Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and the Creation of the Modern World

Just months before the United States entered World War II in response to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, American President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill engaged in a secret meeting aboard naval vessels in the North Atlantic, where the leaders articulated values they hoped would shape the post-war world. The document they produced, later called the Atlantic Charter, outlined many principles that have guided the world order since the end of World War II in 1945. The Rosenbach holds remarkable manuscript and typescript documents from the Atlantic Conference of August 1941. In this tour, we will join Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill aboard the USS Augusta and the HMS Prince of Wales and witness world history unfold in the midst of their deliberations. We will also discuss the consequences of the Atlantic Charter for global diplomacy since 1941 and consider the state of Anglo-American relations today. 

The hands-on tour will be led by Dr. Alexander Lawrence Ames, Director of Outreach & Engagement at the Rosenbach.  

The Rosenbach was founded in 1954 by Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach (1876-1952) and his brother, Philip (1863-1953). Renowned dealers in books, manuscripts, and ï¬Âne art, the brothers played a central role in the development of private libraries that later became our nation’s most important public collections of rare books, such as the Folger and Huntington Libraries. The brothers’ own personal collection, now the core of the Rosenbach, features treasures the brothers were unable to part with, including the only surviving copy of Benjamin Franklin’s ï¬Ârst Poor Richard Almanac and the manuscript of James Joyce’s Ulysses.

Purchase of this item supports Thoreau Farm Trust (TFT) and the preservation of Henry David Thoreau's Birthplace.