We know Theodore Roosevelt well from photographs--that round, fully fleshed face, that swelling neck, those teeth. How many people know that we have a record of his voice as well? During his 1912 presidential campaign, Roosevelt was recorded several times on Thomas Edison's wax-cylinder technology. His voice, it turns out, is not quite what you would expect from his pugnacious appearance. The tone is patrician, cultivated, almost professorial. It has accents not so different from the ones you hear in the voice of that other Roosevelt, Franklin. Old money courses through every syllable.
Roosevelt's voice is a reminder that he was...
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