Born at Hyde Park, New York. Graduate of Harvard in 1904. Attended Columbia University School of Law. Married Anna Eleanor Roosevelt his fifth cousin. Both Roosevelts were distantly related to Theodore Roosevelt. They had five children. Franklin was remotely related to 11 former presidents.

In 1910 he was elected to the state senate serving until 1913. Appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy by President Wilson. He served 1913 to 1920. In 1920 he was nominated candidate for Vice President but lost the election.

In 1921 at age 39 he suffered from poliomyelitis. It left him partially paralyzed. At the Democratic Party convention in 1924 he gave the nomination speech for Alfred E. Smith. Smith was not nominated.

At the party convention in 1928 he nominated Smith again. Smith won the nomination but lost the election to Herbert Hoover. At the party convention in 1932 Roosevelt was the party nominee for President. He won the election and was inaugurated 32nd President March 4, 1933. Roosevelt declared a banking holiday in 1933. He initiated the Gold Repeal Joint Resolution of June 5, 1933. He won re-election in 1936, 1940 and 1944. He died in office April 12, 1945, at Warm Springs, Georgia.

Roosevelt appears on a presidential medal (USM 131) with dies by John Ray Sinnock.

In 1946 the dime was redesigned to honor Roosevelt. The designer was John Ray Sinnock. His initials JS appear on the truncation of the neck. The public, who frequently prefer rumor over the truth, came to believe that the initials stood for Joseph Stalin and were secretly placed on the dies by the communists who were hiding behind every bush. The Roosevelt dime was also connected with the "March of Dimes" fund raising effort to fight polio.

Roosevelt appears on the Assay Commission Medal of 1935 (AC-80). The 51 mm medal was by John Sinnock. The 1936 medal (AC-81) is a strange muling of the obverse die from the Roosevelt presidential medal and the Washington medal. The 1940 medal (AC-85) returns to a normal format with dies by Sinnock/Pietz.

bio: ApCAB; BDEB; DAB; EAB; Failor; NCAB 37; WAB; WWWA-2