15 Scandalous Facts About Alice Roosevelt, America's Wildest First Daughter
She Flouted Rules Of Respectable Behavior, Sometimes Carrying A Pet Snake Around
Photo: Frances Benjamin Johnston / Public DomainDespite - or maybe because of - Alice Roosevelt’s celebrity, she often pushed the bounds of respectable behavior. In an era of gender respectability and transition - when women were demanding the right the vote in large numbers - Alice Roosevelt challenged ideas about what it meant to be a young American woman.
Though she attended parties and dressed tastefully, she also behaved unpredictably and without regard to social constraints. Among her renegade ways: she often concealed mini whiskey bottles in her evening gloves; was photographed riding in cars with young men; smoked cigarettes; and carried around a pet snake.
During this period in her life, she wrote in diary, “I pray for a fortune. I care for nothing except to amuse myself in a charmingly expensive way.”
She Cut The Cake With A Sword At Her Legendary White House Wedding
Photo: Frances Benjamin Johnston / Public DomainThe wedding of First Daughter Alice Roosevelt and Republican Congressman Nicholas Longsworth was one of the biggest events in the history of the White House. On February 17, 1906, Roosevelt and Longworth married before a thousand guests and, as crowds of thousands gathered outside the White House for a glimpse.
Flanked by a huge wedding party, the new Alice Lee Roosevelt Longworth was said to have cut into her wedding cake with a ceremonial sword she took from her father's military aide.
She Was Banned From The White House After Her Family Moved Out
Photo: Frances Benjamin Johnston / Public DomainWhen the Roosevelts left the White House in 1909 to make room for the family of new president William Howard Taft, Alice buried a voodoo doll in the White House garden as a hex on the incoming First Family. The curse, it seems, worked, since William Howard Taft only served one term as president.
Both the Taft and Wilson administrations banned Alice from the White House, the latter because she made a rude joke at Wilson's expense.
She Was The Wit Of Washington For Several Decades
Photo: US Navy / Public DomainAlice Roosevelt was perhaps Washington’s Queen of Quips. Her deep connections in DC meant she met all of the most important American politicians of the 20th century, and her verdict on them could be sharp and cutting. Her unofficial motto has since been muttered by generations of gossips: “If you haven’t anything good to say about anyone, come and sit by me.”
Alice famously claimed a Hoover vacuum was more exciting than President Herbert Hoover. When Senator Joseph McCarthy, who launched a Communist witch hunt in the early 1950s, made the mistake of calling her Alice, rather than Mrs. Longworth, she sharply retorted, “You will not call me Alice. The truckman, the trashman, and the policeman on the block may call me Alice, but you may not.”
She Challenged Her Father At Every Turn, Even Interrupting White House Meetings
Photo: Frances Benjamin Johnston / Public DomainIt is no secret Alice had a difficult relationship with her father, since she spent her life craving attention he never bothered to or could give. Alice’s stubbornness and strength meant she was a handful for her father and step-mother, who struggled to manage her. They once attempted to enroll her in a rigid girl’s school, and she was definitely not on board with the plan, threatening: “If you send me I will humiliate you.”
Alice’s behavior during her father's presidency kept Roosevelt’s hands full. At one point, she repeatedly interrupted a meeting between her father and the novelist Owen Wister. Exasperated, Roosevelt exclaimed, “I can be President of the United States or I can attend to Alice. I cannot possibly do both!”
On A Diplomatic Trip To Asia, She Began A Scandalous Affair With A Congressman
In 1905, Theodore Roosevelt wanted to keep his 21-year-old daughter occupied in the hopes it might keep her out of trouble. So, he sent her as the head of a goodwill delegation to Asia, which was meant to coincide with his efforts to bring about peace during the Russo-Japanese War, a task that ultimately won him a Nobel Peace Prize.
Alice’s diplomatic mission wasn't quite what her father had in mind. Though she went through the motions of diplomacy, the young woman also had plenty of fun along the way, including flirting with government officials who joined her and learning how to do the hula in Hawaii. She made a splash in more than one way: she even jumped fully clothed into the ship’s pool.
Perhaps the most scandalous part of Roosevelt’s trip was her affair with Nicholas Longworth, a thirtysomething Republican congressman from Ohio. By December 1905, the two were engaged.
She Was A Celebrity Who Had A Color And A Waltz Named After Her
Photo: Public Domain / via Wikimedia CommonsWhen Theodore Roosevelt became president in 1901, Alice was a rebellious teenager of 17 - and her wild behavior and impeccable fashion choices catapulted her to the status of bonafide American celebrity. Her taste for a pale shade of blue became so famous it was named Alice blue. Alice blue dresses became so ubiquitous there was a song to pay homage to the trend. “Alice Blue Gown."
The “Alice Roosevelt Waltz” was also named in her honor. The public speculated on her romantic escapades and potential matches. She received so many letters at the White House he Roosevelts had to hire a secretary just to deal with Alice’s mail.
