About the dates
Day by Day follows Theodore Roosevelt through all 21,986 days of his life, from his birth in Manhattan on October 27, 1858 to his death at Sagamore Hill on January 6, 1919. Here is where those dates come from, and what to keep in mind when you read them.
Where the days come from
The backbone is the Chronological Record, a day-by-day calendar of Roosevelt's life compiled by Robert J. Moore Jr. for the Theodore Roosevelt Association and completed in 1985. It draws on Roosevelt's diaries and letters, newspapers, guest books and the work of his biographers. The record has an entry for 14,551 of his days. The rest are quiet, and the map simply carries him forward from the last place he was seen.
Every headline and summary on this site is new writing by the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. Each day cites the page of the record it rests on, so anyone can trace a fact back to its place in the calendar.
News arrives late
The record often logs the world's news on the day it reached Roosevelt, the way a diary would. So a volcano that erupted on Martinique, or a treaty signed in London, can show up a day or more after it actually happened. Where the true date is known, the day says so in a short note.
A note on this day
About one day in eight carries a note. Most are small: the record gives only a surname, a word is hard to read on the typed page, or a story comes from someone's memory years later rather than from the day itself. The notes are there so nothing is presented as more certain than it is.
Days that were moved
The record was typed on paper and turned into data by reading the scanned pages. Now and then a date heading was misread, and the entries after it landed on the wrong day until the next clear heading. Checking the record against dated events from other sources found these, and they have been put back where they belong:
| Days | What changed |
|---|---|
| April 10–12, 1898 | One day earlier, lining up with Easter and McKinley's war message |
| October 10–24, 1901 | One week later, lining up with the Booker T. Washington dinner and the Yale degree |
| November 6–30, 1906 | Five days earlier, lining up with Election Day and the voyage to Panama |
| July 27–28, 1908 | Taft's acceptance speech moved to July 28 |
| July 14–16, 1913 | The descent into the Grand Canyon and the climb to the North Rim separated onto their own days |
| August 24–26, 1913 | The Chicago stop and the return to New York each moved a day later |
| April 4–5, 1915 | The Easter snowstorm moved to Easter Sunday, April 4 |
Each moved day keeps its original date in the data, under redated_from, and its note explains the change.
Where he was
Most entries in the record open with a place: Sagamore Hill, the White House, Elkhorn Ranch, at sea. That heading decides where the map puts him. Between headings, he stays put until the record shows him arriving somewhere new. Old buildings that no longer stand, and places that cannot be pinned down, are shown at the nearest town.
Roosevelt's own words
Quotations from his diaries, letters and speeches are given as the record transcribes them. They have not yet been checked against the original documents, so treat them as a starting point, not a final text.
Spot something off?
A project this size will have mistakes still in it. If a date, a name or a place looks wrong, write to hello@trlibrary.com with the date and what you found. Corrections are logged and published with the data.