Being a POTUS is a hard act to follow.

The Young Retiree

Theodore Roosevelt was our youngest President, only 42 when he took office. After seven-and-a-half years, declaring that he would not seek a third term, he was also our youngest ex-President. He was only 50, and at the peak of his physical and mental energies. 

Having hand-picked his successor, William H. Taft, he sought to allow the new POTUS the latitude he needed to chart his own direction. Serendipitously, The Smithsonian Institution had paved a smooth transition for TR – offering him an underwritten safari in Africa, with a supporting cast of hundreds, in exchange for regular articles and exotic specimens. They knew Roosevelt’s devotion and expertise as a naturalist, and expected grand results. And publicity.

TR was dee-lighted for this mammoth opportunity, which also provided the material for dozens of magazine articles and a few books. He took Kermit with him. Kermit was his second son, and perhaps the most like his father when it came to the “strenuous” outdoor life. He gladly took a year off from his studies at Harvard for this once-in-a-lifetime father-and-son adventure. 

A Segue Back to Jefferson

Theodore Roosevelt was not a huge admirer of Thomas Jefferson, and said as much periodically. (Jefferson, having died decades before TR was born, remained silent on the subject.)

Nevertheless, just as a broken clock is right twice a day, there were huge undeniable similarities between the two men. TJ was a knowledgeable and passionate agronomist. TR was a knowledgeable and passionate zoologist. Natural history is natural history. And passion and knowledge is passion and knowledge.

And while it is Jefferson who is remembered as saying, “I cannot live without books,” I doubt that Roosevelt would challenge either the words or the sentiment. He was a voracious book-a-day reader. 

Corinne

Corinne Roosevelt, TR’s younger sister, was devoted to her brother, as were all his family members. She had married a wealthy real estate manager Douglas Robinson, an ardent supporter of the Roosevelts, who denied his wife nothing that money could buy. 

So when TR was in the retiring-cum-safari mode, Corinne wanted to give him a suitable gift, and asked him what he would like. He knew exactly what he wanted. 

In addition to all the related paraphernalia he would require for the months-long adventure, he could not go without books! A large assortment of them. But he also needed volumes that could withstand the wear and tear, be impervious to the weather and climate, the sand and the heat and the rains, the molds and the mildews, blood and gun oil and all the critters that might invade his tents. 

TR believed that “pigskin” was the most suitable binding material for his needs. Pigskin, a century-old nickname for a football, is as tough as it gets! Old bindings were removed, the margins were trimmed for space/weight, and an aluminum case was designed specifically to carry them. The set weighed 60 pounds.

It was a private one-of-one edition of TR’s favorite reading material. And the well-tuned-in father made sure to consult Kermit on his favorites as well! 

Sixty books (or maybe fifty-nine) were chosen for special binding. The variety of them is a picture of the man himself – an amalgam of many different interests.

The Bible, of course. Volumes of Shakespeare, of course. The ancient classics – like the Iliad and the Odyssey, of course. Plays by Euripides.

Then there was a huge selection of poetry. All Roosevelts were drawn to poetry, and memorized hundreds of lines of verse. The range was interesting: Milton. Edgar Allan Poe. Robert Browning and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Shelly and Keats – and Longfellow.

Then there were some Dickens’ titles. And Sir Walter Scott adventures. Both Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn represented Mark Twain. Robinson Crusoe, and Pilgrims’ Progress, Don Quixote and even Alice in Wonderland made the list as well. 

And, perhaps to keep TR focused on the intellectual present, he included Darwin’s Origin of the Species, Alfred Thayer Mahan’s The Influence of Sea Power on History, which had been a major influence on TR (personally and presidentially!) And The Federalist Papers.

According to TR himself, in his African Game Trails, the books were not for ornament. He always carried some volume with him, either in his saddle bag or his cartridge bag. If he rested for a while in the shade or waiting for camp to be pitched, out came one of his books, for a half hour or so reading pleasure. The books were used, and used hard. By the end of the year-long safari, TR claimed that the bindings looked like a “well-used saddle.” They held up. 

Where Are They Now?

The Pigskin Library was eventually given to TR’s daughter Ethel Derby, who kept them for decades, and finally gifted them to the Theodore Roosevelt collection in Harvard’s Houghton Library.

But… while Harvard still maintains a vast TR collection…and while the Roosevelt home at Sagamore Hill also maintains a substantial collection in its “Presidential Library”…

… a new Theodore Roosevelt Library is being built in Dickinson, North Dakota – not far from the ranch where he spent a few momentous years as a cowboy following the death of his young first wife. Most historians agree that the experience helped forge the man he became.

According to their plans, the Pigskin Library will be a part of its collection. 

One can imagine a heartfelt “Bully!” from its previous owner.

Sources: 

Brands, H.W. – TR: The Last Romantic – Basic Books, 1997

Morris, Edmund – Colonel Roosevelt – Random House, 2010

Roosevelt, Theodore – African Game Trails – Scribner’s, 1910

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/tr.htm

https://www.si.edu/object/auth_exp_fbr_EACE0006

https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/Research/Digital-Library/Record?libID=o274791