Description:

Roosevelt Franklin 1882 - 1945

Franklin Roosevelt TLS regarding massive Rockefeller donation to his Warm Springs Foundation.

Single page TLS serving as an account memo of donations to Roosevelt's Georgia Warm Springs Foundation, 6.75" x 6.25". Dated "May 24, 1928" and signed by Franklin Roosevelt as "FD Roosevelt". Presented in an elegant wood frame with a cream linen mat. Framed together with a color print of Roosevelt and a plaque, to a completed size of 24" x 19".

A TLS by future 32nd U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945) noting several financial donations to his Georgia Warm Springs Foundation. His memo requests to have the "checks" credited to the Foundation and to "send formal notice on the Rockefeller check to Mr. Raymond B. Fosdick ... ".

An early letter representing some of the first seed money used to set up the Warm Spring Foundation, a hospital devoted solely to the treatment of poliomyelitis victims in the world. The organization became the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, the future sponsor of the "March of Dimes," and was instrumental in promoting the development of a cure for polio.

The history of Warm Springs started with George Foster Peabody (1852-1938), a prominent businessman and philanthropist in New York, who purchased the property in 1923. Peabody shared the story of a young polio victim's recovery after bathing in the swimming pools at Warm Springs with his friend, Franklin D. Roosevelt, the young politician paralyzed from the waist down in 1921 from polio. Roosevelt arrived at the resort on October 3, 1924 hoping to find a cure. The next day, he began swimming and immediately felt an improvement. For the first time in three years, he was able to move his right leg. Because Roosevelt was nationally prominent, his visit assured publicity for Warm Springs. A syndicated Sunday newspaper supplement featured his experience. By his return in 1925, other patients were coming in the hope of a cure. In 1926, Roosevelt bought the resort property and 1,200 acres from George Peabody for some $200,000. Seeking medical advice and contributions from his friends, he organized the nonprofit Warms Springs Foundation in 1927 turning property over to the foundation. This TLS represents the early stages of foundation fundraising.

Raymond Fosdick (1883-1972), to whom Roosevelt requested to have a formal notice sent, played an instrumental role in directing the Rockefeller Foundation. The Roosevelt memo shows that John D Rockefeller donated $20,000 to Warm Springs, an amount equivalent to $280,000 in today's currency.

An important letter signed by FDR and stunningly presented!

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