Theodore Roosevelt in the Badlands: A Young Politician's Quest for Recovery in the American West

On February 12, 1884--when Roosevelt was building a career as New
York State's most promising young politician--his wife gave birth to
their first child, Alice. Two days later, both his wife and his mother
died in the same house on Valentine's Day. Grief stricken--and driven by
doubts about his career after failed attempts as a reformer fighting
political corruption--Roosevelt left Alice in his sister's care and went
to live on a Badlands ranch he had bought a year earlier. He spent much
of...