by Stacy A. Cordery
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Product Description
An intimate and revealing portrait of America’s most memorable first daughter
Alice Roosevelt Longworth lived her entire life on the political stage and in the public eye, earning her the nickname “the other Washington monument.” In this new biography—the first in twenty years—Stacy A. Cordery presents a detailed and richly entertaining portrait of the witty and whip- smart daughter of Teddy Roosevelt.
“Princess Alice” was a tempestuous teenager. Smoking, gambling, and dressing flamboyantly, she flouted social conventions and opened the door for other women to do the same. Her husband was Speaker of the House Nicholas Longworth but—as Cordery documents for the first time—she had a child with her lover, Senator William Borah of Idaho. Alice’s political acumen was widely respected in Washington. She was a sharp-tongued critic of her cousin FDR’s New Deal programs, and meetings in her drawing room helped to change the course of history, from undermining the League of Nations to boosting Nixon. During the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, her legendary salons were still the center of political ferment.
With new insights into Teddy Roosevelt, and for everyone who delights in Washington history and gossip, Alice is a fascinating portrait of a woman who influenced American politics for nearly a century.
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Average Customer Review:
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Go Ask Alice, 2008-09-02
She loved sex and claimed that she always lived by the adage, "Fill what's empty, empty what's full, and scratch where it itches." She made for good copy so reporters flocked around her and gave her the respect they bequeath on certain token freaks, like Quentin Crisp. But Stacy A. Cordery suspects there was more to "Princess Alice" than the woman who had that embroidered pillow that read, :If you have nothing nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me." Indeed she skillfully paints the picture of a woman who lived for politics and whose radical conservatism brought her to alarming places in the 1930s and 1940s, yet in other respects she was ahead of her time socially speaking.
Her life wasn't easy in some ways, and yet of course fabulously privileged in others. If she felt scorned and abused by Edith Roosevelt, her stepmother, she sure got her revenge, didn't she, and she got to be "Alice Blue Gown" and twenty times more popular than Edith ever could dream of being. Beautiful and outspoken, she married a congressman from Ohio with a bright future but with severe drinking and cheating problems. Alice was from the American aristocracy, all of whom apparently thought nothing of sleeping around all the time, but when she gave birth to Senator Borah's baby girl, she was really playing with fire, and calling the baby "Paulina," a name which--as Cordery points out--any well-adjusted contemporary would have associated with adultery and illegitimacy, she was really playing up her wild streak to a strange degree.
I liked finding out about Borah's secret lover letters and how Cordery decoded them. Talk about vain--Borah would attach reams of publicity material about himself to innocuous notes to Alice, but if you looked closely at the press puffery you'd see he'd lightly circled individual alphabet letters to form a message, which if spelled out over several pages, would say something like, "Oh my dear one I'm hot for you," etc.
Alice Roosevelt was extraordinarily well-read and loved Pound, both for his Fascist views and for his modernism. She became one of the circle visiting him at St. Elizabeth's, and made it trendy to do so among the right wingers. Visiting Pound, Cordery reveals, "became a status symbol among some circles--a sort of conservative chic." Alice seems like she went around the bend after Paulina's birth and began ragging on her distant cousins, FDR and Eleanor, exactly like the sort of crank who wrote that book about John Kerry and the swift boats--I guess after FDR's death she sort of felt stricken by shame at her attitude, but in the meantime she had become a local "character," sort of evil, but not really. Cordery tells most of the story straight, though you never do find out what was really up with Paulina and why she decided to do away with herself so young, and sometimes her research (or is it name dropping) stumbles--identifying John Dos Passos as a poet, for example. Otherwise you'll learn something about compassion while reading this book, when tracing your own responses to an infuriating, ultimately poignant woman's life.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 excellent read for lovers of American history or biographies, 2008-06-14
I have read several biographies over the years of nearly President of 20th century, and so the name of Alice Roosevelt Longworth commonly came up in these books (of Presidents starting with her father Pres. T. Roosevelt). She was usually mentioned, in reference to post-WWII years, in terms such as "the grande dame of Washington, " however I had no idea what a fascinating life she led. This very readable book provides an intimate look into her life, despite the limitations of the ultra-discrete manners of the post-Edwardian era in which she came of age, which must make the research into her letters frustrating. Nevertheless, we are let into such secrets as her husbands adulterous groin and the true father of "their" child.
