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Emilio Aguinaldo
Emilio Aguinaldo led the Filipino resistance movement against the Spanish Empire before and during the Spanish-American War in 1898 and 1899. When the U.S. annexed the Philippine Islands after the war, Aguinaldo turned and fought against U.S. troops. His war lasted for several years until his capture in 1902.
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Robert Bacon
Robert Bacon served after Elihu Root as President Roosevelt's Secretary of State in 1909. The two men met as students at Harvard College and remained lifelong friends.
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William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryan ran for President four times in his lifetime and was defeated four times. He ran on the Populist Party ticket and the Democratic ticket between 1892 and 1912. He advocated printing more money to help impoverished farmers and eliminating the gold standard.
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Grover Cleveland
Grover Cleveland was the twenty-second and twenty-fourth President of the United States. He served his first term as President from 1885–1889 and his second term from 1893–1897. While serving in the New York State Assembly, Roosevelt worked closely on reforming the New York Civil Service with Cleveland who was then Governor of New York. When Cleveland, a Democrat, defeated Republican Benjamin Harrison for the Presidency in 1892, Cleveland kept Roosevelt as head of the U.S. Civil Service Commission.
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Leon Czolgosz
Anarchist Leon Czolgosz assassinated President William McKinley on September 6, 1901, in Buffalo, New York.
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Admiral Dewey
Admiral Dewey commanded the American Naval fleet in Asia during the Spanish-American War. On the morning of May 1, 1898, he sailed quietly into Manila Harbor and launched a surprise attack against the Spanish fleet in the Philippine Islands. He won the battle within hours.
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Mark Hanna
Mark Hanna coordinated the William McKinley's Presidential campaigns of 1896 and 1900, and coached President Roosevelt during his first few months in office.
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Benjamin Harrison
Benjamin Harrison served as the twenty-third President of the United States from 1889–1893. Grover Cleveland served as President during both the term before and the term after Harrison. A Republican, Harrison appointed Roosevelt the head of the U.S. Civil Service Commission in 1889, to reward Roosevelt for his services and dedication during his campaign for President.
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John Hay
John Hay served as President William McKinley's Secretary of State. An imperialist, Hay was responsible for creating the Open Door Policy in China.
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William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Heart was the editor of the popular newspaper The New York World in the late 1890s. While editor, he competed fiercely with rival New York newspapers for sales. His sensationalistic articles on the atrocities in Cuba helped lead the nation into the Spanish-American War of 1898 and 1899. Many give him credit for actually starting the war in his quest to sell newspapers. He sent the famous line, "You furnish the pictures, and I'll furnish the war!" to his artist Frederic Remington in Cuba.
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Philander Knox
Philander Knox served as President Roosevelt's Attorney General, and was responsible for filing the government lawsuits against Northern Securities, Standard Oil, and forty-one other trusts. Knox also served as Secretary of War under President William Howard Taft.
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Henry Cabot Lodge
Henry Cabot Lodge was Roosevelt's closest personal friend and political ally. The two met while Roosevelt was a student and Lodge a professor at Harvard. Lodge served in the Senate for many years and acted as Roosevelt's voice in Congress.
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Alice Roosevelt Longworth
Alice Roosevelt Longworth was the daughter of Roosevelt and his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt. She was born on February 12, 1884. She lived with Roosevelt's sister while her father was away in Dakota Territory, and then returned to live with him and her stepmother Edith Roosevelt. Young Alice and her father disagreed on many things, and there was often tension between the two. In 1906 she married Congressman Nicholas Longworth at an extravagant White House wedding.
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Nicholas Longworth
Nicholas Longworth was a Republican Congressman from the First District of Ohio. He married young Princess Alice on February 17, 1906, in a huge White House wedding.
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Captain Alfred T. Mahan
Captain Mahan published a book in 1890 entitled The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660–1783 in which he argued that naval power is essential to develop a strong nation. He also argued that strong nations should seek friendly ports, colonies, and territories abroad to use as naval bases and as commercial outlets. Mahan was an ardent imperialist. Roosevelt strongly believed Mahan's ideas.
