities as a major part of shaping his life experience. Historically he is credited with bringing forward the ideas of conservation and outdoor adventure as part of the thinking that pushed the idea into the mainstream of American thought and psyche.
Except his experiences lead from his position as a wealthy elite. In fact the elite of the elite. His family's wealth was of long standing and entrenched from his grandfather's time. His house were of the upstairs/downstairs Downton Abbey style. Not in physical size but with servants in the lower house cooking and upstairs servants to serve meals and attend to family needs. In his childhood his father and mother took the entire family to Europe for a year of travel, and they went again through Europe onto Egypt a chartered rip on a boat down the Nile (complete with servants). Nobody had to go into work and punch a clock. True the Roosevelt family did attend to business, but the ability to walk away for long periods of time was a testament to the wise investment choices made by the family and the size of their fortune. His explorations come with the extra "padding" of wealth to hire support in the form of guides and cooks and manservants.
Roosevelt comes to the Dakotas ostensibly on business to explore about raising cattle in the North Dakota badlands. He is also a crux point in his life. He has just lost his beloved wife who died just after giving birth to his first child. On the same day his mother died. Two beloved figures in his life. He turns his daughter over to his sister to be raised. I cannot fathom his grief. He plunges on with some politics in the spring but after the Republican convention he is off to the Dakotas.
In the Dakotas he does have help from folks who were guides for him in Maine. It is also said that he threw himself into learning the trade of ranching, never being a very skilled cowboy but adequate and willing to the tasks.
McCullough never says it but I can imagine him riding out to the edge of a grassy butte and just letting the tears flow. Roosevelt in some of his writings talks about this being a change point in his life. Now being unfettered with family he faces decisions about his life. His experiences in the Badlands are a way for him to step away from New York re-gather himself through the tonic of the vigorous life and plunge ahead.
And yet it was his wealth that allowed him to do it. His cattle venture cost him about some $700000 in today's money. As a young man he was able to step away, sort out his life as best he could, weather a financial loss and see his change circumstance as a product of a vigorous life on the range. He was not the workaday cowboy supporting the daily tasks and the venture after Roosevelt returned to his city and wealth based life. Maybe in some way you needed to be financially independent to allow the tonic of the wilderness to work on you. Otherwise you are just a work-a-day-joe whose roping and riding are a paycheck rather than a adventure to write about or to be able to tell stories about in the drawning rooms of high society.
It is not without notice that I also am at a change point in my life. I don't have Roosevelt's means but there is a certain parallel that for the short time we have the means to travel and the luxury of time and the wilderness to short out what comes next. So for it has been for us, like Roosevelt, a delightfully bully tonic!
Except his experiences lead from his position as a wealthy elite. In fact the elite of the elite. His family's wealth was of long standing and entrenched from his grandfather's time. His house were of the upstairs/downstairs Downton Abbey style. Not in physical size but with servants in the lower house cooking and upstairs servants to serve meals and attend to family needs. In his childhood his father and mother took the entire family to Europe for a year of travel, and they went again through Europe onto Egypt a chartered rip on a boat down the Nile (complete with servants). Nobody had to go into work and punch a clock. True the Roosevelt family did attend to business, but the ability to walk away for long periods of time was a testament to the wise investment choices made by the family and the size of their fortune. His explorations come with the extra "padding" of wealth to hire support in the form of guides and cooks and manservants.
Roosevelt comes to the Dakotas ostensibly on business to explore about raising cattle in the North Dakota badlands. He is also a crux point in his life. He has just lost his beloved wife who died just after giving birth to his first child. On the same day his mother died. Two beloved figures in his life. He turns his daughter over to his sister to be raised. I cannot fathom his grief. He plunges on with some politics in the spring but after the Republican convention he is off to the Dakotas.
In the Dakotas he does have help from folks who were guides for him in Maine. It is also said that he threw himself into learning the trade of ranching, never being a very skilled cowboy but adequate and willing to the tasks.
McCullough never says it but I can imagine him riding out to the edge of a grassy butte and just letting the tears flow. Roosevelt in some of his writings talks about this being a change point in his life. Now being unfettered with family he faces decisions about his life. His experiences in the Badlands are a way for him to step away from New York re-gather himself through the tonic of the vigorous life and plunge ahead.
And yet it was his wealth that allowed him to do it. His cattle venture cost him about some $700000 in today's money. As a young man he was able to step away, sort out his life as best he could, weather a financial loss and see his change circumstance as a product of a vigorous life on the range. He was not the workaday cowboy supporting the daily tasks and the venture after Roosevelt returned to his city and wealth based life. Maybe in some way you needed to be financially independent to allow the tonic of the wilderness to work on you. Otherwise you are just a work-a-day-joe whose roping and riding are a paycheck rather than a adventure to write about or to be able to tell stories about in the drawning rooms of high society.
It is not without notice that I also am at a change point in my life. I don't have Roosevelt's means but there is a certain parallel that for the short time we have the means to travel and the luxury of time and the wilderness to short out what comes next. So for it has been for us, like Roosevelt, a delightfully bully tonic!
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