A Bully Brand

by Edward Harris

Editor's note: This entry is part of a series on Theodore Roosevelt—a brand in history that is simply too large, too multifaceted to cover in a single post. It is with great appreciation that this series comes to BIH from Edward Harris, who spent countless hours researching and writing this epic effort. Not in the usual format, the work does detail the development of this amazing icon of Americanism. Therefore, submitted for your approval…

Part One: Following the Civil War, surviving soldiers from both the Southern and Northern armies had a difficult time assimilating into society and yearned for new beginnings. Some turned to the words of John B. L. Soule, "Go West, Young Man". And so, thousands of men headed west for new beginnings they hoped would yield fame and Fortune. 

When you think about the old west, you most likely conger up images of Jesse James, Pat Garret, Billy the Kid, Kit Carson, Buffalo Bill Cody, Wild Bill Hickok, Doc Holiday and the Earp brothers. But shortly after these cowboys rode off into the sunset of history, another cowboy appeared on the scene, his name was Theodore Roosevelt, who along the way became the 26th President of the United States. Elected in 1901, America’s economy and society were rapidly changing and Roosevelt, with his enormous energy and vision, put the U.S. on a path of prosperity that would last throughout the 20th century.

Often referred to by his initials TR, he was an American statesman, soldier, author, explorer, frontiersman, rancher, naturalist, and historian. Because of his relationship with the western states and its people, some think of him as America’s first conservationist. He was a major player in establishing the national parks system. He integrated his rowdy personality, diverse range of interests, and world-famous achievements into a "cowboy" image that became iconic. This was the beginning of the Teddy Roosevelt brand.

With that image one might think of TR as the original Marlboro Man, a mythological cowboy character appearing in cigarette ads; TR appealed to American men because of his masculinity, individuality and freedom. In fact, Phillip Morris, makers of Marlboro, and their advertising agency Leo Burnett used this combination to rebrand Marlboro cigarettes using the Marlboro Man in the 1950’s—sales went through the roof and Marlboro became the recognized leader.

TR, Rancher, Cowboy - In 1883 TR began exploring the west. His first trip was to the badlands where he spent time hunting buffalo. Prior to this trip he learned that over 4,000 buffalo had been slaughtered the year before and he was anxious to add the buffalo to his trophy collection. He was only 25, a skinny, bespectacled kid from a privileged life in New York who learned quickly how exhausting life was on the prairie. He never imagined how his adventures in this remote land would forever change his life. The rugged landscape and strenuous life TR experienced in North Dakota would later help shape his conservation policy, and it was during this time period he began building his brand image.

Before heading back to New York he purchased two ranches, bought cattle, and hired ranch hands. His exploits in the Dakotas became legendary— rides of seventy miles or more in a day, hunting trips of fourteen to sixteen hours, stretches in the saddle in roundups for as long as forty hours.

During his time in the Dakotas, Roosevelt’s physicality changed to that of a rugged outdoorsman. His struggles against cattle thieves and lawless gangs and his skill in breaking and riding wild cow ponies provided the physical courage.

Strengthened by the rough life of a cattle rancher, Roosevelt continued to develop his Western image. As his cowboy image evolved, his popular image changed along with it. When he bought his first ranch, both Westerners and the Eastern press ridiculed him for looking like an overdressed, overeducated tenderfoot. By 1886, his Western exploits had visibly hardened him. "What a change!" the Pittsburgh Dispatch exclaimed; "he is now brown as a berry and has increased 30 pounds in weight." His high and squeaky voice was now "hearty and strong enough to drive oxen." Reviewers of Hunting Trips of a Ranchman: Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail (1888) and The Wilderness Hunter (1893) allowed Roosevelt the full legitimacy of Western cowboy life. The New York Times certified that "Mr. Roosevelt has had full practical experience of what he writes about" and noted that "to be a cowboy . . . is by no means an easy task." Ranching life held "a special charm for the gilded youth of the Eastern states," The Dial's reviewer reported, "and Mr. Roosevelt seems to have followed it."

TR in 1885

It was not just how a cowboy looked that separated him from Easterners, but how he lived. In their struggle against nature, the New York Tribune noted, cowboys had to live lives of "intelligent barbarism" that involved "barbarous and crude forms of dissipation." "I heartily enjoy this life, with its perfect freedom," Roosevelt wrote, "for I am very fond of hunting, and there are few sensations I prefer to that of galloping over these rolling, limitless prairies, rifle in hand."

"He craved once more to be alone with nature," reported the naturalist John Burroughs; "he was evidently hungry for the wild and aboriginal—a hunger that seems to come upon him regularly at least once a year, and drives him forth on his hunting trips for big game in the West." In this intense contact with a heightened reality, Roosevelt claimed to have discovered the raw and primitive man in himself—what Easterners must have been like before being drained of their life juices. "This is what I was like when I had the bark on," he later wrote.

Though himself a New Yorker, Roosevelt enjoyed demeaning the tame outdoor pastimes of Easterners. He preferred his Western life of wild horses, wild terrain, and wild game to Eastern foxhunting, he wrote in 1884 to Lodge, an Eastern patrician and foxhunter. Western hunting required natural buckskin shirts, rifles, and rugged cow ponies, Roosevelt said, rather than tailored red coats worn during scripted jumps over fences chasing a ground-dragged scent. "A buffalo is nobler game than an anise seed bag," and one could kill buffalo only in the West. In 1883, when he had killed his first buffalo, Roosevelt spontaneously danced a "war dance" that he repeated thereafter in a lifetime of famous hunting. In the aristocratic gentility of the hunt club, no member would ever have allowed himself such freedom.

