The FDR Suite (often abbreviated fdrsuite) is a set of rooms at Adams House, Harvard College that were occupied by the 32nd president of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, from 1900 to 1904.
In January 1900, 18-year-old Roosevelt and his Groton friend Lathrop Brown engaged rooms in Westmorly Court, (now B-Entry of Adams House). Built in 1898 and designed by the noted architects Warren and Wetmore (who also were responsible for Grand Central Station in New York) Westmorly was the newest and most luxurious building on what was called Harvard's Gold Coast, an area of luxury apartments for wealthy University students. The first floor suite chosen by FDR was equipped with all the latest innovations – central steam heat, electricity, a modern "hygienic" bathroom, and contained over 600 square feet (56 m2) of living space spread across four rooms, with 14' ceilings, French doors, and a working fireplace – all this when only a few buildings at the college enjoyed such modern conveniences. The rooms were meticulously decorated in high Edwardian style by FDR's mother Sara Delano Roosevelt and FDR himself, and were used by FDR during his entire four years at Harvard.
After FDR left Harvard, the rooms were occupied by a succession of students until 1961. In June 1961, during Eleanor Roosevelt's visit to the college, the former first lady dedicated a plaque commemorating FDR's time there, and the rooms were converted into a study, officially named "The FDR Suite". After a brief return to student housing in the early 2000s, the rooms were finally set aside in perpetuity with the intention of creating Harvard's first memorial to Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Begun in 2008, the restoration of Roosevelt's room consumed 6 years of research and $300,000, and was largely completed in 2014. The effort was led by the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Foundation Inc (formerly: the FDR Suite Foundation, an independent 501(c)3 US public charity led a group of interested individuals and Harvard alumni who privately raised the capital required to complete the project. The Suite is fully furnished with examples of period furniture, and contains almost 2000 period objects, much of it rare Harvard ephemera re-assembled in Cambridge from private collections worldwide. The restoration is intended not only to shed new light on the early years of one of the most influential American presidents of the 20th century, but to form one of the most illustrative collections of student life in the Gilded Age life anywhere in the world. The Suite is not open to the general public, but is routinely opened for Harvard students, alumni and affiliates, and maintains an active web presence. The Suite also functions as the physical and spiritual home of the Foundation, which maintains an active presence at the college, sponsoring scholarships under its FDR Global Citizenship Program, and also hosting the programs of the new Franklin Delano Roosevelt Center for Global Engagement, an innovation diplomacy think-tank. The Foundation has also published an illustrated history of Roosevelt, FDR: A Life in Pictures, which features pictures of the Suite.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, commonly known as FDR, was an American statesman and politician who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. He was a member of the Democratic Party and is the only U.S. president to have served more than two terms. His initial two terms were centered on combating the Great Depression, while his third and fourth saw him shift his focus to America's involvement in World War II.
Groton School is a private college-preparatory day and boarding school located in Groton, Massachusetts. It is affiliated with the Episcopalian tradition.
The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial is a presidential memorial in Washington D.C., dedicated to the memory of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States, and to the era he represents. The memorial is one of two in Washington honoring Roosevelt.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr. was an American lawyer, politician, and businessman. He served as a United States congressman from New York from 1949 to 1955 and in 1963 was appointed United States Under Secretary of Commerce by President John F. Kennedy. He was appointed as the first chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission from 1965 to 1966 by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Roosevelt also ran for governor of New York twice. He was a son of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and served as an officer in the United States Navy during World War II.
James Roosevelt "Tadd" Roosevelt Jr., also called Taddy, was an American heir and member of the Roosevelt and Astor families.
Alan Brinkley was an American political historian who taught for over 20 years at Columbia University. He was the Allan Nevins Professor of History until his death. From 2003 to 2009, he was University Provost.
The Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site preserves the Springwood estate in Hyde Park, New York, United States. Springwood was the birthplace, lifelong home, and burial place of the 32nd president of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Eleanor Roosevelt is buried alongside him. The National Historic Site was established in 1945.
