We are all Americans, pure and simple: Theodore Roosevelt and the myth of Americanism

Abstract

This is the 26th president's discourse on issues of race, ethnicity, and American identity. The turn of the 20th century represented one of the most chaotic periods in the nation's history, as immigrants, Native and African struggled with their roles as while white America feared their encroachments on national identity. This book examines Theodore Roosevelt's public rhetoric - speeches, essays, and narrative histories - as he attempted to craft one people out of many. Leroy G. Dorsey observes that Roosevelt's solution to the problem appeared straight-forward: everyone could become Americans, pure and simple if they embraced his notion of Americanism. Roosevelt grounded his idea of Americanism in myth, particularly the frontier myth - a heroic combination of individual strength and character. When nonwhites and immigrants demonstrated these traits, they would become true earning an exalted status that they had heretofore been denied. Dorsey's analysis illuminates how Roosevelt's rhetoric achieved a number of delicate, if problematic, balancing acts. Roosevelt gave his audiences the opportunity to accept a national identity that allowed some room for immigrants and nonwhites, while reinforcing their status as others, thereby reassuring white of their superior place in the nation. Roosevelt's belief in an ordered and unified nation did not overwhelm his private racist attitudes, Dorsey argues, but certainly competed with them. Despite his private sentiments, he recognized that racist beliefs and rhetoric were divisive and bad for the nation's progress. The resulting message he chose to propagate was thus one of a rhetorical, if not literal, melting pot. By focusing on Roosevelt's rhetorical constructions of national identity, as opposed to his personal exploits or his role as a policy maker, We Are All Americans offers new insights into Roosevelt's use of public discourse to bind the nation together during one of the most polarized periods in its history.