October 2014 Luncheon Meeting

Speaker: Joseph R. Ornig

“The Extraordinary Literary Output of our 26th President—Theodore Roosevelt”

Chicago area businessman, Union League Club member and Roosevelt historian Joseph R. Ornig, will speak about Theodore Roosevelt’s remarkable career as a writer. It may come as a surprise but this most versatile of our presidents was renowned in his day as an historian, biographer, essayist, and reform-minded journalist, with 40 books, 50 essays, some 469 magazine pieces, and l00,000 letters to his credit, as well as countless speeches, lectures, and State papers. Roosevelt's literary skill gave him an unmatched influence over Americans--alternately educating, persuading, entertaining--and sometimes infuriating--his readers. Ornig will discuss Roosevelt's struggles as a writer, the secret behind his productivity, his friendships with fellow writers and poets, and the literary controversies he ignited. We will hear excerpts from such works as "The Winning of the West," "African Game Trails," "Through the Brazilian Wilderness,", and "Fear God and Take Your Own Part," his tribute to the fallen in the Great War, including his son, Quentin. Photographs, magazine covers and newsreel excerpts will illustrate the talk. A group of early Roosevelt editions will be on display.

Union League Club, 65 W. Jackson Boulevard. Luncheon buffet (in the main dining room on six) opens at 11:30 am; program (in a different room, to be announced) 12:30-1:30