Henry L. Roosevelt

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Henry Latrobe Roosevelt (October 5, 1879 - February 22, 1936) was an Assistant Secretary of the Navy.

A member of the Roosevelt family, he was born in Morristown, New Jersey to Nicholas Latrobe Roosevelt, who had a naval career of distinction and was a grandson of Nicholas Roosevelt, an inventor and land-owner. Roosevelt entered the United States Naval Academy in 1896 but did not graduate. He became a Lieutenant Colonel in the Marine Corps, in which he served during the Spanish-American War.^[1] He was at times stationed in Philadelphia, Panama, Cuba and Haiti. After retiring in 1920, he served as the European manager for the Radio Corporation of America from 1923 to 1928 and oversaw the building of large radio stations at Ankara, Turkey and Warsaw, Poland.^[1]

He returned to the United States in 1933 to head the Radio Real Estate Corporation, but was soon selected by Naval Secretary Claude A. Swanson for the post of Assistant Secretary of the Navy.^[2] He became the fourth Roosevelt and fifth member of the Roosevelt family to occupy that office, after Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt (the current president at the time), Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. and Theodore Douglas Robinson.^[2]^[1] Due to Swanson's poor health, Roosevelt was at times Acting Secretary. He made many tours of inspection and speeches, calling for the strengthening of the navy as a deterrent to war.^[1]^[3]

In 1902, he married Eleanor Morrow, daughter of California Circuit Judge W. W. Morrow.^[4] He had three children, William Morrow, Henry Latrobe, and Eleanor Katherine, who married Reverdy Wadsworth, son of U.S. Representative James W. Wadsworth, Jr..^[5]^[4] He died at Bethesda Naval Hospital of a heart attack following intestinal influenza.^[6]