TR, Family Man – Family played an important part of Teddy’s life and also helped formulate his brand. He idolized his father, Theodore, adored his mother, Martha and kept close to his two sisters and brothers throughout their lifetimes.

In October 1878 Teddy meets seventeen-year old Alice Hathaway Lee at a friend’s house and falls madly in love with her. He tells friends he was going to marry her. At the time he is a student attending Harvard University, he graduates in 1880 as magna cum laude. After more than a year of courtship, Alice agrees to marry Teddy. On October 27, 1880, Alice Hathaway Lee and Theodore Roosevelt are married in Brookline, Massachusetts. Following a five-month honeymoon in Europe, they relocate to New York where Teddy begins attending classes at Columbia Law School while working on a history of naval engagements during the War of 1812. He will never finish law school having discovered his love for politics.

In October 1882, Alice moved to her husband's Albany boardinghouse and learned about New York state politics. When she became pregnant in the summer of 1883, the Roosevelts planned for a large family and bought land near Tranquility New York for a large home. Later that fall she returns to live with her mother-in-law in New York City so she is close to medical facilities and personnel.

TR with Edith and all five children. 

Alice gave birth to the couple's daughter at 8:30 pm on February 12, 1884; the child was named Alice Lee Roosevelt. Teddy, 26, then a member of the New York State Assembly, was in Albany attending to business on the Assembly floor. He had convinced himself their child would be born on Valentine's Day, the fourth anniversary of their engagement. After Assemblyman Roosevelt received a telegram the morning of the 13th notifying him of the birth, he made arrangements to leave that afternoon and be with his wife. Another telegram was sent and received regarding Alice’s ill health, and when he arrived home around midnight she was in a semi-comatose state. Alice languished for several hours while her husband held her, dying the afternoon of February 14, 1884 from an undiagnosed kidney failure. It was determined that her pregnancy had masked the illness. Alice was 22 years old at the time of her death. To add to his misery TR’s beloved mother, Martha (Mittie) passes away just hours before Alice’s death, in the same house. Distraught following Alice Roosevelt's death, Teddy hardly spoke of her again, much to the frustration of their daughter.

Following the death of Alice, Teddy turns to his oldest sister, Anna Roosevelt or “Bamie” as she is called, for the care of their newborn daughter, Alice Lee Roosevelt. As she grew, Alice Lee learned primarily of her mother from her aunt, ‘Bamie’ Roosevelt.

In 1884, Roosevelt returned to his ranch as a refuge from tragedy and disappointment. Both his wife and mother had died on Valentine's Day that year, and in the summer his reformist faction had been defeated at the Republican national convention. Embroiled in a scandal over the presidential nomination of the corrupt Republican James Blaine, Teddy afraid of being seen as a political opportunist resigns his seat as a New York assemblyman and moves out to his ranch in the Dakotas.

The isolation and immensity of the Badlands helped him escape these misfortunes, and offered a retreat where he could pursue his interest in writing. Roosevelt had already published a history of The Naval War of 1812 (1882), which he had begun at Harvard. Now he became a western author, publishing such works as Hunting Trips of a Ranchman (1885), Thomas Hart Benton (1886), and a four-volume history of the early frontier, The Winning of the West (1889-1896).

He returns to Albany still distraught over the deaths of his mother and wife and buries himself in work. He also commissions the construction of a house at Oyster Bay in honor of his dead wife Alice. While visiting the planned home site he visits an early childhood friend Edith Kermit Carow. Edith was the best friend to Corinne Roosevelt, Teddy’s oldest sister. A romance ensues and Theodore Roosevelt proposed to Edith November 17, 1885 and she accepts. However, for appearance's sake, the young widower delayed the announcement of their engagement.

They marry on December 2, 1886, at St. George's Church of Hanover Square, in London, England. On the day of the wedding, a quiet affair with few guests, the London fog was so thick that it filled the church. His best man was Cecil Arthur Spring-Rice, who later served as British ambassador to the United States during World War I and maintained a close friendship with the couple for the rest of his life.

After a 15-week honeymoon tour of Europe, the newlyweds settled down in a house on Sagamore Hill, at Oyster Bay. Mrs. Roosevelt, reserved and efficient, managed the household budget. Throughout Teddy’s intensely active career, family life remained close and harmonious. Alice Lee Roosevelt at age 3 moved to Sagamore Hill to live with her father and step-mother.

The Roosevelts had 5 children; Theodore Roosevelt III, Kermit Roosevelt, Ethel Carow Roosevelt, Archibald Roosevelt, and Quentin Roosevelt. All would go on to live incredible lives as military heroes, business persons, writers, and explorers.

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Next Post: TR the President was a multifaceted leader as much as he was a complex man. His time in the badlands began the mold for his brand, but by no means completed it. Much of that would come as a new century dawned.

About Edward Harris - Harris leads an award wining agency and has long been recognized as one of the top marketing leaders in Houston, and for clients nationally and internationally. His B2B branding and marketing expertise has helped many of the major oil companies. as well as vendors who serve the oil & gas industry. Harris is considered one of the original forward thinkers, developing tailored processes that has lead his clients to great success. Read more about Harris in Knights of the Round Table.