Eleanor roosevelt mini biography of edgar

American diplomat and activist (1884–1962)

For other uses, see Eleanor Roosevelt (disambiguation).

"Anna E. Roosevelt" redirects here. For her daughter, see Anna Roosevelt Halsted.

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt (EL-in-or ROH-zə-velt; October 11, 1884 – November 7, 1962) was an American political figure, diplomat, and activist.^[5][6] She was the longest-serving first lady of the United States, during her husband Franklin D. Roosevelt's four terms as president from 1933 to 1945.^[5] Through her travels, public engagement, and advocacy, she largely redefined the role. Widowed in 1945, she served as a United States Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly from 1945 to 1952, and took a leading role in designing the text and gaining international support for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In 1948, she was given a standing ovation by the assembly upon their adoption of the declaration.^[8] President Harry S. Truman later called her the "First Lady of the World" in tribute to her human rights achievements.^[9]

Roosevelt was a member of the prominent and wealthy American Roosevelt and Livingston families and a niece of President Theodore Roosevelt.^[8] She had an unhappy childhood, having suffered the deaths of both parents and one of her brothers at a young age. At 15, she attended Allenswood Boarding Academy in London and was deeply influenced by its founder and director Marie Souvestre. Returning to the U.S., she married her fifth cousin once removed, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in 1905. Between 1906 and 1916 she gave birth to six children, one of whom died in infancy. The Roosevelts' marriage became complicated after Eleanor discovered her husband's affair with her social secretary, Lucy Mercer, in 1918. Due to mediation by her mother-in-law, Sara, the liaison was ended officially.^[10] After that, both partners started to keep independent agendas, and Eleanor joined the Women's Trade Union League and became active in the New York state Democratic Party. Roosevelt helped persuade her husband to stay in politics after he was stricken with a paralytic illness in 1921. Following Franklin's election as governor of New York in 1928, and throughout the remainder of Franklin's public career in government, Roosevelt regularly made public appearances on his behalf; and as first lady, while her husband served as president, she greatly influenced the present scope and future of the role.

Roosevelt was, in her time, one of the world's most widely admired and powerful women.^[10] Nevertheless, in her early years in the White House she was controversial for her outspokenness, particularly with respect to her promotion of civil rights for African Americans. She was the first presidential spouse to hold regular press conferences, write a daily newspaper column, write a monthly magazine column, host a weekly radio show, and speak at a national party convention. On a few occasions, she publicly disagreed with her husband's policies. She launched an experimental community at Arthurdale, West Virginia, for the families of unemployed miners, later widely regarded as a failure. She advocated for expanded roles for women in the workplace, the civil rights of African Americans and Asian Americans, and the rights of World War II refugees.

Following her husband's death in 1945, Roosevelt pressed the United States to join and support the United Nations and became its first delegate to the committee on Human Rights. She served as the first chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights and oversaw the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Later, she chaired the John F. Kennedy administration's Presidential Commission on the Status of Women. By the time of her death, Roosevelt was regarded as "one of the most esteemed women in the world"; The New York Times called her "the object of almost universal respect" in her obituary.^[11] In 1999, Roosevelt was ranked ninth in the top ten of Gallup's List of Most Widely Admired People of the 20th Century,^[12] and was found to rank as the most admired woman in thirteen different years between 1948 and 1961 in Gallup's annual most admired woman poll.^[13] Periodic surveys conducted by the Siena College Research Institute have consistently seen historians assess Roosevelt as the greatest American first lady.

Personal life

Early life

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born on October 11, 1884, in Manhattan, New York City,^[14][15] to socialites Anna Rebecca Hall and Elliott Roosevelt.^[16] From an early age she preferred to be called by her middle name, Eleanor. Through her father, she was a niece of President Theodore Roosevelt. Through her mother, she was a niece of tennis champions Valentine Gill "Vallie" Hall III and Edward Ludlow Hall. Her mother nicknamed her "Granny" because she acted in such a serious manner as a child.^[17] Anna emotionally rejected Eleanor and was also somewhat ashamed of her daughter's alleged "plainness".^[17]

Roosevelt had two younger brothers: Elliott Jr. and Hall. She also had a half-brother, Elliott Roosevelt Mann, through her father's affair with Katy Mann, a servant employed by the family. Roosevelt was born into a world of immense wealth and privilege, as her family was part of New York high society called the "swells".^[19]

On May 19, 1887, the two-year-old Roosevelt was on board the SS Britannic with her father, mother and aunt Tissie, when it collided with White Star LinerSS Celtic. She was lowered into a lifeboat and she and her parents were taken to the Celtic and returned to New York. After this traumatic event, Eleanor was afraid of ships and the sea all her life.

