Martha Bulloch
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Martha Bulloch Roosevelt (July 8, 1835 – February 14, 1884) was the mother of US President Theodore Roosevelt and the paternal grandmother of Eleanor Roosevelt. She was usually known as Mittie. She married Theodore Roosevelt, Sr., and had four children.
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[edit] Childhood
Martha was born in Hartford, Connecticut on July 8, 1835 to Major James Stephens Bulloch and Martha Stewart Bulloch, where her mother was visiting her homesick step-son, James Dunwoody Bulloch and Martha's future half-brother, at boarding school. After a few months in Hartford, baby Mittie and her mother returned to their home in Savannah where Mittie was initially raised. [1]
When she was about five, the family moved to Roswell, Georgia, a small southern town, just north of the Chattahoochee River, and north of Atlanta, Georgia. There they built the beautiful antebellum mansion, Bulloch Hall. Martha Bulloch's brothers, James and Irvine Bulloch were involved in the Civil War as Confederate officers. The Bullochs remained supporters of the Confederacy and war effort. [2]
Initially, the family was quite wealthy and the Bullochs were slave owners. In the years before Martha met Theodore Roosevelt, the family's fortunes had declined somewhat.
[edit] Marriage to Theodore Roosevelt, Sr.
Mittie married Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. on December 22, 1853 at the beautiful Greek Revival-style family mansion Bulloch Hall in Roswell, Georgia. She soon moved to Manhattan where she was joined by both her mother, Martha and her sister, Anna. Mittie bore four children: Anna (1855-1931), Theodore (1858-1919), Elliott (1860-1894) [the father of Eleanor Roosevelt], and Corinne (1861-1933).
[edit] Death
Mrs. Roosevelt died of typhoid fever on February 14, 1884, on the same day and in the same house as her son Theodore's first wife, Alice Roosevelt, died of Brights Disease/Nephritis, and two days after the birth of her granddaughter, Alice.
[edit] Possible historical source for Scarlett O'Hara character
One modern Roosevelt biographer, David McCullough, in his book, Mornings on Horseback, gives an account of the American author, Margaret Mitchell, while a reporter for the newspaper, The Atlanta Journal, interviewing one of Mittie's best friends and bridesmaid, an Evelyn King Williams, at 87. Williams described Mittie as a glowing, quick-witted, narrow-waisted black-haired beauty and also describes a Bulloch Hall that sounds remarkably like Mitchell's Tara. Was Mittie the inspiriation for Scarlett O'Hara in Mitchell's book, Gone with the Wind, published in 1936 and Pulitzer Prize winner in 1937? Although Mitchell always claimed that the characters were not based on any one individual, the comparisons are striking. Gone with the Wind, the novel, would become one of the most popular of all time, and an American film adaptation of the same name released in 1939 became the then highest-grossing film in the history of Hollywood. However, some have questioned that Martha was essentially too sympathetic a figure to be the inspiration for the ruthless heroine, Scarlett O'Hara.
[edit] Mittie described in Theodore Roosevelt's Autobiography
Theodore Roosevelt, in his autobiography published in 1913, described his mother with these words, "My mother, Martha Bulloch, was a sweet, gracious, beautiful Southern woman, a delightful companion and beloved by everybody. She was entirely "unreconstructed" (sympathetic to the Southern Confederate cause) to the day of her death." [3]
[edit] See also
[edit] Sources
[edit] Primary sources
- Roosevelt, Theodore. An Autobiography. (1913)
[edit] Secondary sources
- Beale Howard K. Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power (1956).
- Brands, H.W. Theodore Roosevelt (2001)
- Dalton, Kathleen. Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life. (2002)
- Harbaugh, William Henry. The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt. (1963)
- McCullouch, David. Mornings on Horseback, The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life, and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt (2001)
- Morris, Edmund The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt (1979)
- Morris, Edmund Theodore Rex. (2001)
- Mowry, George. The era of Theodore Roosevelt and the birth of modern America, 1900-1912. (1954)
[edit] External links
- Women in history of Scots descent
- Bio from Theodore Roosevelt Association Site[4]
