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Assassination Attempt Lead Bullet Fragment in Case (MO 1946.81.1)
On February 15, 1933, President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt attended a reception at Bayfront Park in Miami, Florida. After addressing a crowd of supporters from atop the back seat of an open car, Roosevelt slid back down his seat.
Suddenly, gunshots rang out.
An unemployed bricklayer named Guiseppe Zangara had fired five bullets at FDR from close range. Though a bystander deflected his hand, Zangara wounded four people and fatally shot Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak, who was standing beside Roosevelt’s car.
One of the wounded was William Sinnott, a detective who had frequently acted as Roosevelt’s bodyguard in New York City. Sinnott had just moved to Miami earlier that week when he was called to assist FDR’s security staff.
The bullet fragment pictured above was removed from Mr. Sinnott’s wounded head. Ten other fragments from the bullet that struck him remained in his body. When visiting Sinnott in the hospital, FDR said, “You couldn’t hurt him, bullets just bounced off his skull.” Mr. Sinnott was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1940 in recognition of his service that day. In 1946, Mr. and Mrs. Sinnott donated the bullet fragment in this specially designed presentation case made by Lambert Brothers Jewelers to the FDR Library.
FDR’s Naval Boatcloak (MO 1981.54)
FDR wore this distinctive wool and velvet cloak during his trip to the Yalta Conference in the Crimea, Ukraine, in February 1945. It is a U.S. Navy regulation officer’s boatcloak. Roosevelt wore similar boatcloaks during other trips he made during his presidency. The image of FDR in these cloaks is one of the most enduring of the war years.
The cloak is designed to be worn during movement by a boat to protect the wearer from the cold and his clothing from the effects of spray. It opens at the front and is fitted with two frogs (knotted lengths of braided cord), which engage to secure the cloak closed. The relative ease with which such a cloak could be put on and taken off made wearing it an attractive alternative to a more conventional garment—especially for someone whose ease of movement was hampered by the effects of polio.
This boatcloak was made at the Naval Clothing Depot at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York City in August 1942. It is a standard officer’s boatcloak, ordered and unaltered for FDR’s use. The cloak was donated to the Roosevelt Library by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr. in 1973.
President Roosevelt can be seen wearing this cloak in a series of photographs below from his Yalta Conference trip. These photos and hundreds more can be seen in a new exhibit opening this Spring at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum: The Roosevelts: Public Figures, Private Lives.
FDR and Japanese American Internment
February 2012 marks the 70th anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066. The decision to intern Japanese Americans is widely viewed by historians and legal scholars as a blemish on Roosevelt’s wartime record.
Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the FBI arrested over 1200 Japanese aliens throughout the United States. Over the next several weeks, President Roosevelt received contradictory advice about further action.
FDR’s military advisers recommended the exclusion of persons of foreign descent, including American citizens, from sensitive areas of the country as a safeguard against espionage and sabotage. The Justice Department initially resisted any relocation order, questioning both its military necessity and its constitutionality.
But the shock of Pearl Harbor and of Japanese atrocities in the Philippines fueled already tense race relations on America’s West Coast. In the face of political, military, and public pressure, Roosevelt accepted the relocation proposal. The Attorney General acquiesced after the War Department relieved the Justice Department of any responsibility for implementation.
On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 granting the War Department broad powers to create military exclusion areas. Although the order did not identify any particular group, in practice it was used almost exclusively to intern Americans of Japanese descent. By 1943, more than 110,000 Japanese Americans had been forced from their homes and moved to camps in removed inland areas of the United States.
Please see our document packet on FDR and Japanese Internment for more information as well as documents from the FDR Library related to this topic.
Pictured below is baggage belonging to evacuees of Japanese ancestry at an assembly center prior to transfer to a War Relocation Authority Center. This photograph was taken several months after the February Executive Order, on July 1, 1942.
Marion Dickerman’s Toga Costume (MO 1975.38a-b)
Franklin Roosevelt’s harsher critics sometimes compared him to a dictator. In 1934, the President and his staff turned this criticism into a lighthearted joke at FDR’s 52nd birthday party.