James Roosevelt I, known as "Squire James", was an American businessman, politician, horse breeder, and the father of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the United States.
Adams House is one of twelve undergraduate residential Houses at Harvard University, located between Harvard Square and the Charles River in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Its name commemorates the services of the Adams family, including John Adams, the second president of the United States, and John Quincy Adams, the sixth president.
The Reverend Endicott Peabody was an American Episcopal priest who founded Groton School in 1884 and Brooks School in 1926. He also founded St. Paul's Episcopal Church in 1882 and St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in 1899.
Michael Weishan is an American author, designer, popular historian and former television personality.
Warren Delano Robbins was an American diplomat and first cousin of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He served as Chief of Protocol of the United States from 1931 to 1933 and as the U.S. Minister to El Salvador and United States Ambassador to Canada from 1933 to 1935.
Eleanor and Franklin is a 1976 American television miniseries starring Edward Herrmann as Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) and Jane Alexander as Eleanor Roosevelt which was broadcast on ABC on January 11 and 12, 1976. It is the first part in a two-part "biopic" miniseries based on Joseph P. Lash's biography and history from 1971, Eleanor and Franklin, based on their correspondence and recently opened archives. Joseph Lash was Eleanor's personal secretary and confidant. He wrote several books on the Roosevelts including some on both Eleanor and Franklin individually and was also a controversial activist in his own right in leftist, liberalism, social and labor issues of the era.
Top Cottage, also known as Hill-Top Cottage, in Hyde Park, New York, was a private retreat designed by and for Franklin D. Roosevelt. Built in 1938 to 1939, during Roosevelt's second term as President of the United States, it was designed to accommodate his need for wheelchair accessibility. It was one of the earliest such buildings in the country, and the first significant building designed by a person with a disability.
The Sara Delano Roosevelt Memorial House is a Neo-Georgian townhouse at 47 and 49 E. 65th St. on the Upper East Side of New York City, designed by Charles A. Platt for Sara Ann Delano Roosevelt in 1907. It originally held "two mirror-image residences with a single facade and entrance. Each first floor had its own front reception room with a welcoming fireplace. Rear parlors could be combined through sliding doors." The house was given to the Roosevelts by Franklin's mother as a wedding gift for them. The house was originally two homes and Franklin's mother had doors put in place so she could enter their part of the home whenever she wanted.
Frank Burt Freidel Jr. was an American historian, the first major biographer of former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and one of the first scholars to work on his papers stored in the Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, New York.
The Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College is a think tank affiliated with Hunter College. It is located at 47-49 East 65th Street in the Lenox Hill neighborhood of Manhattan's Upper East Side in New York City. It is dedicated to analyzing public policy and fostering civic engagement by educating students in public policy and human rights, supporting faculty research, and supporting scholarly and public lectures, seminars, and conferences.
The Commonwealth Club Address was a speech made by New York Governor and Democratic presidential nominee Franklin Delano Roosevelt at the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on his 1932 presidential campaign. Roosevelt said the era of growth and unrestricted entrepreneurship had ended, and the individualism must give way to collective action. He was not at all specific, but he hinted at liberal reforms of the sort that emerged in The First Hundred Days after his inauguration in March 1933. Scholars rate it among the 100 greatest speeches made by a President in the 20th century.
The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Foundation is a private 501(c)3 US public charity based at Adams House, Harvard University. Founded as the FDR Suite Foundation in 2008, its original goal was to restore the Harvard rooms of Franklin Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the United States. The Foundation adopted its current name in 2014 to better reflect its broadened philanthropic mission to promote and preserve the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt throughout the world. The Foundation currently comprises three principal initiatives:
This bibliography of Franklin D. Roosevelt is a selective list of scholarly works about Franklin D. Roosevelt, the thirty-second president of the United States (1933–1945).
