One of three known photos of Roosevelt Roosevelt with his son Jimmy on the campaign trail

in a wheelchair.

Herbert Hoover

  1. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had been stricken with polio in 1921. This resulted in him be effectively paralyzed below the waist. This was potentially a big issue in the election of 1932—would voters elect a president who was paralyzed and perceived as weak or sickly? His opponent was the current President, Herbert Hoover. Like most people at that time Hoover knew about Roosevelt's condition and he believed that the voters would not elect someone who was disabled. Many involved in Hoover’s campaign thought that Roosevelt would not be an effective campaigner and that he would probably be too weak to carry on an aggressive campaign. Hoover underestimated FDR. In fact, Roosevelt turned out to be a vigorous campaigner. His campaign took him back and forth across the country by train and he was photographed on many occasions throughout the country. One irony of the campaign is that due to the Great Depression, Hoover had to work seven days a week late into the night in an attempt to solve the country’s problems. This aged him greatly and photographs of him on the campaign trail made him look old and frail. Roosevelt actually appeared tovoters to be much healthier and more vigorous than Hoover.
  2. Roosevelt had to go to great lengths to disguise his illness, both on the campaign trail and while in office. It was no secret that Roosevelt suffered from the effects of polio. There were stories in newspapers, especially in 1921 when he contracted the disease. But, he did not appear in public in a wheelchair. Instead, he had leg braces that he wore under specially tailored pants designed to cover the braces. He relied much on a cane to walk. In many photographs he is seen walking with a strong-armed person next to him. During much of the campaign his son James (seen wearing a bowler hat in the photo above) was the one who stood next to him.
  3. Roosevelt had a gift of relating to his audiences and putting them at ease by introducing his family so that they all felt part of the family. He would always end by saying something like,"and my little boy Jimmy," Everybody would laugh at the joke because “Little Jimmy” was actually very tall, two or three inches taller than FDR himself.What he was really doing was hiding the fact that he was actually hanging on to Jimmy's arm in order to keep himself standing.
  4. Despite his affliction, Franklin Roosevelt was elected in 1932. In fact voters elected him to a total of four terms. He is the only president in the history of the United States to be elected president more than two times. He led the nation through the Great Depression and to victory in the Second World War. Most historians rank FDR as one of the best presidents the country has ever had. Many even rank him number one.
Questions for reflection:
What conclusions can you draw between Roosevelt’s success and the fact that he had a disability?
Why did Roosevelt need to go to such great lengths to hide his disability?
Think about how campaigns are run today. Explain why or why not someone like Roosevelt could get elected today if he ran for President.
Do you think having polio affected Roosevelt’s ability to be President in a positive way or a negative way?Explain your answer.
Study each picture. What can be learned from these photographs?