DSU hosting annual Roosevelt symposium

Dickinson State University will host its fourth annual Theodore Roosevelt Symposium Oct. 15-17. This year’s symposium is titled “Theodore Roosevelt, Family Man in the Arena” and focuses on the adventure and challenge of life among the Roosevelts.

The three-day symposium brings together nationally recognized authors and historians to discuss the 26th president’s public family life. While most presidents carefully shelter their children from the public eye, Roosevelt was comfortable sharing the quirks and escapades of his six children with all of America.

“Theodore Roosevelt was many things, but above all he was a family man and a devoted, if sometimes undisciplined, father,” said DSU Theodore Roosevelt scholar Clay Jenkinson. “They were America’s first prominent White House family, but there was a dark side to being a Roosevelt as well.”

The symposium includes two days of presentations by renowned scholars, a panel discussion and a dramatic presentation created specifically for the event, all on the DSU campus. The symposium culminates in a Saturday field trip to the North Dakota badlands and Medora, N.D. This small cattle town was Roosevelt’s destination when he sought solace in the West following the deaths of his first wife Alice and his mother, both on Valentine’s Day 1884. To overcome his grief, Roosevelt threw himself into life as a cowboy at his Elkhorn Ranch northwest of Medora, eventually earning the respect and admiration of the local ranchers and townspeople.

Guest scholars for this year’s symposium include:

* Keynote presenter Kathleen Dalton, the Cecil F.P. Bancroft Instructor of History and co-director of the Brace Center on Gender Studies at Phillips Academy Andover, and an external fellow of Boston University’s International History Institute. Author of “Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life” (2002) and “A Portrait of a School: Coeducation at Andover” (1986), she has spoken widely about Roosevelt, including appearances on C-SPAN’s Book TV, the History Channel, the Arts and Entertainment Channel and public television. Dalton is currently working on her next book, “The White Lilies and the Iron Boot,” a story of four friends, including Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt, and their attempts to shape U.S. foreign relations during a dangerous time.

* Betty Boyd Caroli, a graduate of Oberlin College, holds a master’s degree in mass communications from the Annenberg School of the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. in American Civilization from New York University. A Fulbright scholar to Italy, she also held fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, the Hoover Presidential Library, and others.

After studying in Salzburg, Austria, and Perugia, Italy, but before joining the faculty at the City University of New York, she taught in Palermo and Rome, Italy. Caroli is the author of “The Roosevelt Women” (1999); “America’s First Ladies” (1996) “Inside the White House” (1992); “Immigrants Who Returned Home” (1990); and “First Ladies” (1987).

* Stacy Cordery is a professor of history at Monmouth College, Monmouth, Ill., and curator of the institution’s archives. She is author of “Alice: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, from White House Princess to Washington Power Broker” (2007); “Historic Photographs of Theodore Roosevelt” (2007) and “Theodore Roosevelt: In the Vanguard of the Modern” (2003). She has given many presentations on a variety of topics including the Roosevelt family and published numerous articles. Cordery earned her master’s degree and doctorate in history from the University of Texas, Austin.

* James Marten is professor and chair of the history department at Marquette University. He is founding secretary-treasurer of the Society for the History of Children and Youth and current president of the Society of Civil War Historians. He has written or edited a dozen books, including “Children and Youth in a New Nation” (2009); “Childhood and Child Welfare in the Progressive Era: A Brief History with Documents” (2004) and “The Children’s Civil War” (2000). The latter won the Alpha Sigma Nu Jesuit National Book Award for History in 1999 and was named an “Outstanding Academic Book” by Choice Magazine.

DSU faculty members and guest presenters will also conduct a panel discussion about each of the Roosevelt children. Clay Jenkinson and Amy Verone, chief of cultural resources at Sagamore Hill National Historic Site, will serve as co-moderators for the symposium.

All lectures and the panel discussion are sponsored by the North Dakota Humanities Council and are free of charge and open to the public.

The full symposium, which includes meals, transportation to Medora for the Saturday field trip and special events both at DSU and in Medora, costs $170 but a $40 discount will be given to those who register by Oct. 1. In addition, the first 40 registrants for the entire symposium will receive a free hardcover copy of Kathleen Dalton’s “Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life.” Registration is also available for individual days at a cost of $85 per day.

For more information or to register, call the DSU Office of Extended Learning at 701-483-2166 or toll-free at 866-496-8797. To learn more or to register online, visit www.theo dorerooseveltcenter.com.

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