FDR’s Mentors: How FDR Learned to Become a Great Leader

In every poll of the public, historians, political scientists, and experts on the presidency, Franklin D. Roosevelt is rated among the top three presidents in American history. He further ranks among the top five presidents in terms of the number of biographies written about him. While the caliber of his leadership has been much discussed, less attention has been paid to how he learned to lead.

Watch to hear Professor Michael Gerhardt, the author of “FDR’s Mentors: Navigating the Path to Greatness,” tell the story of FDR’s presidency through his interaction with the few people to whom he turned as mentors. Among the most impactful of these were former presidents Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt (FDR’s fifth cousin), Abraham Lincoln, and Andrew Jackson, his wife Eleanor, as well as journalist Louis Howe, his teacher and lifelong friend Endicott Peabody, and his long-time confidante and labor expert, Frances Perkins. The story of their impact on FDR enriches our understanding of how he became one of America’s greatest presidents.