The Roosevelt Story opens with newsreel footage of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's funeral procession along
Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., following his death on April 12, 1945, before tracing his life from his birthplace and family home at
Hyde Park, New York. The film covers Roosevelt's education through his graduation from
Harvard University and his marriage to
Eleanor Roosevelt, then follows his entry into politics, his work on
Woodrow Wilson's 1912 presidential campaign, and his service as
Assistant Secretary of the Navy. The film documents his 1921 diagnosis with
polio and rehabilitation at
Warm Springs, Georgia, his election and reelection as
Governor of New York, and his nomination as the Democratic presidential candidate at the party's 1932 convention, the first time a presidential nominee accepted his nomination in person. Also covered are the
New Deal programs Roosevelt introduced during the
Great Depression, among them the
Works Progress Administration, the
Public Works Administration, the
Agricultural Adjustment Administration, the
Civilian Conservation Corps, and the
Tennessee Valley Authority. To illustrate the hardship of the era, the film introduces a fictional composite character, "Joe, an average, forgotten man," who recounts his experiences as a transient worker. The film also depicts Roosevelt's
fireside chats and his
1936 landslide reelection. It then turns to the rising international tensions of the late 1930s, the outbreak of
World War II, Roosevelt's elections to unprecedented third and fourth terms, the
attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the formal declaration of war, and the formation of the
United Nations. ==Cast==