Commems Collection Classic: 1937 Roanoke Colony Memorial - FDR At The Anniversary Celebration

Though the 350th anniversary celebrations staged for Sir Walter Raleigh's failed attempt at establishing the Roanoke Colony (Raleigh financed the effort) and the birth of Virginia Dare was ongoing during the summer of 1937, August 18 was the date of special ceremonies that included a visit and speech by US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR). After his speech, which was broadcast nationwide via radio, FDR left the anniversary celebrations to visit the nearby Wright Brothers Memorial, but returned later to watch a presentation of Paul Green's "The Lost Colony" - a symphonic drama that presents the story of the early settlers.

FDR opened his address with remarks pertinent to the anniversaries being celebrated:

"Until recent years, history was taught as a series of facts and dates. Today, we are beginning to look more closely into the events which preceded those great social and economic and political changes which have deeply affected the known history of the world.

"For example, most of us older people learned of Columbus' voyages and how America came to be named--and we jumped from there in our North American history to the founding of Jamestown and of Plymouth - 1492 to 1607 - with mere passing reference to Roanoke and perhaps to the voyage of Verrazano.

"It has always been a pet theory of mine that many other voyages of exploration and of trade took place in that century along our American shores. We know that during the same period the Spaniards established great colonies throughout the West Indies, at Panama and other points in Central America, and extended their cities, their religious institutions and even their universities to both the east and west coasts of South America. It is unbelievable that white men did not come scores of times to what is today the Atlantic Seaboard of the United States. Some day, perhaps, a closer search of the records of the seafaring towns of Britain and France and Flanders and Holland and Scandinavia will rediscover discoverers. Perhaps even it is not too much to hope that documents in the old country and excavations in the new may throw some further light, however dim, on the fate of the "Lost Colony" and Roanoke and Virginia Dare.

"If we are to understand the full significance of the early explorations and the early settlements, if we are to understand the kind of world upon which Virginia Dare opened her eyes on that far-away August day in 1587, we must ask why Western Europe came to the New World.

"It was in part because the era was an era of restless action. Under the Renaissance, men experienced great awakenings; they were fired with restless energy to burst the narrow bounds of the medieval conception of the Universe, to fare forth on voyages of exploration and conquest.

"Many of those who sailed in immense discomfort, in tiny ships, across the Atlantic, were adventurers, some of them seeking riches, some seeking fame, some impelled by the mere spirit of unrest. But most of the people who came in the early days to America - the men, the women and the children - came hither seeking something very different, seeking an opportunity which they could not find in their homes of the old world.

"We hear of the gentlemen of title, who, on occasion, came to the Colonies, and we hear of the gentlemen of wealth who helped to fit out the expeditions. But it is a simple fact which cannot too often be stressed that an overwhelming majority of those who came to the Colonies from England and Scotland and Ireland and Wales and France and Holland and Sweden belonged to what our British cousins would, even today, call "the lower middle classes." The opportunity they sought was something they did not have at home - opportunity freely to exercise their own chosen form of religion, opportunity to get into an environment where there were no classes, opportunity to escape from a system which still contained most of the elements of Feudalism.

"This is said not in derogation of those pioneers. It is rather in praise of them. They had the courage, physically and mentally, by deed and word, to seek better things, to try to capture ideals and hopes forbidden to them by the laws and rulers of their own home lands."

Roosevelt continued with an address that was primarily politically-driven in nature - a message countering those who were attacking democracy, recalling European Feudalism and calling for changes to America's system of Government - it no longer focused on Roanoke and Virginia Dare. Regardless, the President was well-received by the majority of those present and his attendance elevated the overall proceedings.


1937 Roanoke Colony Memorial Half Dollar - Mint State


1937 Roanoke Colony Memorial Half Dollar - Circulated



For other of my posts about commemorative coins and medals, including more Roanoke stories, see: Commems Collection.