Teddy Was An Absent Father
Photo: Underwood & Underwood / Public DomainFollowing his personal tragedies in February 1884, Roosevelt escaped to the West for several years. Though it brought Roosevelt excitement, fulfillment, and stirred his environmental consciousness, it meant he was absent from his young daughter’s life. In his absence, his older sister Bamie virtually adopted Alice, taking charge of the infant and raising her for the first few years of her life.
Many years after Teddy returned to Alice, she wrote in a diary kept during her White House years, "Father doesn’t care for me, that is to say one-eighth as much as he does for the other children."
She And Her Stepmother Couldn't Stand One Another
Photo: Photographer Unknown / SMU Central University Libraries / No Known Copyright RestrictionsThough Roosevelt never completely got over the loss of his first wife, he remarried in 1886. Edith Carow, his second wife, was Tedd'ys kind-of sweetheart for the better part of his youth, so the match surprised no one. Despite her father’s history with Edith, young Alice did not get on well with her stepmother, a problem that worsened as more and more children were added to the Roosevelt household.
That Roosevelt never spoke of his first wife didn’t help; neither did Edith’s unapologetic disdain for Alice. She even told her stepdaughter her mother never would have made Teddy happy, as she was too dull. After Edith died, Alice spoke of her in unflattering terms, saying, among other things, "In many ways she was a very hard woman... and she had almost a gift for making people uncomfortable."
She Served As A Hostess And Unofficial Advisor To Her Father (Whether He Wanted It Or Not)
Photo: B. M. Clinedinst / Public DomainThough her stepmother Edith was First Lady, Alice took up many responsibilities as First Daughter. If Edith was ill or indisposed, Alice stepped in as White House hostess for social events. She also voiced political opinions to her father, whether or not he wanted to hear them.
It was Alice, for example, who advised her father to accept the Republican Party’s nomination of William Howard Taft in 1912. She also routinely communicated information to her father, offering her opinion on a wide variety of topics.
She Campaigned For Her Father When He Stood Against Her Husband
Photo: Pach Brothers / Cornell University Library / No Known Copyright RestrictionsBeing the daughter of Theodore Roosevelt and the wife of a US Congressman sometimes put strains on Alice - she was intimately connected to two high-profile political careers, and those careers sometimes diverged. In 1912, after being out of the White House since 1909, Roosevelt hoped for a return to presidential power. Instead, however, his former VP William Howard Taft secured the Republican nomination - and Nicholas Longworth fully supported Taft.
When Roosevelt announced his candidacy with the new Progressive Bull Moose Party, Alice was in a difficult position: she could support her husband and his Republican candidate or she could support her father. Ultimately, Alice threw her support behind her father, causing a strain in her marriage.
Her Extramarital Affair With A Politician Produced A Daughter
Photo: Harris and Ewing Photographers / Library of Congress / No Known Copyright RestrictionsAlice’s marriage to Nicolas Longworth had its ups and downs. Though they remained married until his death in 1931, Longworth - who was a playboy when Alice first met him, in 1905 - continued his womanizing ways throughout their marriage.
Alice, too, strayed outside the bonds of marriage. In the 1920s, she began an affair with William Borah, a married Republican Senator from Idaho who was nearly 20 years older than Alice. Borah, not Longworth, was most likely the father of Alice’s only child, Paulina, born in 1925.
She Had A Rivalry With Her Cousin Eleanor Roosevelt
Photo: Public Domain / via Wikimedia CommonsThe two most famous Roosevelt women of the 20th century were Alice and her cousin Eleanor, wife of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Though they were the same age, the two could not be more different. For one, they were champions of different political parties: Alice Roosevelt supported Republicans, while Eleanor Roosevelt supported Democrats.
Alice was witty and popular, while Eleanor was thoughtful and unfussy. The two also had periods of rivalry, heightened by the fact that Alice would sometimes do unkind impressions of her cousin. They even wrote rival newspaper columns.
Her Father Couldn't Bear To Call Her By Her First Name
Photo: Public Domain / via Wikimedia CommonsAlice Roosevelt’s life began with tragedy. The eldest child of Theodore Roosevelt - and only child with his beloved first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee - she was born in New York City on February 12, 1884. Though her birth brought her father - at the time a rising political star in the New York State Assembly - pride and joy, it also brought great pain: two days after Alice’s birth, her mother and namesake died of kidney failure, on Valentine’s Day. Hours later, Roosevelt’s mother follower his wife to the grave.
Thus, Alice’s birth coincided with two great personal tragedies for Teddy Roosevelt. The loss of his wife and mother on the same day was too much for the young man to bear. He couldn't bring himself to refer to his infant daughter by her given name, since it reminded him of his dearly departed wife. So Alice became Baby Lee to her father. Once she left babyhood, he referred to her as Sister or Sissy.
She Raised Her Granddaughter After Her Daughter Unexpectedly Died
Photo: National Photo Company / Public DomainPaulina was Alice's only child, but she began a second round of parenting late in life. In 1957, Paulina - widowed in her 20s and with a child of her own - died of a sleeping pill overdose a few weeks shy of her 32nd birthday, leaving Alice to raise her daughter, Joanna Sturm. The two had a close, affectionate relationship for the rest of Alice’s life.
