Call to Action: Raising Awareness of Theodore Roosevelt Island

When Theodore Roosevelt died in 1919, memorial communities drafted plans for several monumental tributes. The most controversial was the national memorial at Washington D.C.'s tidal basin. This sacred space occupied the last vacant cardinal point on the national mall and completed the cross-shaped pattern originally designed for Washington. It took city planners and Congress years of deliberation to determine what should be erected there. Expectations ran high for a Roosevelt memorial, but in 1926 legislators rejected the proposal. Compared with other American icons with no shrine of their own, Roosevelt's beatification seemed hasty. Congress instead voted to construct the Thomas Jefferson memorial which occupies the tidal basin today. The story of Theodore Roosevelt Island begins here, where the absence of a memorial on the national mall prompted the search for alternatives.

The Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Association (TRA) purchased Analostan Island in 1931 as the location for a national memorial. West of the Lincoln Memorial the island straddles the Potomac River. The TRA donated the island to the national government and renamed it Theodore Roosevelt Island. Renowned landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted designed the island as primeval forest to celebrate Roosevelt's legacy as a conservationist and ornithologist, but after World War II the capital's engineers alleviated city traffic by building a four-lane highway across the island. The road destroyed Olmsted's vision of a nature reserve and forced the TRA to re-conceptualize Roosevelt's legacy. They successfully lobbied Congress to construct a memorial plaza and 17-foot statue of Roosevelt, and in 1967 President Lyndon Johnson dedicated the monument, emphasizing Roosevelt as progressive who left "a mark upon American life that will endure as long as America has pride in itself, and pride in its purpose."

Today, most people observe the island from their car as they cross the bridge. The memorial plaza attracts few visitors, despite the island's proximity to the national mall. Few people know the island's place in Washington's history or the way it has influenced Roosevelt's public memory. This project will produce a documentary on the history of the island as a memorial to Roosevelt to invigorate public engagement. The documentary will begin with an examination of the TRA's plan to erect a memorial at the tidal basin site and their ultimate failure to do so. It will include a short history of Theodore Roosevelt Island prior to the TRA's purchase in 1931 before exploring Frederick Law Olmsted's landscape design for a conservationist memorial and the construction of the 1967 monument. It will conclude with the NPS plans for revitalization on the island and the forthcoming centenary of Roosevelt's death and 50th anniversary of the memorial's dedication. Dr. Michael Patrick Cullinane will craft the script in collaboration with Dr. Clay Jenkinson (TR Center at Dickinson State University) and ThunderShot Studios (Washington, D.C.). The film will feature distinguished academics, current members of the TRA, Roosevelt family members, National Park rangers, and local activists or residents. At the heart of the documentary is Dr. Cullinane's research on Roosevelt's public memory.

This project will actively disseminate AHRC funded research in innovative ways and has the support of non-academic partners who independently identified a need to revivify public interest in the memorial island. The film will be released as a DVD and broadcast in multiple television markets.

This project is carefully designed to ensure the widest possible audience benefit. This proposal exceeds the scope for pathways to impact in Dr. Cullinane's original AHRC research proposal and creatively engages with an unforeseen call to action from project partners. It approaches impact in three ways: 1) through televised broadcasts of the documentary; 2) targeted distribution and sale of DVDs; and 3) by public screenings for non-academic user communities.

The production team and project partners have considerable experience pitching digital media to television broadcasters. The initial phase of the project will include writing a broadcast proposal and identifying suitable media outlets. The project will rely, in part, on Dr. Jenkinson's experience producing films that have aired in local and mid-western television markets. Equally, it will rely on the experience of ThunderShot studios who work with regional and national television broadcasters. As a matter of priority, proposals will be made to the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), WETA-TV (PBS Washington, D.C.), the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, National Geographic, Pivot TV, Discovery History (UK), and the BBC.

The project will also produce a limited number of DVDs (circa 3,000) for impact activities and commercialization. 1,000 copies will be gifted to the TRA for their support of the project and they have signaled their intentions to use the DVDs as an incentive for membership and in upcoming fundraising drives. The DVD also represents the realization of the TRA's efforts to raise awareness of the Theodore Roosevelt Island and Theodore Roosevelt's legacy. 500 copies will gifted to the FoTRI along the same basis and for the same purpose. The National Park Service will receive 1,000 gratis copies for their gift shops at sites with connections to Theodore Roosevelt and for use in educational programmes operated in the vicinity of these sites. 250 DVDs will be donated to gift shops at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, Sagamore Hill in New York, and the Roosevelt Birthplace in New York. 250 DVDs will be made available for sale from online retailers. The host organization and academic partners will receive a number of copies to use for publicity and further dissemination. Should demand for the documentary exceed supply, proceeds will be used to produce additional copies.

As part of the dissemination programme, the project has commitments from partners and other groups to host public screenings of the documentary. The TRA and FoTRI will host screening events, as will the Library of Congress and British Library. These screenings are organized to further the impact of the research. The events for the TRA and FoTRI will be designed to increase membership in the organizations and assist them to realize core objectives, most importantly the revitalization of TR Island. At these screenings, audiences will be surveyed to understand the impact the research and film had on viewers. The events at the Library of Congress and British Library will be open to the general public. These events have two purposes: 1) to disseminate the film and capture user feedback through surveys; 2) to exchange knowledge with academic and non-academic communities on transforming research into a creative format capable of broad reach. Dr. Jenkinson has already informally secured commitment from the Library of Congress, and Dr. Cullinane has similar commitment from the British Library. The project team, including partners, will be responsible for measuring the impact. Impact will be quantitatively measured by visitor traffic to Theodore Roosevelt Island, TRA membership and fundraising figures, FoTRI membership and fundraising figures, broadcast markets, broadcast ratings, and sales figures of DVDs. Qualitative measurements will derive from testimonial evidence from the NPS, FoTRI, the TRA, and surveys collected at screenings.