Early Life
Roosevelt was born in New York City at 125 East 36th Street. He attended the Potomac School and the National Cathedral School in Washington, D.C., and the Groton School in Massachusetts. At Groton, he rowed and played football, as well as serving as a prefect in his senior year. After graduation in 1926, he attended Harvard University, where he rowed with the freshman and junior varsity crews. At Harvard, he followed some family traditions, joining the Signet Society and Hasty Pudding Club, of which both his father, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and his cousin, President Theodore Roosevelt, had been members, as well as the Fly Club, which his father had joined, and Institute of the 1770. He graduated from Harvard University in 1930 and was elected permanent treasurer of his class.
After graduation, Roosevelt enrolled in the Boston University School of Law. He also took a sales job with Boston insurance agent Victor De Gerard. Roosevelt was so successful that within a year, he abandoned his law studies. In 1932 he started his own insurance agency, Roosevelt and Sargent, in partnership with John A. Sargent. As president of Roosevelt & Sargent, he made a substantial fortune (about $500,000). He resigned from the firm in 1937, when he officially went to work in the White House, but retained his half ownership.
Read more about this topic: James Roosevelt
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“I do not know that I meet, in any of my Walks, Objects which move both my Spleen and Laughter so effectually, as those Young Fellows ... who rise early for no other Purpose but to publish their Laziness.”
—Richard Steele (1672–1729)
“Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with the opinion which he has given, that every man’s life may be best written by himself; had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited.”
—James Boswell (1740–95)