Alice Roosevelt Longworth was the oldest daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt. She grew up to become just as outspoken and strong-willed as her father. Alice was the most unconventional first daughter ever to live in the White House. She became a Washington socialite and political power broker with a keen intellect and a razor-sharp tongue.
Her boldly independent, free-spirit breathed a new life into the concept of womanhood in the early 20th century, just as the Suffrage movement was gaining momentum. She would be involved in both woman’s rights and later, the sexual revolution of the 1960’s. Even her iron-willed father admitted he could not control his free-willed daughter.
Alice Roosevelt was the only daughter of a young Theodore Roosevelt and his first wife, Alice Lee, whom he loved deeply. Two days after giving birth in 1884, Alice Lee tragically died of Bright’s Disease. That same day, Teddy’s mother Martha died just hours earlier of typhoid fever, downstairs in the same house.
A distraught, 25-year-old Theodore named his new little girl for his late wife. He was so overcome with grief, that he would never call his daughter by her name, and instead referred to her as Baby Lee. Not only would Roosevelt never say the name “Alice” again, but he would not let anyone else say it around him either.
To deal with his crippling grief, Teddy Roosevelt left New York City and started a ranch in the wild Badlands of North Dakota. He left his daughter under the care of his sister Anna (Bamie) in New York. While away, Teddy worked through his grief far from baby Alice. He raised cattle. He hunted buffalo. He even boxed with a gunfighter in a saloon.
Meanwhile, Alice Lee remained in New York City with her Aunt Anna.
Bamie would have a huge influence on Alice due to her own strong and independent nature. When Teddy returned to Alice two years later in 1886, he married his high school sweetheart, Edith Carow. The new family moved to Oyster Bay, Long Island, and Teddy and Edith had five more children. But tensions formed between Teddy’s second wife and his oldest daughter.
Her step-mother Edith was jealous of Roosevelt’s past relationship with his first wife and took out these insecurities on young Alice. Edith once told the girl that if her ‘dull’ mother had lived, she would have bored her father Teddy to death. Matters only worsened as Alice Lee grew into an attractive young woman.
Alice Roosevelt became both strong-willed and fiercely independent. Edith could not control her and implored Teddy to send the girl to a private boarding school. The fiery young girl replied, “If you send me away, I will humiliate you. I will do something that will shame you. I tell you, I will!” To Edith’s dismay, Teddy relented. They sent Alice Roosevelt back to her Aunt Bamie instead to be tutored.
In 1901, the Roosevelt family’s life changed forever when Teddy became President on the death of William McKinley. He was now in the public eye more than ever. Alice was now 17. When Roosevelt took office, he brought his wife and six young children into the White House, whose playful antics charmed the country.
It was the lively Alice who quickly became the focus of the press’ adulation and scrutiny. Glowing reports were printed about her society debut at the White House in 1902. Soon, the color “Alice Blue,” based on the dress she wore, was a sought-after fashion staple. Songs were even named after the first daughter.
“Princess Alice,” as the press called her, had become an instant sensation. She smoked cigarettes in public (her father forbid her to smoke under his roof). She stayed out late partying and rode back in cars with men unchaperoned. She was even seen placing sports bets with a bookie.
Once asked by the press about his daughter’s wild exploits, Teddy Roosevelt replied with exasperation, “I can either run the country, or I can attend to Alice, but I cannot possibly do both.” Alice grew distant from her father as she was angered by his refusal to still not call her by her name.
Teddy Roosevelt admitted to being mortified by his daughter’s behavior.
She had become the opposite for what a “young lady” of her time was supposed to be. She was cheered at Mardi Gras in New Orleans, welcomed by fireworks during a visit to Cuba, and greeted by fans at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. Edith Roosevelt chided Alice for waving to her fans during Teddy’s 1905 inauguration.
Her free spirit caused much of the public to fall in love with her. “She has become one of the most regarded women in the world,” the NY Tribune wrote of her. The press was present when she became the first woman to drive alone in a car, when she raced up and down the streets of Washington. She smoked publicly, chewed gum, played poker, often wore pants, partied all night, and slept till noon.
