A Brief History of the Theodore Roosevelt Association

Three days after the death of Theodore Roosevelt in January of 1919, the Roosevelt Permanent Memorial National Committee came into being. The Founders – who consisted of Will H. Hays, William Boyce Thompson, Hermann Hagedorn, and other distinguished citizens – called for a week of special exercises throughout the nation, culminating on October 27, which would have been TR’s sixty-first birthday. People across the United States responded with a wave of enthusiasm, and launched the new Association on a long path of service to TR’s ideals and memory.

Renamed the Roosevelt Memorial Association, the organization was formally incorporated as a non-stock non-profit corporation by an Act of Congress [41. Stat.691, 1920] on May 31, 1920. Congress charged the RMA “to perpetuate the memory of Theodore Roosevelt for the benefit of the people of the United States and the world.” Specifically, Congress gave the RMA the objectives of establishing a memorial in Washington, DC; creating a park at Oyster Bay, NY; and establishing and maintaining “an endowment fund to promote the development and application of the policies and ideals of Theodore Roosevelt for the benefit of the American people."

More than a year before, the Women’s Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Association had been incorporated under the Membership Corporations Law of the State of New York, “to commemorate the life of Theodore Roosevelt by establishing and maintaining a permanent memorial in the City of New York.” That “permanent memorial” was, and is, the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace, 28 East 20th Street: the reconstructed brownstone house where TR was born in 1858, which opened to the public on his birthday, October 27, 1923.

The RMA completed Theodore Roosevelt Memorial park in 1928, and eventually gifted it to the Town of Oyster Bay in 1942. Twenty-one years later – on May 21, 1953 - the RMA officially changed its name to the Theodore Roosevelt Association (TRA) by amendment approved by Congress (67 Stat.27-28, 1953). Less than one month later - on June 14, 1953 - the TRA opened Theodore Roosevelt’s Oyster Bay home, Sagamore Hill, to the public. Three years after that – on January 6, 1955 – the TRA and the Women's Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Association signed an agreement for consolidation. On March 29, 1956, Congress approved an amendment (70 Stat.60, 1956) to the TRA's charter giving "the power at any time to consolidate with the Women's Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Association." Consent for such consolidation was given by the New York State Commissioner of Education on April 30, 1956, and the New York State Supreme Court approved the merger on May 3rd of the same year, forming the present Theodore Roosevelt Association.

In 1963, the TRA gave the Birthplace in Manhattan, plus Sagamore Hill, to the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, together with a substantial endowment for the upkeep of both sites. Theodore Roosevelt Island in Washington, DC, was also donated to the National Park Service by the Association, and dedicated on October 27, 1967. In addition to these memorials, the TRA gave the Theodore Roosevelt Collection (12,000 books and pamphlets, 10,000 photographs, and thousand of letters, manuscripts, and other items) to Harvard University in 1943; established the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Fund at the American Museum of Natural History in 1960, providing research grants in conservation and natural history; and donated the Theodore Roosevelt Association Motion Picture Collection (over 140,000 feet of film) to the Library of Congress.

Today the TRA continues to support the Harvard Collection and the TR Memorial Fund at the American Museum of Natural History. The Association also consults and collaborates with the National Park Service on the administration of the Birthplace, Sagamore Hill, and TR Island. At the same time, the Association plans lectures and symposiums related to TR and his era, publishes the quarterly Theodore Roosevelt Association Journal, and facilitates the publication of books related to Roosevelt. Additionally, the Association sponsors annual police awards in NYC, New York's Nassau and Suffolk Counties, Boston, Nashville, New Orleans, and Washington, DC. As well, the Association orchestrates and implements annual high school speaking contests in New York City and on Long Island, and arranges for the distribution of thousands of free teddy bears to children in New York City hospitals every Christmas.

During 1975-77, the Association sponsored and paid for the "East 20th Street Revitalization Project" to improve the block in Manhattan where the TR Birthplace is located. Buildings were cleaned and painted, trees were planted, and a new brick walk was put in front of the historic house. More recently, the TRA contributed some $15,000 to the Theodore Roosevelt Bird Sanctuary in Oyster Bay, NY. The TRA also makes significant annual donations to Youngs Memorial Cemetery, Oyster Bay – site of TR's last resting place – and has contributed $100,000 to Harvard to pay for improved facilities to house the famous TR collection.

Most recently, the TRA has been instrumental in purchasing and stabilizing the cabin known as "Pine Knot," TR's presidential retreat in the woods of Virginia, just outside Charlottesville.

Through the years, the organization has frequently awarded the Theodore Roosevelt Distinguished Service Medal to such men and women as diplomat Ralph Bunche, presidents Herbert Hoover, Dwight Eisenhower and George H.W. Bush, Helen Keller, George Washington Carver, Admiral Chester A. Nimitz, John Glenn, and Norman Vincent Peale.

Trustees and advisors to the TRA include Elizabeth Roosevelt, Tweed Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt IV, Philip J. Roosevelt II, and Susan Roosevelt Weld along with such notables as Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., John Morton Blum, the Hon. William J. vanden Heuvel, novelist Caleb Carr, and Pulitzer Prize winners Edmund Morris and David McCullough.