Master of His Fate: Roosevelt's Rise from Polio to the Presidency by James Tobin

I know the story well.

First, because I had read James Tobin's biography The Man He Became: How FDR Defied Polio to Win the Presidency. And from reading numerous other books about Franklin Roosevelt.

And yet, I felt the tension and expectation stirring as I read Tobin's middle school biography of how Franklin Roosevelt met the challenge of infantile polio with extraordinary perseverance. 

As Al Smith pressured FDR to run for governor of New York State in a desperate bid to maintain Democratic votes for his presidency, Missy LeHand, FDR's secretary and 'office wife' whispers "Don't you dare!" for she knew what was at stake. 

With more time in therapy at Warm Springs, FDR might walk again. If he returned to his home state and full time work, his chances to walk without crutches or braces was nil. 

FDR had to choose between his personal goal to beat polio and his political hopes. The moment was now--was it worth the cost?

Tobin's ability to describe the medical information about polio and how it affected FDR's body is excellent. Young readers will understand the science and the emotional and social impact of the disease. FDR being 'crippled' meant he had to defy compartmentalization by society, politicians, and especially by voters. 

There was no hiding his disability. He had to wear heavy leg braces, use crutches, canes, and wheelchairs, and had to be lifted into cars. 

He turned the indignity into a demonstration of his strength and positive energy. He lifted his head, smiled, kept an upbeat attitude, communicating that being 'lame' did not affect his mind and his ability to work hard. In fact, he inspired people.

"Through those twelve dark years of pain and upheaval, Roosevelt's leadership was the beacon in the darkness. Because he evidently believed that all would be well in the end, people took hope. And it was no small thing that they knew he had come through a great personal ordeal."~Master of his Fate by James Tobin

Tobin informs about FDR's failings, including his troubled marriage, his distance as a father, times he became angry. He was not perfect. But that is the wonderful thing--imperfect humans can impact and change the world for the better.

The book is also a political history, tracing FDR's career and how his political relationship with Al Smith, and his nomination speech, brought him to public attention. 

Franklin Roosevelt is consistently rated as one of our greatest presidents for leading the country through perilous times and for social programs that we take for granted today. 

Young readers will understand how polio changed FDR's life and made him a better person, and that we can rise above the cards we have been dealt. 

I was given a free ebook by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

Master of His Fate: Roosevelt's Rise from Polio to the Presidency
by James Tobin
Macmillan Children's Publishing Group
Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
Pub Date: March 23, 2021   
ISBN : 9781627795203
hardcover $19.99 (USD)

from the publisher

Master of His Fate by James Tobin is an inspiring middle-grade biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, with a focus on his battle with polio and how his disease set him on the course to become president.

In 1921, FDR contracted polio. Just as he began to set his sights on the New York governorship—and, with great hope, the presidency—FDR became paralyzed from the waist down. FDR faced a radical choice: give up politics or reenter the arena with a disability, something never seen before. With the help of Eleanor and close friends, Roosevelt made valiant strides toward rehabilitation and became even more focused on becoming president, proving that misfortune sometimes turns out to be a portal to unexpected opportunities and rewards—even to greatness.

This groundbreaking political biography richly weaves together medicine, disability narratives, and presidential history.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

James Tobin is an award-winning biographer and the author of the adult book The Man He Became: How FDR Defied Polio to Win the Presidency, as well as the children's books The Very Inappropriate Word and Sue MacDonald Had a Book. He won the National Book Critics Circle Award in biography for Ernie Pyle’s War and the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award for To Conquer the Air: The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight. He teaches narrative nonfiction in the department of media, journalism, and film at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

Related books about FDR and his life that I have reviewed

The Gatekeeper: Missy LeHand, FDR, and the Untold Partnership that Defined a Presidency by Kathryn Smith
http://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/09/fdrs-office-wife-and-many-loves-of.html

Frank and Al: FDR, Al Smith, and the Unlikely Alliance That Created the Modern Democratic Party
by Terry Golway
https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2018/09/frank-al-fdr-al-smith-and-unlikely.html

The Man He Became: How FDR Defied Polio to Win the Presidency by James Tobin

"The guy never knows when he is licked." ~ Harry Hopkins on FDR

 "Because he had beaten his illness, Roosevelt thought that he could beat anything." ~ John Gunther

James Tobin's new book The Man He Became: How FDR Defied Polio to Win the Presidency covers Franklin D. Roosevelt's life between 1921 when he contracted infantile paralysis and 1932 when the Democratic party nominated him as their candidate for Governor of New York State. Tobin shows how polio brought out amazing strengths of character in FDR and ultimately prepared him to become a great leader.

