HUDSON VALLEY BOOKSHELF: Roosevelt Country
by Andrew Rieser

Review of FDR at Home, Nancy A. Fogel, ed. Published by the Dutchess County Historical Society, 2005. Paperback, 206 pages ISBN 0-944733-00-X

Sixty years after his death, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, along with Abraham Lincoln, remains one of the nation's most popular political heroes. Like Lincoln, FDR led the country through a long winter of war. Like Lincoln, FDR died in the springtime of peace and left the task of coping with post-war turmoil to his successors. And both presidents have been lauded by legions of biographers for their resilience and strategic genius.

But FDR's personality is the more inscrutable of the two. Lincoln was overtly religious and suffered from depression. FDR, by contrast, had an unnaturally sunny disposition. Rarely did his optimism fail, even in the face of physical handicap, economic devastation, and the struggle against Fascism on two continents. Where did this man learn to be so winsomely buoyant?

The answer, according to a wonderful new book entitled FDR at Home, is Dutchess County. Although the 15 history essays that comprise this anthology are not academic or systematic in approach, they are all based on a common organizing principle--FDR's love for the Roosevelt manse in Hyde Park, called Springwood, and the history, culture, and ecology of its surrounding landscape. Indeed, few presidents have been so deeply grounded in one place. He once wrote to an organization to correct his mailing address, insisting that "I never have been and hope I never will be a resident of New York City." On the stump, driving around the county in his red Maxwell, FDR liked to call himself "a hick from Dutchess County." And always, that sunny disposition: "I am glad to see you all," he once said to a group of Republican neighbors who came to congratulate him for a recent victory. "I know you didn't vote for me, but I am glad to see you anyway."

FDR and the Hyde Park School Board discuss plans for Franklin D. Roosevelt High School.

To our more jaded political sensibility, such words appear hokey. The authors of FDR at Home never forget that FDR was a consummate politician who sometimes catered to the prejudices of his audience to accomplish his goals. The stress he placed on his Hyde Park origins, however, was about more than just good politics: FDR's connections to the land were deep, real, and authentic.

He was, in short, a true romantic. His passion, even obsession, for the landscape of his youth was reflected in the bewildering array of philanthropic activities here, many continuing long into his presidency. He was an active trustee of Vassar College who was intimately involved in the details of school management (for instance, in 1929 he established permission for students to smoke in designated areas). And he was a major patron of the Dutchess County Historical Society. He somehow found time from his presidential schedule in 1939 to edit an entire volume of Records of the Crum Elbow Precinct, Dutchess County.

His love of Dutch Colonial architecture and fieldstone found expression in a string of public buildings from Fishkill to Rhinebeck, some of which he had a hand in designing. He even took time to critique the mural adorning the Poughkeepsie post office, asking the artist to remove the horses from a scene depicting the first contact between Indians and the Dutch--he apparently doubted that horses would have been present. FDR even dabbled in forestry, experimenting with Oriental Chestnuts at Springwood to see if they could withstand the chestnut blight. As chair of a state highway commission in the 1920s FDR, relying on his map skills and childhood jaunts around the county, determined the course of the Taconic Parkway. He rarely turned away requests for charity from Dutchess County residents; his contributions to local history ensured that future generations would enjoy public access to what he had been privileged to enjoy privately; the Taconic Parkway opened up this region to visitors from all over the country. In his will, He donated Springwood, including his childhood home and a museum and library that he had already built--in what else, fieldstone--to the people of the United States.

FDR at Home is a lively contribution to both local history and FDR scholarship, a trove of insights into the environment that produced FDR's confident and inscrutably sunny outlook on life.