8 Wild Alice Facts

ISSUE NO. 27 // THE OTHER WASHINGTON MONUMENT

Last time, Theodore Roosevelt’s grandson Kermit Jr. got a lot of attention. This issue is all about Kermit’s half-aunt, Alice. It was a blast collaborating with my special guest, Rebecca Grawl.

Let’s cut to the chase.

Presidential Doodler

But first, a quick tangent: Becca and I have never met IRL and we live nearly seven hours apart. Coincidentally, while working on this issue… we were a mere 20 minute drive from each other. We didn’t know it until too late. But still! How cool would it have been to be able to included a serendipitous selfie here?

Eight Wild Alice Facts!

I don’t really know (nor do I want to know) a D.C. tour guide who isn’t obsessed with Alice Roosevelt Longworth. She’s one of those historical figures who is just deeply fascinating because she’s exceptionally of her time and also so far ahead of it. Only 17 years old when her father becomes President, she becomes the darling of the press, who dub her “Princess Alice.” My deepest held belief is that if she had been Teddy Roosevelt’s oldest son, she would have been President of the United States (Alice instead of Harding? A girl can only dream!)

There’s so many hilarious and incredible stories around Alice’s life, I’ve compiled a random number of facts (eight, just because) to highlight some of the most dishy moments in her life.

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1: The light has gone out of my life (Teddy Roosevelt's diary)

Her life begins in tragedy.

Alice was named after her mother, who tragically died two days after her birth. (On the same day, Teddy lost not only his wife but his own mother as well – he noted in his journal that “the light has gone out of my life” – Oh, and it was February 14th. Worst Valentine’s Day ever!)

She was raised by her aunt for the first two years of her life and even though she was reunited with her father and new stepmother (as well as five half-siblings), tensions would always exist between Alice and the father, who erased almost all mention or reminder of his first wife and Alice’s mother.

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A Kardashian before the Kardashians.

When Teddy becomes President following William McKinley’s assassination (an event Alice responds to with “sheer rapture” in her words), she realizes very quickly that the wilder she acts, the more attention she gets from the press. Americans couldn’t get enough of the beautiful and vivacious teenager partying in the White House and abroad – she spent one year in Paris and attended 407 dinners, 350 balls, and at least 300 parties.

Alice announced publicly that she was a pagan and an exhibitionist (according to Alice, “All Roosevelts are exhibitionists. Am I? Decidedly so!”). She was also a fashion icon – her signature shade of blue became known as Alice Blue and would be all the rage among fashionable young women.

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3: "I can either run the country or I can attend to Alice but I cannot possibly do both"

“Ladylike” behavior held no appeal to Alice.

Alice embraced a flapper-esque lifestyle long before the Roaring 20s. She loved to smoke, despite a law banning women from smoking publicly at the time (she could regularly be seen smoking on the roof of the White House), race the streets of Washington in cars, often unchaperoned with male companions, snuck whiskey into dry events, as well as gamble and bet on horses. Regular appearances at the local tracks led to the New York Times saying she was “as much an attraction as the thoroughbreds.”

All of her antics led her father, who often was questioned about his daughter’s rambunctious activities, to allegedly quip, “I can either run the country or I can attend to Alice but I cannot possibly do both.”

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She had a rather unusual pet.

The Roosevelts were noted animal lovers and there was quite the menagerie at the White House during Teddy’s time in office – among them, lizards, guinea pigs, a badger, a blue macaw, a hyena, a one-legged rooster, rabbits, and ponies. Nothing quite beats Alice’s beloved pet – her garter snake, named Emily Spinach (because the snake was green as spinach and as thin as her aunt Emily!) Alice took Emily Spinach everywhere she could – she carried her around in her pocketbook and took great pleasure at surprising people by pulling it out at unexpected times and places.

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Her wedding day was one for the history books.

When Alice met and wed Nicholas Longworth of Ohio (14 years her senior, who would later go on to be Speaker of the House of Representatives), the Washington Times called the festivities around their wedding similar to “celebrating a national holiday” – and apparently she looked so beautiful in front of the over 1,000 attendees, the New York Times said “the best pictures that are printed of her do not do justice to her face.”