Alice kept a dagger and a pet garter snake in her purse. She often phoned in tips of her whereabouts to reporters so that she could collect the cash rewards offered for info about her. The New York Herald printed a running score of her social life over the course of one 15-month period, which included 407 dinners, 350 balls, 300 parties, and 680 teas.
Despite their battle of wills, Roosevelt was shrewd enough to capitalize on his daughter’s popularity. In 1905, he sent her on a high-visibility trip – a month’s long diplomatic mission to Asia, with stops in Japan, China, Korea and the Philippines. Members of the mission included Secretary of War William Taft, 7 senators, 23 congressmen, and other diplomats.
True to form, Alice made headlines at every stop of the journey.
She was welcomed by the Emperor Meiji of Japan and Empress Dowager Cixi of China—a testament to her role as her father’s emissary. She did not abandon her fun entirely, making news by jumping into the ship’s pool fully clothed, then urging members of the delegation to join her. Many young women viewed Alice Roosevelt as the future of womanhood and cheered her on.
Alice was equal amounts competitive with her father and fiercely loyal to him. “Being the offspring of a very conspicuous parent, I wasn’t going to let him get the better of me.” She once pointed out that her extroverted father was “the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral, and the child at every baptism.
Every time she was spotted out with a man, people speculated that she’d marry him. While on the Asia tour, Alice met her future husband, Congressman Nicholas Longworth. When she returned from China, they announced their engagement. He was a debonair bachelor and Washington socialite — who also resembled Theodore Roosevelt.
News of Alice’s engagement to a politician 15 years older unleashed a media frenzy. The public gathered outside the White House on February 17, 1906, in hopes of glimpsing the political wedding of the century. The event was so festive the press likened it to a national holiday. Well-wishers lined the streets hoping for a glimpse of the famous couple.
Inside the East Room, dignitaries and emissaries watched the bride slice the wedding cake, not with a knife but with a sword. “Miss Roosevelt looked as pretty as she ever did in her life, and that is saying a good deal,” the New York Times gushed. “The best pictures that have been printed do not do justice.”
Princess Alice received ornate gifts befitting royalty – a gold box from England’s King Edward VII, a diamond bracelet from Germany’s Wilhelm II and jewelry from the dowager empress of China. Of the marriage that followed, Alice later admitted, “I hardly reveled in it.” Both of them partied often and had various affairs, though they remained married.
In the election of 1912, Taft once a close friend of her father, was now a bitter rival. Roosevelt was trying for a third term in his newly formed Progressive Bull Moose Party, which split the Republican vote. Alice’s public insults of Mrs. Taft caused her to be banned from White House events. After her father lost, Alice buried a voodoo doll of first lady Nellie Taft in the White House garden.
Alice had become a prominent, if unofficial, political figure.
Woodrow Wilson emerged victorious over both her father and Taft. She vocally opposed Wilson’s League of Nations at the end of World War I. She was banned from the White House again by the Wilsons. When Teddy died in 1919, Alice Roosevelt took up her father’s political causes. She became known as the “Other Washington Monument.”
In 1925, Longworth and Alice purchased 2009 Massachusetts Avenue. What attracted them to the property was its location. Dupont Circle and Massachusetts Avenue was where Washington’s power elite and millionaire industrialists owned mansions. It was an imposing five-story, limestone house, consisting of 20 rooms and 6 baths.
Alice began a lifetime of influence in Washington circles. She was a formidable friend—or foe—of every president who followed her father. Even relatives were not spared. Longworth publicly opposed her Democratic cousin Franklin Roosevelt for President in 1932. She said of him, “The same surname is about all we have in common…. I am a Republican…. I am going to vote for Hoover.“
Alice was a harsh and outspoken critic of her cousin Franklin’s New Deal during the Great Depression. Alice once declared that her cousin Franklin was “one-third sap and two-thirds Eleanor.” Eleanor Roosevelt countered that Alice Longworth led a life that was “one long pursuit of pleasure and excitement, and rather little real happiness.”
