Naval history and strategy While at Harvard, Roosevelt began a systematic study of the role played by the United States Navy in the War of 1812. Assisted by two uncles, he scrutinized original source materials and official U.S. Navy records, ultimately publishing The Naval War of 1812 in 1882. The book contained drawings of individual and combined ship maneuvers, charts depicting the differences in iron throw weights of cannon shot between rival forces, and analyses of the differences and similarities between British and American leadership down to the ship-to-ship level. Upon release, The Naval War of 1812 was praised for its scholarship and style and it remains a standard study of the war. With the publication of The Influence of Sea Power upon History in 1890, Navy Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan was hailed as the world's outstanding naval theorist by the leaders of Europe immediately. Roosevelt paid very close attention to Mahan's emphasis that only a nation with the world's most powerful fleet could dominate the world's oceans, exert its diplomacy to the fullest, and defend its own borders. He incorporated Mahan's ideas into his views on naval strategy for the remainder of his career. First marriage and widowerhood In 1880, Roosevelt married socialite Alice Hathaway Lee. Their daughter, Alice Lee Roosevelt, was born on February 12, 1884. Two days later, the new mother died of undiagnosed kidney failure that the pregnancy masked. In his diary, Roosevelt wrote a large "X" on the page and then, "The light has gone out of my life." His mother, Martha, had died of typhoid fever eleven hours earlier at 3:00 a.m., in the same house on 57th Street in Manhattan. Distraught, Roosevelt left baby Alice in the care of his sister Bamie while he grieved; he assumed custody of Alice when she was three. After the deaths of his wife and mother, Roosevelt focused on his work, specifically by re-energizing a legislative investigation into corruption of the New York City government, which arose from a concurrent bill proposing that power be centralized in the mayor's office. For the rest of his life, he rarely spoke about his wife Alice and did not write about her in his autobiography. Early political career State Assemblyman Roosevelt was a member of the New York State Assembly (New York Co., 21st D.) in 1882, 1883, and 1884. He began making his mark immediately and in handling in