The Franklin D. Roosevelt Library is the first of the Presidential Libraries, administered by the National Archives and Records Administration, a United States government agency. It was conceived and built under President Roosevelt's direction during 1939-40 on 16 acres of land in Hyde Park, New York, donated by the President and his mother, Sara Delano Roosevelt. The Library resulted from the President's decision that a separate facility was needed to house the vast quantity of historical papers, books, and memorabilia he had accumulated during a lifetime of public service and private collecting.

In erecting his Library, Roosevelt created an institution to preserve intact all his papers. These included papers from all his political offices, New York state senator (1910-13), assistant secretary of the Navy (1913-19), governor of New York (1929-32), and President of the United States (1933-45) and his private collections of papers, books, and memorabilia on the history of the U.S. Navy and Dutchess County, New York.

The Library reflects the vision that its founder displayed when he spoke at the dedication of the library on June 30, 1941. To maintain archival facilities and records, he argued that a "Nation must believe in three things. It must believe in the past. It must believe in the future. It must, above all, believe in the capacity of its own people so to learn from the past that they can gain in judgment in creating their own future." The Library that bears his name has carried forward Roosevelt's message and has stimulated productive scholarship on his life and times in the same spirit.