Nowhere was the standard set by Roosevelt more daunting for his successors than in his extraordinary achievements during his first hundred days in office. All subsequent presidents, especially liberal Democrats, have labored "in the shadow of FDR." Their presidential accomplishments have been judged by the standards of the strong, charismatic national leadership that Roosevelt displayed in the fight, first, against the Great Depression, then against the Axis powers in World War II. Roosevelt left his successors a model of a dynamic, activist presidency that could not be ignored. His plans perpetuated "the presidential synthesis" in which American history is seen largely through the lens of presidential administrations. The mere existence of the library shaped the legacy Roosevelt bequeathed to his successors and historians in a substantive way. He personally scaled down the reading area that would be set aside for scholars. What they would be interested in, he believed, was not the documentary record of his presidency but the artifacts of his life: everything that he had collected, from naval prints to stamps to books. He anticipated three thousand visitors a week coming to the library and museum. He originally intended to screen all his correspondence personally before it could be transferred to his library. In fact, Roosevelt was neither modest nor disinterested in shaping his historical legacy. Instead, he requested a small marble slab, simply inscribed, to be placed outside the National Archives. He wanted no elaborate memorial in Washington. Publicly, Roosevelt appeared modest and restrained about memorializing his presidency. Presidents after Roosevelt have all raised private funds to establish ever grander presidential libraries, whose operation taxpayers fund. Their preservation was haphazard: sometimes they ended up in the Library of Congress often they remained in private hands or were destroyed. Before 1933 these papers were assumed to be the private property of the incumbents when they left office. It would not be until 1967 that historians could start scholarly work on the Hoover presidency, when his papers were made available at the Hoover Library, in West Branch, Iowa.īy establishing his library, Roosevelt transformed the keeping and status of presidential records. In the battle for historical reputation, Roosevelt had defeated Herbert Hoover just as he had in the 1932 general election. By 1950, 85 percent of the Roosevelt papers had been cleared and could be used. Within two years of his death, his pre-presidential papers were open to scholars for study. Of the papers which will come to rest here, I personally attach less importance to the documents of those who have occupied high public or private office than I do the spontaneous letters which have come to me.from men, from women, and from children in every part of the United States, telling me of their conditions and problems and giving me their own opinions. In his speech, he was at pains to highlight the letters of those ordinary Americans who had written to him over the previous six years when he said: FDR laid the cornerstone for his library on November 19, 1939. In return, Congress agreed to staff and administer it. He deeded the land to the federal government and raised the money from his friends and supporters to build the library. He proposed building a presidential library to house the documents of his presidency on his own estate at Hyde Park. The volume of correspondence generated led Roosevelt to conclude that neither the National Archives nor the Library of Congress could store this material in Washington. Roosevelt had to bring in fifty people to staff the White House mail room.
Hoover had had one secretary to handle incoming correspondence that averaged six hundred letters a day. During the rest of his presidency an average of more than six thousand people a day wrote to him. This unprecedented personal communication from ordinary Americans continued.
Roosevelt's inauguration as president of the United States on March 4, 1933, more than 460,000 Americans wrote to him in the White House.
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