Roosevelt used the media as a tool to portray an image of strength and good health to the American public to sustain their faith in him as a public figure. The United States experienced many difficulties as a nation during Roosevelt’s presidency. The country needed a strong, capable leader to steer the country away from the economic downturn and then global fascism.
Many commentators in recent decades, asserting that the public was totally unaware of FDR’s physical condition, have wondered whether, if they had been aware, they would have changed their minds about Roosevelt.
But despite FDR’s efforts at concealment, recent research indicates that the American public was not as in the dark about his disability as was previously assumed.
James Tobin, author of “The Man He Became: How FDR Defied Polio to Win the Presidency” (2012), asserts that the American public was aware that the president was disabled and that this played a key role in enabling Roosevelt’s rise to power. Other historians like Hugh Gregory Gallagher dispute this claim and maintain that the American public was unaware.
Whatever the truth about the public’s awareness, Roosevelt went to great lengths to camouflage his disability and reliance on a wheelchair. Was this behavior simply a product of the time? Would he have done the same thing in the modern world, which is more accessible and accommodating to disabled people?
In the 24 years during which Roosevelt was paralyzed, half were spent in the White House under the watchful gaze of the world’s media. Even when newspapers or magazines did mention Roosevelt’s disability or paralysis, there were twice as many sources to spin the president’s opaque narrative.
The U.S. was in tumult during virtually all of Roosevelt’s presidency, with the successive challenges of the Depression and a world war. It needed a strong leader who could boost morale. The narrative of Roosevelt becoming ill and then “overcoming” his disability was juxtaposed against the United States’ surviving economic depression and defeating fascism.
Roosevelt died unexpectedly in Warm Springs on April 12, 1945. The event shocked the American public, as the Roosevelt administration had persistently pushed the narrative that his health was fine. The White House released a statement on the same day, confirming Roosevelt’s death by a cerebral hemorrhage. Unbeknownst to Americans at the time, Roosevelt’s health had been deteriorating in the later years of his presidency.
The way in which Roosevelt was depicted was still a contentious issue, even decades after his death. In 1978, the planning for Roosevelt’s memorial in Washington began when American designer and architect Lawrence Halprin won a competition to design the memorial.