| Although scholars have devoted much attention to Roosevelt's politics, diplomacy, and more recently, his notions of race and masculinity, his deep interest and diverse activities in the arts have been neglected. This study intends to bridge this historiographical gap by exploring Roosevelt's ideas concerning the place of art in American culture.; This dissertation consists of two parts, the first of which analyzes Roosevelt's racial ideology and theory of cultural evolution, and connects these to his aesthetic thought. He believed that a unique American race developed on the frontier, that his race would continue to d/evolve culturally, and that art was capable of influencing the course that this evolution would take.; Roosevelt's actual involvement in the arts constitutes the second part of the dissertation. While president, he worked with the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens to create an artistic coinage with symbols that reflected the nation's distinct characteristics. Roosevelt also supported the cause of an Americanized orthography. He also thought that the nation's cultural advance required an American literary canon. By encouraging the completion of one of the first American literature textbooks, promoting certain authors by writing reviews of their works, and, in one case, securing a government job for a poet that required no time in the office, Roosevelt did his part. While President, he oversaw the renovation of the White House, the restoration of the original L'Enfant plan for Washington. D.C., the acquisition of the Charles Freer art collection, and the establishment of the Council of Fine Arts in order to restore the artistic integrity of the Capital. In 1913, four years after his presidency, Roosevelt took part in the cultural debate over the artistic merits and cultural implications of the European modernist artists. The epilogue places Roosevelt's art-thought, which was an extension of his racial views, republicanism, and nationalism, in the context of Progressive era intellectual currents. |