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William McKinley
William McKinley was the twenty-fifth President of the United States and served from 1897–1901. He was elected President twice but served only six months of his second term. On September 6, 1901, he was assassinated by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. After McKinley's death, his Vice President Roosevelt was sworn in as President. McKinley was President during the Spanish-American War of 1898 and 1899, and was known for being an imperialist.
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James Monroe
James Monroe was the fifth President of the United States. He is responsible for authoring the Monroe Doctrine.
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Marquis de Mores
The Marquis de Mores was a French nobleman and adventurer who came to Dakota Territory shortly before Roosevelt himself moved to Elkhorn Ranch. The Marquis founded the town closest to Roosevelt's ranch and named it Medora after his wife. During Roosevelt's cattle ranching days, the two nearly dueled over rights to cattle land.
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J.P. Morgan
J.P. Morgan was a Wall Street banker and the wealthiest man in the world during Roosevelt's Presidency, worth over one billion dollars. He was the embodiment of the plutocracy. He organized the creation of Northern Securities and helped end the Coal Strike and avert a depression during the Panic of 1907.
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Muckrakers
Muckrakers were writers in the late 1800s and early 1900s who exposed government and social misdeeds and injustices. In a 1906 speech, President Roosevelt made an allusion to the novel Pilgrim's Progress when he compared these expose writers to the man with the muckrake who could only look downward. From then on, the name stuck. Prominent muckrakers included Upton Sinclair, Ida Tarbell, and Lincoln Steffens.
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Thomas Platt
Thomas Platt, or Boss Tom Platt, served as a United States Senator from New York in the 1890s and early 1900s, and ran the Republican political machine. In 1898 he supported and helped elect Roosevelt as Governor of New York. When Roosevelt defied the machine with his reformist ideas, Platt nominated him for Vice President of the United States in the election of 1900, hoping Roosevelt would be elected so that he would leave New York.
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Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt
Alice Hathaway Lee was Roosevelt's first wife. The two met during Teddy's junior year at Harvard and married two years later on his twenty-second birthday, October 27, 1880. The two lived happily in New York City for three years while Roosevelt served in the New York State Assembly. On February 12, 1884, Alice gave birth to their first and only child, Alice Roosevelt. Two days later, the elder Alice died unexpectedly from kidney failure. For the rest of his life, Theodore refused to speak about his first wife.
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Archibald Roosevelt
Archibald Roosevelt was born in April of 1894, and was Theodore's and Edith Roosevelt's fourth child. While growing up in the White House, he was a very active member of the White House Gang and loved to play practical jokes with his brother Quentin.
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Edith Roosevelt
Edith Carrow Roosevelt was Roosevelt's second wife. The two married on December, 2, 1886, in London. Although she was Teddy's second wife, she was one of his first friends. The two had been childhood sweethearts and had exchanged visits and letters for most of their lives until Teddy entered Harvard. The two had five children of their own–Ted, Kermit, Ethel, Archie, and Quentin–cared for her stepdaughter Alice Roosevelt as if she were her own child.
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Ethel Roosevelt
Ethel Roosevelt was Theodore and Edith Roosevelt's third child.
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Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt was a distant cousin of Roosevelt and his family and a member of the upper Washington D.C. social circles during Teddy Roosevelt's Presidency. He later became President of the United States.
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Kermit Roosevelt
Born in Autumn of 1889, Kermit Roosevelt was the second child of Theodore and Edith Roosevelt. In 1914, he traveled on his father's expedition to the Amazon basin.
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Martha Bulloch Roosevelt
Martha Bulloch Roosevelt was President Roosevelt's mother. She came from the prominent Georgian Bulloch family that originally settled in the United States from Scotland.
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Quentin Roosevelt
Quentin Roosevelt was born in November of 1887 and was the last of Theodore and Edith Roosevelt's children. Growing up in the White House, he and his brother Archie Roosevelt were notorious for their love of adventure and practical jokes. He served as a combat pilot during World War I and died on July 14, 1918, when his plane was shot down behind enemy lines. His death broke his father's heart.
