The Strenuous Life

June 24, 2019
Historian Swanson (When Baseball Went White) presents a fascinating account of president Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) and his influence on high school and collegiate sports in America. Swanson looks beyond the legend of Roosevelt—the brash masculinity, the exploits of the Rough Riders—to describe a man who grew up asthmatic, myopic, undersized, and physically unsure of himself. Swanson explains the future president’s belief that achieving physical endurance should be one’s goal, and that a “life of toil and effort and strife” was important to both individuals and the country at large. Through Roosevelt, Swanson describes “America’s sport revolution” and provides insight as to “how sports in America came to develop as they did.” Swanson shares anecdotes of Roosevelt’s public support of sports: his attending the Army-Navy football game in 1901 after having just been assigned office, playing tennis with his cabinet members outside the Oval Office, and championing athletes such as boxer Jack Johnson. Swanson details the founding of the Public Schools Athletic League (PSAL), and Roosevelt’s role in shaping the early days of the NCAA. Sports fans and history buffs alike will enjoy this focused portrait of President Roosevelt.

July 26, 2019

Sports, according to Theodore Roosevelt, were a place where manhood's mettle could be properly challenged. Swanson (history; Univ. of New Mexico's Honors Coll.; When Baseball Went White) has examined these ideas meticulously, and here offers a window into the sporting culture that influenced Roosevelt's life and vice versa. The term Strenuous Life is also the title of an 1899 Roosevelt speech in which the president was compelled to issue a warning that the forces of industrialization and urban living were weakening men. Echoes of this speech are certainly present today, and Swanson delves into how Roosevelt came to adopt this ideology before 1899 and how this thinking emerged in his presidential actions. These actions were both small, such as taking long walks with advisers, to more significant, such as convening a White House meeting on football safety. This history further investigates the rise of baseball, along with the Olympics and other cultural events that influenced Roosevelt. VERDICT This work adds intriguing depth to Roosevelt histories. Highly recommended for cultural, presidential, and sport histories.--Jacob Sherman, John Peace Lib., Univ. of Texas at San Antonio

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