The party was held on January 30, 1934, at the White House by members of the Cuff Links Gang, a group of longtime political advisers and friends who joined Roosevelt every year for his birthday. The 1934 party had a “Caesarian” theme, with guests wearing togas and centurion costumes. Marion Dickerman, a friend of the Roosevelts, wore the muslin toga costume seen above to the party. In the photo, FDR, as “Caesar,” is surrounded by friends, family members, and close advisers, including Eleanor Roosevelt (as the “Delphic Oracle”). Dickerman is standing at the far right, wearing the toga. Just below her is Louis Howe, FDR’s longtime political adviser, dressed as a member of the Praetorian Guard.
This photograph, along with hundreds more, can be seen in a new exhibit opening this Spring at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum: The Roosevelts: Public Figures, Private Lives.
75th Anniversary of FDR’s Second Inaugural and a New Inauguration Day
January 20, 2012 marks the 75th anniversary of Franklin Roosevelt’s Second Inaugural Address. It also marks the first time that a president was sworn in on January 20th, the date having been moved by the 20th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Previously, American presidents were sworn in on March 4, the date established by the language of the 12th Amendment. This made sense to the Framers when newly elected presidents and members of Congress had to travel great distances by horse and carriage.
But as American society grew more complex and the nation became more industrialized, the four months between election day and inauguration day were increasingly anachronistic. Outgoing incumbent presidents were powerless lame ducks, and presidents-elect had no authority to influence events. The so-called “Interregnum” between FDR’s election and first inauguration – when the nation remained paralyzed as the Depression deepened and the banking system collapsed – was a perfect example of the crisis this delay could cause.
The Twentieth Amendment was proposed by Congress on March 2, 1932 and was speedily ratified by the necessary three-fourths of the states. But by the amendment’s terms, it did not take effect until October 15, 1933. As a result, FDR became both the last president to take the oath of office on March 4th (1933), and the first president to be inaugurated on the new date of January 20th (1937).
On that cold January day 75 years ago as he stood in the driving rain delivering his Second Inaugural Address, FDR saw “one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished” and declared that “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”
First President to Fly in/Steer a Blimp?
Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first sitting president to ride in an airplane, an occasion marked by a very long overseas flight to attend the 1943 Casablanca conference. FDR’s distant cousin, Theodore, was the first president ever to fly, a trip that took place back in 1910 shortly after he had left the presidency.
FDR may have set an additional aviation first – we think he may have been the first president to fly on-board a dirigible airship (also known as a blimp or zeppelin)!
During World War I, serving as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, FDR traveled to Europe to inspect US Navy facilities. Several weeks into his trip, on August 17th, 1918 he visited a base in Paimboeuf, Western France where he was offered a ride aboard a French-built airship.
Here is FDR’s own account of his visit to Paimboeuf, France:
Log showing 8/16-17, 1918
Log, continued
“I tried my hand at running the lateral stearing[sic] gear and also the elevating and depressing gear. The sensation is distinctly curious, less noise than an areo.[sic] and far more feeling of drifting at the mercy of the wind.”
Here is a photograph showing FDR aboard what we believe to be the deck of the French dirigible:
FDR in Paimboeuf, France. August 17, 1918.
Considered too vulnerable for use on the front, airships were primarily used for scouting missions and mine clearance throughout Western Europe during the war. The use of airships later declined as airplane technology advanced and after several high profile accidents. FDR was serving his second term as president when the infamous Hindenburg crashed in New Jersey in 1937.
Do you know of an occasion in which a sitting, former, or future president traveled aboard such an aircraft before 1918?
How the Roosevelts Spent Christmas, 1936
As the holiday season approaches, we often get asked for details about how the Roosevelts spent Christmas in the White House. This memorandum describes the plans for Christmas 1936, including how the White House was decorated, the First Family’s schedule and house guests, and even procedures for opening presents. Christmas Eve activities concluded with the President giving his traditional reading of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol to his family.
Christmas was also a busy time in the White House mail room. In addition to all the holiday gifts that you see described in this memo, the Roosevelts received thousands and thousands of Christmas cards every year. According to another document we found, during the their first Christmas in the White House in 1933, the Roosevelts received 300,000 cards.
