---
created: 2026-06-13
updated: 2026-10-26
title: Franklin D. Roosevelt
aliases:
  - FDR
  - Franklin Delano Roosevelt
  - Franklin Roosevelt
tags:
  - Person
  - President
  - WorldWarII
  - 1930s
  - 1940s
category: "Political Figure"
summary: "Franklin D. Roosevelt was the 32nd U.S. president, in office from 1933 to 1945, who led the country through the Depression and most of World War II and authorized the OSS and the Manhattan Project."
born: 1882-01-30
died: 1945-04-12
location: "Hyde Park, New York"
relations:
  - type: relative_of
    with: "[[Warren Delano Jr.]]"
    role: "maternal grandfather (Franklin D. Roosevelt Library catalogues him as Warren Delano II)"
    fn: 2
  - type: relative_of
    with: "[[Frederic Adrian Delano]]"
    role: "maternal uncle; son of Warren Delano II"
    fn: 3
---
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882 - April 12, 1945) was the thirty-second president of the [[United States]], elected to four terms from 1933 until his death in office in April 1945. His administration enacted the New Deal response to the Great Depression and led the country through most of [[World War II]].[^1]

### Maternal family

Roosevelt's maternal grandfather, [[Warren Delano Jr.]] (catalogued by the Roosevelt Library as Warren Delano II, 1809 to 1898), sailed to [[Canton]] in 1833 as supercargo on the Commerce, was associated there with Russell Sturgis and Company, and in January 1840 became a partner in [[Russell and Company]], the American commission house at Canton. He remained in Canton and [[Macao]] during the [[Opium War]] and served as acting consul. The panic of 1857 brought him severe losses, and in 1859 he returned to China.[^2] The [[Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library]] holds the Delano family papers, and its finding aid lists the Russell and Company records among the family's China interests.[^2]

Roosevelt's maternal uncle, [[Frederic Adrian Delano]], a son of Warren Delano II, was born at [[Hong Kong]] on September 10, 1863. He was president of the [[Wabash Railroad]] from October 1905 and one of its receivers from 1911, and served on the [[Federal Reserve Board]] as vice governor from August 10, 1914 to August 9, 1916 and as a member until July 21, 1918.[^3] In 1925 and 1926 he chaired the [[League of Nations]] commission of enquiry into the production of opium in Persia.[^4] He was a member of the National Planning Board and its successors from July 1933 to August 1943 and chaired the [[National Resources Planning Board]] from 1939; in 1933 Roosevelt named him chairman for ten years.[^5] A profile of April 2, 1943 describes him as an uncle of the President.[^6]

### Wartime Intelligence and Science

In July 1941 Roosevelt appointed [[William J. Donovan]] as Coordinator of Information, and in 1942 he authorized the creation of the [[Office of Strategic Services|OSS]], the wartime intelligence agency that became the institutional ancestor of the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]. He also approved the [[Manhattan Project]], the secret program to build an atomic bomb, and appointed [[Nelson Rockefeller]] as [[Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs]] to manage hemispheric policy and propaganda.[^7]

### Death and Succession

Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage at Warm Springs, [[Georgia]], on April 12, 1945, and was succeeded by Vice President [[Harry S. Truman]], who had not been briefed on the atomic bomb and learned of its existence only after taking office.[^1]

### Footnotes

[^1]: Smith, Jean Edward. *FDR*. Random House, 2007.
[^2]: Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, finding aid for the Delano family papers, biographical introduction to Warren Delano II, pp. 1-2 of the PDF. https://www.fdrlibrary.org/documents/356632/390886/findingaid_delanofamily.pdf
[^3]: *Chicago Daily Tribune*, October 6, 1905, p. 1; Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, finding aid for the Papers of Frederic A. Delano, biographical note; Federal Reserve Board, *Federal Reserve Bulletin*, vol. 4, no. 7 (July 1, 1918), p. 587. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/FRB/1910s/frb_071918.pdf
[^4]: Edward Terry and Mabel Pellens, *The Opium Problem* (Bureau of Social Hygiene, 1928), pp. 720-721. https://archive.org/details/opiumproblem00terr
[^5]: National Archives, *Guide to the Records of Federal Agencies*, Record Group 187, §187.3.2. https://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/187.html
[^6]: *United States News*, April 2, 1943, pp. 59-60.
[^7]: Colby, Gerard, and Charlotte Dennett. *Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil.* HarperCollins, 1995.