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Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.
Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., was President Roosevelt's father. Father and son were inseparable as young Teedie grew up. He encouraged his son to build his body in order to develop his mind. He also instilled in his son a strong sense of morals that would stay with him for the rest of his life. President Roosevelt claimed his father was the greatest man he had ever known and was crushed when he died during his sophomore year at Harvard.
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Theodore Roosevelt III
Theodore Roosevelt III was President Roosevelt's and his second wife Edith Roosevelt's first child together. Ted, as he was often called, was born at Sagamore Hill in September of 1887. He fought during World War I as a field commander; helped organize the American Legion; and, as his father had before him, served in the New York State Assembly and as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He also served as Governor of Puerto Rico from 1929 to 1932. He died while commanding an infantry regiment in France during World War II.
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Elihu Root
Elihu Root was President McKinley's Secretary of War in 1899 and Roosevelt's Secretary of State until 1909 when he was appointed to the U.S. Senate. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1912.
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Rough Riders
The Rough Riders, led by Colonels Theodore Roosevelt and Leonard Wood, were the most colorful Army regiment in the history of the United States. Recruited to fight the Spanish Empire in the 1898–1899 Spanish-American War, the Rough Riders were a motley mix of one thousand volunteers. The came from all walks of life; some were college boys and the sons of wealthy businessmen, others were gamblers, cowboys, and even outlaws. On July 1, 1898, the Rough Riders helped capture Santiago, Cuba in the Battle of San Juan Hill. The regiment took more casualties than any other fighting unit in the war.
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Admiral Sampson
Admiral Sampson led the U.S. Naval forces in the siege on Santiago, Cuba in July 1898, during the Spanish-American War. Much like his colleague Admiral Dewey had done in the Philippine Islands, Sampson defeated the Spanish forces within hours.
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Upton Sinclair
Upton Sinclair was a muckraker in the late 1800s and early 1900s. His 1906 novel The Jungle depicted the horrors of the Chicago stockyards; it was so disturbing that Roosevelt ordered an immediate investigation after he read the book.
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William Howard Taft
William Taft was a loyal supporter of Roosevelt during his Presidency, and served as Roosevelt's Governor of the Philippine Islands and as Secretary of War. He and Roosevelt were steadfast friends. When Teddy refused to run for a third presidential term in 1908, he nominated Taft as the Republican candidate. Taft was elected in 1908, defeating William Jennings Bryan. After Roosevelt returned from Europe and Africa, the two men had a political disagreement that soon turned into a bitter personal hatred. They ran against each other in the election of 1912, Taft as the Republican candidate and Roosevelt as the Bull Moose Party candidate. They split the Republican Party, allowing Woodrow Wilson to become President. Taft and Roosevelt later reconciled their differences. Taft also served as a U.S. Supreme Court justice.
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Booker T. Washington
A self-educated former slave, Booker T. Washington rose up from poverty to distinguish himself as one of the nation's most prominent educators. He founded the Tuskeegee Institute.
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White House Gang
The White House Gang was a colloquial name for President Roosevelt's children and their friends. The group enjoyed pulling pranks on the President and his guests.
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Kaiser Wilhelm II
Kaiser Wilhelm II, was the German Emperor during Roosevelt's Presidency. The two men were at first friends, but as World War I approached, their friendship died. Many consider the Kaiser's foreign policies to be at least partly responsible for World War I.
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Woodrow Wilson
A former professor of political economy and jurisprudence at Bryn Mawr, Wesleyan, and Princeton Universities and former president of Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson rose to fame as an eloquent yet dynamic speaker. He became Governor of New Jersey in 1910 and established himself as a Progressive with his reformist ideas. A Democrat, he ran against Roosevelt and William Howard Taft in the election of 1912 and defeated both men because they had split the Republican Party. He was elected President again in 1916, and served as Commander in Chief during World War I.