So may your holiday season be filled with joy and family, and be glad you don’t have to respond to 300,000 cards!
What was President Franklin Roosevelt doing on December 7, 1941, before he learned of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor? Which advisers did he summon when he realized that America was on the brink of war?
Most Americans know where the President was on December 8th, but where was he on December 6th . . . or the 9th? Find the answers in a new feature of the Roosevelt Library’s website at www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/daybyday.
See the events of December 1941.
On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Pare Lorentz Center at the Franklin Roosevelt Library officially unveils a new online database of President Roosevelt’s daily schedule: “Franklin D. Roosevelt Day by Day.” This interactive chronology documents Roosevelt’s daily activities as President, from March 1933 to April 1945. The project was inspired by the work of Pare Lorentz, a Depression-era documentary filmmaker, who dedicated much of his life to documenting FDR’s daily activities as President.
“Day by Day” which is supported by a grant from the New York Community Trust to the Pare Lorentz Center, features digitized original calendars and schedules maintained by the White House Usher and the official White House stenographer, as well as additional historical resources scanned from the Roosevelt Library archives. These records trace FDR’s appointments, travel schedule, social events, guests, and more. A searchable database based primarily on these calendar sources is available so that researchers can search the chronology by keyword and date.
As a fulfillment of Pare Lorentz’s original vision, “Day by Day” also includes an interactive timeline of additional materials from the archives of the FDR Library to place each day’s calendar into larger historical context. These materials include scanned photographs, letters and speeches as well as descriptions of events in United States and world history.
To explore President Roosevelt’s daily schedule or for more information on the project, please visit “Day by Day.”
Medjez el Bab Horseshoe (MO 1944.104.6)
In November 1943, President Roosevelt traveled to the Middle East to meet with other Allied leaders and discuss strategy at the Cairo and Tehran Conferences. While en route, FDR visited Tunisia to tour the sites of several battles fought there during the previous year.
During a November 21 stop at Medjez el Bab, FDR lunched with General Dwight D. Eisenhower and three members of his White House staff: General Edwin M. “Pa” Watson, Admiral Wilson Brown, and the President’s physician, Ross T. McIntire. During lunch, a member of the party spotted this horseshoe lying on the ground nearby. FDR had the horseshoe sent to the Roosevelt Library as a memento of this outing.
Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Thanksgiving Proclamation
At the beginning of Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency, Thanksgiving was not a fixed holiday; it was up to the President to issue a Thanksgiving Proclamation to announce what date the holiday would fall on. President Abraham Lincoln had declared Thanksgiving a national holiday on the last Thursday in November in 1863 and tradition dictated that it be celebrated on the last Thursday of that month. But this tradition was difficult to continue during the challenging times of the Great Depression as statistics showed that most people waited until after Thanksgiving to begin their holiday shopping.
Roosevelt’s first Thanksgiving in office fell on November 30, the last day of the month, because November had five Thursdays that year. This meant that there were only about 20 shopping days until Christmas; business leaders feared they would lose the much needed revenue an extra week of shopping would afford them. They asked President Roosevelt to move the holiday up from the 30th to the 23rd; however he choose to keep the Thanksgiving Holiday on the last Thursday of the month as it had been for nearly three quarters of a century.
In 1939, with the country still reeling from the effects of the Great Depression, Thanksgiving once again threatened to fall on the last day of November. This time the President did move Thanksgiving up a week to the 23rd. Changing the date seemed harmless enough but it proved to be quite controversial as can be seen in this letter sent to the President in protest.
As opposition grew, some states took matters into their own hands and defied the Presidential Proclamation. Some governors declared November 30th as Thanksgiving. And so, depending upon where one lived, Thanksgiving was celebrated on the 23rd and the 30th. This was worse than changing the date in the first place because families that lived in states such as New York did not have the same day off as family members in states such as Connecticut! Family and friends were unable to celebrate the holiday together.
President Roosevelt observed Thanksgiving on the second to last Thursday of November for two more years, but the amount of public outrage prompted Congress to pass a law on December 26, 1941, ensuring that all Americans would celebrate a unified Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November every year.
In Roosevelt History 