Her marriage was rocky throughout the years. Alice had a long affair with Senator William Borah in the 1920’s. By her own later admission, Borah was the father of her only child, a daughter, Paulina Longworth. She was born shortly after Alice’s 41st birthday in 1925.
When Nicholas died in 1931, her family fortune was nearly exhausted. Alice needed to find a source of income. In 1933, she published her autobiography “Crowded Hours,” full of tales and reminiscences of her father, family, and public life. She even posed for cold cream and a cigarette advertisements.
“Mrs. L.” managed to rein over Washington social and political scene for decades to come. Politicians sought Alice’s advice and opinions at her famous dinner parties. Alice frequently brought power brokers together in her home. She could either aid or hinder candidates and Congressional bills. She denied influencing floor votes, but regular visits to congressional hearings suggest otherwise.
Alice was close friends with Richard Nixon when he was vice president.
She encouraged Nixon to run for president and continued to invite him to her famous dinners. Although a staunch Republican, Alice later became smitten with the Kennedys. She assisted First Lady Jacqueline in restoring the White House. She changed parties after the assassination and supported Bobby Kennedy in 1968.
When Nixon became president, he invited Alice to his formal White House dinners. That same year, Nixon threw an 87th birthday party for her at the White House. In true form, she said of the occasion, “It was so gruesome. Everyone looks at you and wonders if she’ll last another year.” Her friendship with Nixon ended with the Watergate Scandal.
Her social sphere was not limited to just presidents and lawmakers. She always appeared when foreign dignitaries were in town: Alice met Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip in 1976, during their visit for America’s bicentennial celebration. She also stayed active in feminist causes important to American woman, calling Gloria Steinem “one of my heroes.”
In the 1960s and 1970s, Dupont Circle became home to hippies, and the so-called “Duchess of Dupont Circle,” continued to live there. One night during the Vietnam War protests, she stuck her head out a window during a demonstration and got a whiff of police tear gas, which she said, “cleared my sinuses.”
Her house was cluttered with animal skins and stuffed heads from her father’s many hunting expeditions, and filled with a lifetime collection of books and photographs. “After reading all night, I like a day that begins at 11 am.” Alice slept in a bedroom with a refrigerator stocked with late night snacks to accompany her reading.
Her only daughter, Paulina, would struggle with depression and addiction her entire life. Paulina’s husband had died in 1951 and she died of an overdose of sleeping pills in 1957. This left Alice to care for her now-orphaned granddaughter, Joanna Sturm alone. Joanna would go on to have a daughter herself, who she named Alice.
In her final years, as Alice Roosevelt Longworth began showing signs of senility. Her granddaughter would call Alice’s friends and urge them to come to visit. “I don’t think I am cruel or insensitive. I laugh, I have a sense of humor,” Alice Roosevelt Longworth said in an interview, “I like to tease … Isn’t it strange how that upsets some people?” When Alice recalled her young life, “I must admit a sense of mischief does get hold of me from time to time. I had an appetite for being entertained.”
Although Alice was Theodore Roosevelt’s firstborn child, she was the last of his children to die. She died at age 96 in 1980. President Carter’s official statement said, “She had style, she had grace, and she had a sense of humor that kept generations of Washington politicians wondering which was worse—to be skewered by her or be ignored by her.” At her own request, her granddaughter buried her without fanfare in Washington’s Rock Creek Cemetery next to her husband.
Alice Roosevelt was well known for her famous quips, “The secret of eternal youth is arrested development.” Another was, “My specialty is detached malevolence.” She stated that her philosophy in life was quite simple. “Fill what’s empty, empty what’s full, and scratch where it itches.” Perhaps her most famous quote was during a White House dinner in 1965, “If you haven’t got anything good to say about anybody, come sit next to me.”