Anyone watching "The Roosevelts: An Intimate History" by Ken Burns on PBS?

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meltzerboy

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I’m really enjoying this fascinating account of Teddy, FDR, and Eleanor. It’s not a black-and-white portrait, but instead reveals both the good and the bad in all of these figures, as well as a good deal of their personalities and private lives, both the joys and sorrows.

Any thoughts?
 
I’ve only had time to watch a few hours of it, but it looks wonderful! The scenes of life at Warm Springs after FDR caught polio were beautiful!

George Will is involved with this film series, so it’s pretty balanced IMO!

I really hate the way certain conservatives, especially the talk show hosts, have vilified FDR in the last several years. My mother and father were both alive during the FDR years, and they both said that he saved the country and saved Americans from starving and becoming lawless in the search for food and sustenance.

I’ve read some pretty heavy bios of FDR when I was younger, and these stated that the U.S. was within a few weeks of becoming Communist, and FDR’s first 100 days of Presidency saved us from that.

IMO, the times that FDR lived in were totally different than our times, and to accuse him of being a “liberal” and “creating big government” etc. is just foolishness. It’s comparing apples to oranges.

Anyway, I’m thinking of sending for the FDR DVDs when this series is over, and watching them a little at a time whenever I have some free time. It seems really good.
 
Cat said:
I’ve only had time to watch a few hours of it, but it looks wonderful! The scenes of life at Warm Springs after FDR caught polio were beautiful!

George Will is involved with this film series, so it’s pretty balanced IMO!

I really hate the way certain conservatives, especially the talk show hosts, have vilified FDR in the last several years. My mother and father were both alive during the FDR years, and they both said that he saved the country and saved Americans from starving and becoming lawless in the search for food and sustenance.

I’ve read some pretty heavy bios of FDR when I was younger, and these stated that the U.S. was within a few weeks of becoming Communist, and FDR’s first 100 days of Presidency saved us from that.

IMO, the times that FDR lived in were totally different than our times, and to accuse him of being a “liberal” and “creating big government” etc. is just foolishness. It’s comparing apples to oranges.

Anyway, I’m thinking of sending for the FDR DVDs when this series is over, and watching them a little at a time whenever I have some free time. It seems really good.
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I totally agree with you, Cat. And I would add that the first couple of installments, which focus on the life of Republican President Theodore Roosevelt, are equally wonderful and a real eye-opener, to me at least. What a complex person HE was! Also, our modern political era has nothing on the dirty politics of the nineteenth century.
 
I’ve read some pretty heavy bios of FDR when I was younger, and these stated that the U.S. was within a few weeks of becoming Communist, and FDR’s first 100 days of Presidency saved us from that.
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That seems like hype the other way.

Absent an invasion by the CCCP (which couldn’t do that at the time) the Communization of the USA was never going to happen.

My only beef about FDR is those who seem to think he won WW2 single handed, as though those who suffered and died both here and in other countries were only along for the ride.

It is a great series IMO.

ICXC NIKA.
 
I don’t really trust PBS to be that objective anymore.

It could be an interesting watch, but I’d wouldn’t necessarily take it as absolute truth.
 
just remember FDR was an Episcopalean and a Mason-
Teddy was a member of the Dutch Reformed Church
 
We’ve recorded the series and have just started watching it. We love anything by Ken Burns; my husband interviewed him when he was here for the premiere of “The War” several years back, as a number of the people featured prominently in that series were/are Mobilians. He is brilliant, talented, and very gracious.

Can’t wait to see the rest of the series; Ken Burns always comes up with the most amazing photos and film for his work!
 
👋 hi meltzerboy! we seem to have the same taste in television and movies.

I watched some of the show, but I recorded it so I can watch it over the weekend. Hopefully, uninterrupted.

I also like ken burns. It is only 2 hours right?
It wasn’t continued was it?

Will let you know what I think of it over the weekend.

Did both teddy and fdr grow up privileged or just fdr?
 
7_Sorrows said:
👋 hi meltzerboy! we seem to have the same taste in television and movies.

I watched some of the show, but I recorded it so I can watch it over the weekend. Hopefully, uninterrupted.

I also like ken burns. It is only 2 hours right?
It wasn’t continued was it?