Her mother died from diphtheria on December 7, 1892, and Elliott Jr. died of the same disease the following May. Her father, an alcoholic confined to a sanitarium, died on August 14, 1894, after jumping from a window during a fit of delirium tremens. He survived the fall but died from a seizure. Roosevelt's childhood losses left her prone to depression throughout her life. Her brother Hall later suffered from alcoholism. Before her father died, he implored her to act as a mother towards Hall, and it was a request she made good upon for the rest of Hall's life. Roosevelt doted on Hall, and when he enrolled at Groton School in 1907, she accompanied him as a chaperone. While he was attending Groton, she wrote him almost daily, but always felt a touch of guilt that Hall had not had a fuller childhood. She took pleasure in Hall's brilliant performance at school, and was proud of his many academic accomplishments, which included a master's degree in engineering from Harvard.

After the deaths of her parents, Roosevelt was raised in the household of her maternal grandmother, Mary Livingston Ludlow Hall of the Livingston family in Tivoli, New York. As a child, she was insecure and starved for affection, and considered herself the "ugly duckling".^[19] However, Roosevelt wrote at 14 that one's prospects in life were not totally dependent on physical beauty: "no matter how plain a woman may be if truth and loyalty are stamped upon her face all will be attracted to her."^[25]

Roosevelt was tutored privately and with the encouragement of her aunt Anna "Bamie" Roosevelt, she was sent to Allenswood Academy at the age of 15, a private finishing school in Wimbledon, London, England,^[26] where she was educated from 1899 to 1902. The headmistress, Marie Souvestre, was a noted educator who sought to cultivate independent thinking in young women. Souvestre took a special interest in Roosevelt, who learned to speak French fluently and gained self-confidence.^[27] Roosevelt and Souvestre maintained a correspondence until March 1905, when Souvestre died, and after this Roosevelt placed Souvestre's portrait on her desk and brought her letters with her.^[27] Roosevelt's first cousin Corinne Douglas Robinson, whose first term at Allenswood overlapped with Roosevelt's last, said that when she arrived at the school, Roosevelt was "'everything' at the school. She was beloved by everybody." Roosevelt wished to continue at Allenswood, but she was summoned home by her grandmother in 1902 to make her social debut.^[27]

At age 17 in 1902, Roosevelt completed her formal education and returned to the United States; she was presented at a debutante ball at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel on December 14. She was later given her own "coming out party".^[29] She said of her debut in a public discussion once, "It was simply awful. It was a beautiful party, of course, but I was so unhappy, because a girl who comes out is so utterly miserable if she does not know all the young people. Of course I had been so long abroad that I had lost touch with all the girls I used to know in New York. I was miserable through all that."^[11]

Roosevelt was active with the New York Junior League shortly after its founding, teaching dancing and calisthenics in the East Side slums.^[29] The organization had been brought to Roosevelt's attention by her friend, organization founder Mary Harriman, and a male relative who criticized the group for "drawing young women into public activity".^[30]

Roosevelt was a lifelong Episcopalian, regularly attended services, and was very familiar with the New Testament. Dr. Harold Ivan Smith states that she, "was very public about her faith. In hundreds of "My Day" and "If You Ask Me" columns, she addressed issues of faith, prayer and the Bible."^[31][32]

Marriage and family life

In the summer of 1902, Roosevelt encountered her father's fifth cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, on a train to Tivoli, New York.^[33] The two began a secret correspondence and romance, and became engaged on November 22, 1903. Franklin's mother, Sara Ann Delano, opposed the union and made him promise that the engagement would not be officially announced for a year. "I know what pain I must have caused you," he wrote to his mother of his decision. However, he added, "I know my own mind, and known it for a long time, and know that I could never think otherwise." Sara took her son on a Caribbean cruise in 1904, hoping that a separation would squelch the romance, but Franklin remained determined. The wedding date was set to accommodate President Theodore Roosevelt, who was scheduled to be in New York City for the St. Patrick's Day parade, and who agreed to give the bride away.

The couple were married on March 17, 1905, in a wedding officiated by Endicott Peabody, the groom's headmaster at Groton School.^[33][37] Her cousin Corinne Douglas Robinson was a bridesmaid. The marriage took place in New York City.^[38] Theodore Roosevelt's attendance at the ceremony was front-page news in The New York Times and other newspapers. When asked for his thoughts on the Roosevelt–Roosevelt union, the president said, "It is a good thing to keep the name in the family." The couple spent a preliminary honeymoon of one week at Hyde Park, then set up housekeeping in an apartment in New York. That summer they went on their formal honeymoon, a three-month tour of Europe.

