How Did Franklin Delano Roosevelt Effect Society
Fitzgerald
Molly
3-7-13
Period 3
Franklin Delano Roosevelt accomplished his goal of being a driving force in improving
the lives of people in The united States of America through his fantastic career in politics..
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born into a wealthy family that lived in Hyde Park. He had a
very privileged childhood, traveling all around the world at a young age, flying trans-Atlantic
flights several times before turning twelve (Hook 16-17). Franklin married his fifth cousin once
removed, Eleanor Roosevelt, a brilliant young lady (Freedman 25-28). He wanted to lead a life in
politics like his cousin Theodore who had been President of the United States of America
(Freedman 30). After graduating from law school he sought out opportunities to run for public
office (Freedman 30). At the age of 28 in 1910 Roosevelt ran for the New York senate seat
(Freedman 30-32). A very important part of his campaign was to talk to as many people as
possible, to do this he used an automobile to get him around the state and talk to people in
different towns (Freedman 30-32). Roosevelt was the first person to use an automobile to get
around when campaigning, this revolutionized the way people campaigned while running for
public office (Freedman 30-32). Franklin Delano Roosevelt was not a very good public speaker.
He slowly got used to speaking in front of large audiences and improved his oral presentations
(Freedman 30-32). On the topic of his speaking Eleanor Roosevelt said that when he spoke he
was “high strung and at times, nervous… He spoke slowly, and every now and then there would
be a long pause, and I would be worried for fear that he would never go on,” (Freedman 32). He
won his first election by over 1,000 votes, upsetting his Republican opponent (Freedman 33). In
1912, when franklin ran for reelection, he fell terribly ill and was unable to campaign, but he had
enough support from the people to win without campaigning (Freedman 35). Roosevelt Worked
for the Navy and was known as a persistent, focused worker (Freedman 36). He helped improve
the Navy going into World War I and was willing to try almost anything to help the United
States (Freedman 38). In 1920 Roosevelt entered national politics, running as Vice President for
James Cox (Freedman 41). The team lost to Harding and Coolidge who had 61% of the vote
(Freedman 43). Franklin Delano Roosevelt was nominated by the Democratic Party after their
fourth round of voting in 1932 (Kennedy). Many people did not like the choice of Candidate and
thought they had made a very poor choice (Kennedy). On the topic of nominations many people
said he had a very good temperament, but was not very intelligent (Kennedy). Roosevelt won the
1932 presidential election with 22,809,648 votes compared to his opponents 15,758,901 votes
(Kennedy). He was President from 1933- 1945, being the only president in United States history
to serve four terms in office (Maney). Franklin Delano Roosevelt died in 1945, from a cerebral
hemorrhage (bleeding of the brain due to a broken blood vessel) (Maney).
Franklin Delano Roosevelt had an enormous impact on people of his time in many
different forms and on all different scales of enormity. He helped the United States of America
be on the victorious side of World War I as a Navy leader (Freedman 38-41). As governor of
New York, he took and active role in the St Lawrence River development, reforestation, and
resource management (Kennedy).