Alice: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, from White House princess to Washington power broker

"It was awfully bad psychologically" -- "Sissy had a sweat nurse!" -- "Something more than a plain American girl" -- "I tried to be conspicuous" -- "Frightfully difficult trying to keep up appearances" -- "He never grew serious about anything" -- "When Alice came to Plunderland" -- "To bask in the rays of your reflected glory" -- "Alice is married at last" -- "Mighty pleased with my daughter and her husband" -- "Expelled from the Garden of Eden" -- "Quite marked schizophrenia" -- "Beating against bars" -- "To hate the Democrats so wholeheartedly" -- "Hello, hello, hello" -- "The political leader of the family" -- "An irresistible magnet" -- "The Washington dictatorship" -- "I believe in the preservation of this republic" -- "Full sixty years the world has been her trade" -- "The most fascinating conversationalist of our time.";Alice Roosevelt Longworth lived her entire life on the political stage and in the public eye, earning her the nickname "the other Washington monument." Historian [...]Cordery presents a detailed and entertaining portrait of the witty and whip-smart daughter of Teddy Roosevelt. "Princess Alice" was a tempestuous teenager. Smoking, gambling, and dressing flamboyantly, she flouted social conventions and opened the door for other women to do the same. Her husband was Speaker of the House Nicholas Longworth but--as Cordery documents for the first time--she had a child with her lover, Senator William Borah of Idaho. Alice's political acumen was widely respected in Washington. She was a sharp-tongued critic of her cousin FDR's New Deal programs, and meetings in her drawing room helped to change the course of history, from undermining the League of Nations to boosting Nixon. During the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, her legendary salons remained the center of political ferment.--From publisher description.