At age 39 FDR was charming, handsome, rich, and determined to gain the presidency. He had served as Secretary of the Navy and on President Wilson's subcabinet.

Then he encountered the virus that left him crippled. Tobin's narrative accessibly explains the disease, how it is spread, how it attacks the human body, and how the medical doctors treated it. At a time when most children were naturally inoculated through exposure to the virus, FDR's privileged and sheltered life left him vulnerable. Overworked and tired, he arrived at the isolated family summer resort at Campabello and soon after became ill. By the time the doctors knew he had contracted polio, the damage was done.

FDR's mother assumed he would return to his childhood home and live out the rest of his life puttering with his stamp collection and watching the Hudson River flow by. But FDR was not a man to sit and watch life pass him by. He was determined to win the presidency, and he was going to walk to the podium to give his acceptance speech.

His recovery was not a straight or easy path. He did not follow doctor's orders and he avoided painful exercise. He hated the leg braces and crutches. FDR became his own physician, and took to exercising in warm water. So when he read about a polio victim who could walk after therapy at Warm Springs resort in Georgia FDR determined to experienced for himself the properties of the mineral springs. The resort was isolated and in bad repair. FDR was charmed. The warm mineral water enabled him to endure long hours of exercise without pain.

FDR needed a project. He liked to run things. He longed to own something of  his own. He needed a source of income. FDR determined to buy the run-down resort, an economical and practical decision that seemed foolish. He imagined a place where polio victims could only heal their bodies but also find acceptance and normality in a world that shunted cripples out of sight.

FDR's ability to walk again was truly due to physiotherapists Helena Mahoney and Alicia Plastridge who taught him how to use his good muscles to compensate for the lost ones. Working with Mahoney at Warm Springs in 1927 FDR was finally able to walk with two canes.

Tobin challenges commonly held beliefs about Franklin's hiding his infirmity. Although FDR did strive to keep the more undignified aspects of his infirmity out of sight, such as being carried up stairs, once he returned to public life he did not, could not, hide that he was handicapped. Republicans had a field day attacking FDR as a cripple, a 'poor man' of pity who was not up to the job.

"The role he must play was a paradox. Normally the actor puts on a mask and becomes someone else. FDR's role now was to play the man he actually was--a strong man capable of leadership in the highest seats of power. The trick was to remove the mask that his audience would otherwise force him to wear. He must persuade the audience to discard its ancient, inherited belief about a man who was crippled. He must persuade them that a crippled man could be strong."

FDR went on the campaign trail, traveling by auto caravan across New York state. He had to change the way society viewed 'cripples'. Two weeks before the election he faced four thousand people and openly spoke about polio. "Seven years ago, through an attack of infantile paralysis, I was completely put out of any useful activity." People in audience were heard crying. "By personal good fortune, I was able to get the best kind of medical care. The result is that today I am on my feet." And in admitting he was a cripple, FDR also declared himself to be a fighter and a man of action.

I think it was a shining moment in American history when a man's ability made voters forget his handicap, that we judged him by the 'content of his character' and not by his physical abilities or disabilities.

James Tobin's first book, Ernie Pyle's War, American's Eye-Witness to World War II won him the National Book Critic's Circle Award. He was able to leave his position with the Detroit News to write full time. He wrote a companion book to the PBS series Great Projects: The Epic Story of the Building of America, From the Taming of the Mississippi to the Invention of the Internet. It was followed by To Conquer the Air: The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight. 

To me, each book has at its core the story of men willing to go to great lengths to achieve the goals they hold dearest. Tobin's books are inspiring and dramatic narratives. To learn more visit
http://authors.simonandschuster.com/James-Tobin/1910453

Note: Tobin used the word cripple purposefully. He explains in his Prologue, "To understand Roosevelt's situation--in his time, not ours--one needs to enter a realm in which the stigma of physical disability was like the presence of oxygen in the air: utterly taken for granted, and therefore terribly powerful."