Roosevelt's Upbringing, Background and Character and Those Effects on his Presidency

Roosevelt's Upbringing, Background and Character and Those Effects on his Presidency

On one hand you could argue that Roosevelt’s upbringing, background

and character did make it easy for him to understand the life of

ordinary Americans and in some ways it did not. For instance Roosevelt

went to Harvard university to study law and history, this shows that

he didn’t understand the life of ordinary Americans because only the

very elite and rich go to this type of university.

Franklin Roosevelt was a very intelligent person so this meant that he

was able to think things through and imagine what the life of an

ordinary American was like.

He had an early start to education, which was followed by a private

tutor .He then at the age of fourteen went to Groton boarding school

which was one of the top boarding schools in America, the normal

background of an ordinary American would not go to this school.

Roosevelt came across ordinary people as a child, his father owned a

country estate in which people worked, these people were ordinary

Americans and had to treat Roosevelt with respect which was just

setting him up to not understanding ordinary people.

Roosevelt had an understanding of rural issues because of his father’s

country estate, workers would be farming on the estate, fertilizing

crops and other jobs.

Roosevelt’s background is very wealthy and his family was in the USA’s

upper class, this shows that Roosevelt didn’t have an understanding of

the ordinary American life because ordinary Americans aren’t wealthy

and in the upper class.

Roosevelt studied history at Harvard university which would give him a

sense that there where different classes of people apart from the

extremely wealthy, it would also show him the problems that Americans

experience on a regular occasion.

Roosevelt unfortunately came across a very serious disease himself

which was called poliomyelitis also known as polio. This crippling

disease left Roosevelt paralysed from the waist down for the rest of

his life. This is disease is perhaps the most important reason why