Alice Lee Roosevelt Longworth | |
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Hand-tinted photograph of Alice Roosevelt by Frances Benjamin Johnston, taken around her debut in 1903
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Born |
Alice Lee Roosevelt February 12, 1884 New York City |
Died | February 20, 1980 Washington, D.C. |
(aged 96)
Spouse(s) |
Nicholas Longworth III (m. 1906–1931; his death) |
Children | Paulina Longworth |
Parent(s) | |
Relatives | See Roosevelt family |
Alice Lee Roosevelt Longworth (February 12, 1884 – February 20, 1980) was an American writer and prominent socialite. She was the eldest child of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and the only child of Roosevelt and his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee.
Alice led an unconventional and controversial life. Her marriage to Representative Nicholas Longworth III (Republican-Ohio), a party leader and 38th Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, was shaky, and her only child Paulina was allegedly a result of her affair with Senator William Edgar Borah of Idaho. She temporarily became a Democrat during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.
Alice Lee Roosevelt was born in the Roosevelt family home at 6 West 57th St. in New York City. Her mother, Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt, was a Boston banking heiress. Her father, Theodore, was then a New York State Assemblyman. As an Oyster Bay Roosevelt, Alice is a descendant of the Schuyler family.
Two days after her birth, in the same house, her mother died of undiagnosed kidney failure. Eleven hours earlier that day, Theodore's mother Martha Stewart "Mittie" Bulloch had also died of typhoid fever.