Given my great admiration of her cousin Eleanor and my prior reading of nearly haigiographic books on her and FDR, before reading "Alice" I was all ready to see her as a vindictive, nasty bitch, whining from the sidelines of D.C. on just about everyone else due to her own bitterness over not getting back into White House after death of her father. This book convinced me otherwise. Yes, she did have a biting, "cutting" wit, but the writer did convince me she never aimed her well-known verbal arrows at anyone weaker than her, or vunerable. Usually her barbs were for those well-entrenched in power and covered in hubris that she's more than willing to help brush off. The fact that most of politicians whom she famously critiqued were Democrats is not covered up, but neither does the writer looks more in depth into what was often her blind partisanship (e.g. Sen. McCarthy...Pres. Nixon, not coincidentally both Republicans.)
Lastly, the book is well-researched and footnoted, and the writer is a talented story teller...I imagine she had problem deciding what stories to leave out.
15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
 Uneven..., 2008-02-14
I was very eager to read Alice: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, from White House Princess to Washington Power Broker by Stacy A. Cordery. I enjoy reading about the Roosevelts and Alice was certainly one of the more colorful family members. But I found Alice uneven and a bit of a disappointment.
The story of Alice Roosevelt Longworth is fairly well-known. Alice was the daughter of Theodore Roosevelt and his first wife, Alice Lee Roosevelt. When Alice was only two days old, both her mother and grandmother (TR's mother) died within hours of each other. Unable to deal with his grief, TR dumped baby Alice with his sister and escaped out west. Three years later, TR married Edith Kermit Carow and they brought Alice to live with them. Soon, Alice was competing with five half siblings. With her emotionally absent father and her stern step-mother, Alice learned to seek attention by rebelling. When her father succeeded to the White House in 1901, Alice became "the first female celebrity of the twentieth century." The press couldn't get enough of the first daughter and nicknamed her Princess Alice. Her father once said "I can either run the country or I can control Alice. I cannot possibly do both." Alice eventually married Ohio congressman Nicholas Longworth. With her keen intelligence, sharp wit, natural curiosity and political astuteness, Alice remained a mover and a shaker for her 96 years. Her DC house was a gathering place for powerful people.
I thought that Cordery did a good job of covering the political aspects of Alice's life. Unfortunately, I felt that the details of her personal life were lacking. I reached page 200 and realized that there wasn't much that I hadn't read in other sources. There wasn't that much about her interaction with her siblings. Her daughter, Paulina, is largely glossed over. Alice had an affair with Senator William Borah and he was allegedly the father of Paulina. But after lots of pages, he seems to just drop away from the story. What really happened to their relationship? Also, I'm a stickler for details. Was there a funeral for Alice? If so, where was it held? Where is she buried? Her father's death receives only one paragraph. For a book that is advertised as "the first full biography of Alice Roosevelt Longworth," there are major holes.
I enjoyed reading Alice, but I was just expecting more.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
Hard to like the book when the subject is such a brat (and I cleaned that up)., 2008-02-11
As Teddy Roosevelt's oldest child, Alice was introduced to the lifestyles of the rich and politically well-connected early on in her life. She never got over living in the White House. To read her correspondence on the subject, it was forever hers. Alice was a diva. She was the original "it's all about me" celebutant. Very few people ever denied her, and when they did, woe be unto them.
She was married to the Speaker of the House, had a child by a distinguished senator from Idaho and held political sway over the inner circles of Washington, D.C. until her death in 1980.
Stacy Cordery's new biography is voluminous, coming in at 608 pages, not including the references and bibliography. Cordery has done a thorough and sincere job, but even her meticulous efforts can't make "Princess Alice," as she was called, a likable creature. She may have been admirable from afar, but up close and personal, she was selfish, self-centered and hated sharing the spotlight with anyone.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Alice: Alice Roosevelt, 2008-02-09
In this biography author Stacy Cordery succeeeds in making her subject come alive. Alice Roosevelt was the pop star of her day just 100 years ago and was the center of attention in Washington DC from the time her father was in the White House until her death almost 80 years later. Using primary sources, Alice's letters and diaries gave the writer the opportunity to paint a vivid portrait in words. This book is recommended for anyone interested in women's history or in political drama.
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