Breakdown Of Theodore Roosevelt Question

Theodore Roosevelt Question

1. The biography of Theodore Roosevelt allows us to see clearly the personal stake he had in the values he espoused as American ideals and the qualities he looked for in the history of the US. What are the values he believed were American ideals and qualities? He was severely nearsighted . . . and as a boy he was regarded as a “weakling.” With hard work (and very good glasses) he built himself up into a robust young man, and kept up his interests in horsemanship, hunting, arduous travel, and outdoor life until nearly the end.

2. Knowing Roosevelt’s view—was Marti’s a generic call for political freedom? OR is he just an individual personality? Where does that personal dimension strengthen the text and where might it undercut the credibility?

3. Frederick Jackson Turner and Jane Addams describe two of the ways in which the US developed as a nation. Turner focuses on geographic expansion, as territorial borders moved westward across North America throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. Addams, which you did not read, focuses on population growth, as immigrants from abroad move to urban areas. What differing version of American identity emerge from Roosevelt, Marti, Jackson, and Addams or the argument of population growth?

4. Does being an American depend on whether the locus of national identity is the frontier OR the city, and whether the engine for national growth is territorial expansion or the absorption of immigrant populations?