title: Theodore Roosevelt: Icon of the American Century

Roosevelt on horseback After his return from the war in Cuba, Colonel Roosevelt posed for this photograph at Montauk, Long Island, shortly before his First Volunteer Cavalry Regiment was mustered out of service in September 1898. Later, in a letter to sculptor James E. Kelly—who like Frederick MacMonnies sculpted a statuette of the Rough Rider upon a horse—Roosevelt described in detail how he looked and dressed in the war. Unlike his image here, he said, "In Cuba I did not have the side of my hat turned up."


Roosevelt after he returned from Cuba, 1898
Unidentified photographer
reproduced from a platinum print
National Portrait Gallery,
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Gift of Joanna Sturm



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