Will let you know what I think of it over the weekend.

Did both teddy and fdr grow up privileged or just fdr?
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It is a series, approximately 14 hours (2h each day for a week).

Tonight and Sa are the last two episodes. Tonight is WW2, tomorrow I imagine Eleanor’s life after FDR dies.

TR was if anything even more privileged than FDR. Both had a youth of elegant homes and high-end education, went to Harvard, etc. And TR travelled extensively overseas as a youth (in the 1870s!)

A surprise for me was that TR as well as FDR was shaped by physical challenge, albeit less severe than FDR’s paralysis; in TR’s case, it was a lifelong battle with asthma, which had of course no treatment at the time. His training of his physique to overcome the intermittent lack of breath was a major factor in shaping his public personality.

ICXC NIKA.
 
GEddie said:
It is a series, approximately 14 hours (2h each day for a week).

Tonight and Sa are the last two episodes. Tonight is WW2, tomorrow I imagine Eleanor’s life after FDR dies.

TR was if anything even more privileged than FDR. Both had a youth of elegant homes and high-end education, went to Harvard, etc. And TR travelled extensively overseas as a youth (in the 1870s!)

A surprise for me was that TR as well as FDR was shaped by physical challenge, albeit less severe than FDR’s paralysis; in TR’s case, it was a lifelong battle with asthma, which had of course no treatment at the time. His training of his physique to overcome the intermittent lack of breath was a major factor in shaping his public personality.

ICXC NIKA.
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Well I guess maybe I just recorded the first night then.
Thanks for the info.
Interesting the challenges they both had. I had the paralysis at 6 years old that they now suspect FDR had instead of polio - called guillain-barre syndrome. I fortunately learned to walk again. Plus I had asthma. I consider myself fortunate that I made it to 62 so far.

Must have been nice to be rich in those days and have so many advantages.
 
Okay I have seen 3 episodes and am watching the one tonight when FDR passes. He was not one of my favorite presidents.
His mother sara was a tough cookie. I never knew eleanor was TR’s
niece. I think TR was more interesting. I saw the war episode.
There is a lot of information to digest.

Peter Coyote has made a lot of money narrating these ken burns documentaries.

I didn’t see the show on the new deal. I always thought that was boring when we got to that in history in school.

The hyde park roosevelts didn’t do a lot for me.
 
7_Sorrows said:
👋 hi meltzerboy! we seem to have the same taste in television and movies.

I watched some of the show, but I recorded it so I can watch it over the weekend. Hopefully, uninterrupted.

I also like ken burns. It is only 2 hours right?
It wasn’t continued was it?

Will let you know what I think of it over the weekend.

Did both teddy and fdr grow up privileged or just fdr?
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Maybe we have similar tastes in television and movies because we are from the same generation and grew up watching these shows. And what a turbulent generation that was!
 
dixieagle said:
We’ve recorded the series and have just started watching it. We love anything by Ken Burns; my husband interviewed him when he was here for the premiere of “The War” several years back, as a number of the people featured prominently in that series were/are Mobilians. He is brilliant, talented, and very gracious.

Can’t wait to see the rest of the series; Ken Burns always comes up with the most amazing photos and film for his work!
Click to expand...
I saw “The War” as well, and what impressed me was its digging into the personal experiences of soldiers and their families.
 
GEddie said:
That seems like hype the other way.

Absent an invasion by the CCCP (which couldn’t do that at the time) the Communization of the USA was never going to happen.

My only beef about FDR is those who seem to think he won WW2 single handed, as though those who suffered and died both here and in other countries were only along for the ride.

It is a great series IMO.

ICXC NIKA.
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At least there was some mention in the series of the important interaction between FDR and Churchill.
 
Reading this thread is enough to make me wish I had television. Hopefully the series will eventually make it to hulu .
Those of you who love the personal stories might especially enjoy reading Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression by Studs Terkel. 👍
 
meltzerboy said:
I’ll remember!
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I heard somewhere that all of our Presidents, save Lincoln (as well as all of the Mexican Presidents) were Freemasons.

It seems you can’t become a world VIP without intersecting with them.

The Bible used in our Presidential inaugurations is kept at a Masonic lodge in NYC.

ICXC NIKA.
 
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