Despite being the belle of the ball, Alice felt a little overshadowed by her presidential father and her political bridegroom, so to make sure no one would forget the real star of the day, Alice grabbed a military aide’s sword and sliced the wedding cake in half. “Let somebody else do the rest,” Alice laughed.

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The First Daughter was a Mean Girl.

Despite moving out of the White House upon her marriage, Alice was not happy one bit at the idea of no longer being the First Daughter when Teddy declined to run for reelection in 1908. When William Howard Taft wins the White House, Alice buried a voodoo doll made to look like the incoming First Lady, Helen “Nellie” Taft, in one of the gardens. (This act gets her banned from the Taft White House.)

She would later embroider a pillow that she kept in her foyer with her signature phrase: “If you can’t say something good about someone, sit right here by me.”

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7: doodle with William Borah, Alice Roosevelt,and Nicholas Longworth

She was a notorious philanderer.

Monogamy was too traditional a value for Alice to be bothered with it. Both she and Longworth carried on extramarital affairs (some of which were documented in a thinly-veiled Roman à clef written by one of Alice’s frenemies, Eleanor “Cissy” Patterson, the newspaper titan) but it was Alice’s long time affair with Senator William Borah that would become infamous. In her early 40’s (when she and Longworth no longer shared a bedroom), she found herself pregnant with her first and only child. Alice ultimately named her Paulina but among friends, she joked that the girl’s name should be Deborah.

Give that a minute…De-Borah.

Friends of Alice called Paulina “Aurora Borah Alice” in a knowing wink to her very likely parentage.

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8: Alice Roosevelt Longworth wearing a large protective hat

She became known as “the other Washington Monument.”

Alice lived just past her 96th birthday and never missed an opportunity to stay connected to the political pulse of Washington. In her lifetime, she met every President from Benjamin Harrison to Gerald Ford (she simply declined the chance to meet Jimmy Carter). She teased Lyndon B. Johnson by telling him she wore wide brimmed hats (her fashion signature in her later life) so that he couldn’t kiss her. She was a staple of the social scene of D.C. and even late in her life, having “Mrs. L” (as she liked to be called) at your event guaranteed a good time and she kept a steady stream of visitors to her DuPont Circle home until her death in 1980.

Presidents from Benjamin Harrison to Gerald Ford, with a blue blob moving through each

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Rebecca Grawl is a professional DC tour guide who has worked in public history, museum education, and tourism for more than a decade. In addition to engaging diverse audiences in a wide variety of D.C. area tours with DC By Foot and serving as Vice President of Education for A Tour of Her Own, Rebecca can be seen on Mysteries at the Museum on the Travel Channel; is a contributor and researcher for the Tour Guide Tell All podcast; and has been featured in numerous podcasts and media outlets. Her first book, 111 Places in Women's History in Washington, DC That You Must Not Miss, was co-authored with A Tour of Her Own founder Kaitlin Calogera and published in fall 2021. You can find Rebecca on Instagram @beccagrawl.

PS Anybody else can’t stop thinking about what Rebecca said… if Alice was Teddy’s oldest son, he would have been POTUS? Harding wouldn’t have died in office. Coolidge wouldn’t have become president. And Calvin, Jr. wouldn’t have come “home” from college to the White House. Nor would he have played tennis there. Or developed a blister from it. He wouldn’t have died from blood poisoning. Maybe Cal wouldn’t have been so silent. Maybe if he wasn’t president, Harding wouldn’t have died so soon. Maybe it was too taxing on his heart to flirt with all of the young ladies when traveling the country. And if Coolidge was never president, would Hoover have been…? And what about FDR? Or what if Male Alice actual ran against FDR? If FDR was never president, what would have happened in World War II? And would we have term limits today? What would Alice’s name be if she was a boy? Would she have been named Theodore instead of her oldest brother? Another father-son presidential set, with the same first name? This gets really out of hand very quickly! What do you think would have happened? And also, would this be a good future blog post? Let me know in the comments below.