Theodore Roosevelt in the Badlands: A Young Politician's Quest for Recovery in the American West
Ebook
Overview
On February 12, 1884--when Roosevelt was building a career as New
York State’s most promising young politician--his wife gave birth to
their first child, Alice. Two days later, both his wife and his mother
died in the same house on Valentine’s Day. Grief stricken--and driven by
doubts about his career after failed attempts as a reformer fighting
political corruption--Roosevelt left Alice in his sister’s care and went
to live on a Badlands ranch he had bought a year earlier. He spent much
of the next three years working alongside his ranch managers and hired
hands. He grew to love and respect frontier life and to find in the West
both physical health and emotional stamina.
transformation from a young, Harvard-educated New York politician to a
working rancher in the mid to late 1880s coincided with the end of the
Old West, a turning point in the cattle industry, and major changes in
America’s attitudes toward wildlife and wild places. Drawing on
Roosevelt’s own accounts and on diverse archives, Roger Di Silvestro
tells the exciting story of how Roosevelt’s spirit and political
dynamism were forged during roundups, bronco busting, fist fights,
grizzly bear hunts, and encounters with horse thieves, hostile Indians,
and vigilante justice. In the dramatic life of Theodore Roosevelt, few
adventures exceed those that he found in the Badlands.
Theodore Roosevelt in the Badlands chronicles the turbulent years
Roosevelt spent as a rancher in the Badlands of Dakota Territory,
during which the character and commitment of the future president and
conservationist took shape.
Di Silvestro’s “Teddy Rides to Recovery” in Wild West magazine won the WWA 2010 Spur Award in the short nonfiction category. The article is based on Theodore Roosevelt in the Badlands.
I very much enjoyed reading the manuscript of your book, Theodore Roosevelt in the Badlands. I found much that was new and your research will be helpful to future scholars...I am sure the reading public will find it a most enjoyable read.
Di Silvestro grabs hold of his story. It is, in a word, haunting. [In the Shadow of Wounded Knee]
- Title: Theodore Roosevelt in the Badlands: A Young Politician's Quest for Recovery in the American West
- Author: Roger L. Di Silvestro
- Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
- Print Publication Date: 2011
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Pages: 368
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9780802778451, 9780802778444, 0802778445, 0802778453
- Resource ID: LLS:9780802778451
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-22T15:23:34Z
Roger Di Silvestro is a senior editor at National Wildlife magazine and author of In the Shadow of Wounded Knee and several nature books, including The Endangered Kingdom and Reclaiming the Last Wild Places.
His article about Theodore Roosevelt in the West won the 2010 Western
Writers of America Spur Award for short nonfiction. He lives in
Virginia, near Washington, D.C.