The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, D.C

The Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Memorial honors our country's

longest serving President.

First elected in 1932, President Roosevelt ran for re-election in 1936, 1940 and 1944.  He died at his home in Warm Springs Georgia on April 12, 1945.

Elected during the Great Depression,
FDR said, "The only thing we have
to fear is fear itself,"

FDR First inaugural address
on March 4, 1933.

Franklin's wife, Eleanor, traveled

around the country & reported

back on the conditions she found

during the depth of the Depression.

Eleanor taught school, wrote a newspaper column and books, traveled to visit the troops in the Pacific during World War II and was named a US Representative to the United Nations in 1945. 

"They [who] seek to establish
government based on  regimentation
of all human beings by a handful
of rulers.. call this a new order.
It is not new & it is not order."

FDR at the White House
Correspondents Association
Dinner on March 15, 1941

The choice to depict President Franklin in a seated position was controversial.  I believe that Americans expect their presidents to be strong, vital, and moving forward with vigor.  FDR contracted polio in the early 1920s.  He spent decades of his life weighed down by the braces that allowed him to stand and walk with a lurching gait.

Later generations find it hard to believe that entire country knew that FDR had been crippled by polio.  He founded the March of Dimes in 1938 and received wide public support for the foundation's efforts.

President Roosevelt prepared

isolationist America for World

War II, worked with Allied

leaders to chart the course of

the war & planned the post

war world.

 "I have seen war.  I have seen war on land and sea.  I have seen blood running from the wounded.  I have seen the dead in the mud.  I have seen cities destroyed.  I have seen children starving.  I have seen the agony of mothers and wives.  I hate war."
FDR at Chautauqua, New York on August 14, 1936

The test of our progress is not
whether we add more to the
abundance of those who have
much, it is whether we provide
enough for those who have too little.

FDR quote from second inaugural
address on January 20, 1937

People across the United States

listened to President Roosevelt's

 Fire Side Chats.

Americans felt that they knew

the President & that he knew

 their hopes, fears.

"Men & nature must work

hand in hand, the throwing

out of balance of the

resources of nature throws out

of balance also the lives

of man."

FDR Message to Congress on

 the Use of Resources on 

January 24, 1935

This sprawling monument documents President Roosevelt's guidance across two decades of economic crisis and global war.  It's beautifully done.