Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt in Albany

Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt changed America with a government on the side of the people that put Americans back to work and inspired confidence that the nation could overcome the Great Depression. This is the story of their progressive legacy when FDR was Governor during the era of Prohibition and the advent of radio in the Roaring Twenties, a decade that ended with the Great Depression upending life for most Americans. This is the story of how as Governor of New York he tried the programs that became the New Deal that transformed America. It was the place where his warm, easily relatable voice heard on the radio for the first time created a bond of trust with the public that inspired confidence at a time of great fear.Author Michael J. Burgess reveals the often overlooked history of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt in Albany at the helm of the Empire State.

Michael J. Burgess grew up in Watertown and graduated from St. Lawrence University in Canton. After college, he moved to Albany. In 2007, he was appointed the director of the New York State Office for the Aging by Governor Eliot Spitzer and served until November 2010. He is the author of Rose Kryzak and the Senior Action Movement in New York (2003), A Long Shot to Glory: How Lake Placid Saved the Winter Olympics and Restored the Nation's Pride (2012) and Keeper of the Olympic Flame: Lake Placid's Jack Shea vs. Avery Brundage and the Nazi Olympics (2016). His work has appeared in Newsday, the Albany Times Union, Adirondack Life and the New York State Archives magazine.