Born to considerable wealth, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, pictured here at age 12 with his mother, Sara, led a cloistered existence as an only child on his family's Hudson River valley estate in Hyde Park, N. Y. The autocratic Sara Roosevelt played a leading role throughout her son's life and political career, prompting Eleanor Roosevelt to observe that she seemed to want "to direct his every thought and deed."

PHOTO: FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT LIBRARY