Returning to the U.S., the newlyweds settled in a New York City house that was provided by Franklin's mother, as well as in a second residence at the family's estate overlooking the Hudson River in Hyde Park, New York. From the beginning, Roosevelt had a contentious relationship with her controlling mother-in-law. The townhouse that Sara gave to them was connected to her own residence by sliding doors, and Sara ran both households in the decade after the marriage. Early on, Roosevelt had a breakdown in which she explained to Franklin that "I did not like to live in a house which was not in any way mine, one that I had done nothing about and which did not represent the way I wanted to live", but little changed. Sara also sought to control the raising of her grandchildren, and Roosevelt reflected later that "Franklin's children were more my mother-in-law's children than they were mine". Roosevelt's eldest son James remembered Sara telling her grandchildren, "Your mother only bore you, I am more your mother than your mother is."

Roosevelt and Franklin had six children:

Roosevelt disliked having sex with her husband. She once told her daughter Anna that it was an "ordeal to be borne". She also considered herself ill-suited to motherhood, later writing, "It did not come naturally to me to understand little children or to enjoy them".

In September 1918, Roosevelt was unpacking one of Franklin's suitcases when she discovered a bundle of love letters to him from her social secretary, Lucy Mercer. He had been contemplating leaving his wife for Mercer. However, following pressure from his political advisor, Louis Howe, and from his mother, who threatened to disinherit Franklin if he followed through with a divorce, the couple remained married. Their union from that point on was more of a political partnership. Disillusioned, Roosevelt again became active in public life, and focused increasingly on her social work rather than her role as a wife.

In August 1921, the family was vacationing at Campobello Island, New Brunswick, Canada, when Franklin was diagnosed with a paralytic illness, at the time believed to be polio.^[45][46] During the illness, through her nursing care, Roosevelt probably saved Franklin from death.^[47] His legs remained permanently paralyzed. When the extent of his disability became clear, Roosevelt fought a protracted battle with her mother-in-law over his future, persuading him to stay in politics despite Sara's urgings that he retire and become a country gentleman. Franklin's attending physician, Dr. William Keen, commended Roosevelt's devotion to the stricken Franklin during the time of his travail. "You have been a rare wife and have borne your heavy burden most bravely," he said, proclaiming her "one of my heroines".

This proved a turning point in Eleanor and Sara's long-running struggle, and as Eleanor's public role grew, she increasingly broke from Sara's control. Tensions between Sara and Eleanor over her new political friends rose to the point that the family constructed a cottage at Val-Kill, in which Eleanor and her guests lived when Franklin and the children were away from Hyde Park. Roosevelt herself named the place Val-Kill, loosely translated as "waterfall-stream"^[52] from the Dutch language common to the original European settlers of the area. Franklin encouraged his wife to develop this property as a place where she could implement some of her ideas for work with winter jobs for rural workers and women. Each year, when Roosevelt held a picnic at Val-Kill for delinquent boys, her granddaughter Eleanor Roosevelt Seagraves assisted her. She was close to her grandmother throughout her life. Seagraves concentrated her career as an educator and librarian on keeping alive many of the causes Roosevelt began and supported.

In 1924, Eleanor campaigned for Democrat Alfred E. Smith in his successful re-election bid as governor of New York State against the Republican nominee, her first cousin Theodore Roosevelt Jr. Theodore Jr. never forgave her. Eleanor's aunt, Anna "Bamie" Roosevelt Cowles, publicly broke with her after the election. She wrote to her niece, "I just hate to have Eleanor let herself look as she does. Though never handsome, she always had to me a charming effect, but alas and lackaday! Since politics have become her choicest interest all her charm has disappeared...." Roosevelt dismissed Bamie's criticisms by referring to her as an "aged woman."^{[citation needed]} However, Bamie and Roosevelt eventually reconciled.

Theodore's elder daughter Alice also broke with Roosevelt over her campaign. Alice and her cousin reconciled after the latter wrote Alice a comforting letter upon the death of Alice's daughter, Paulina Longworth.

Roosevelt and her daughter Anna became estranged after she took over some of her mother's social duties at the White House. The relationship was further strained because Roosevelt desperately wanted to go with her husband to Yalta in February 1945 (two months before FDR's death), but he took Anna instead. A few years later, the two were able to reconcile and cooperate on numerous projects. Anna took care of her mother when she was terminally ill in 1962.

Roosevelt's son Elliott authored numerous books, including a mystery series in which his mother was the detective. However, these murder mysteries were researched and written by William Harrington. They continued until Harrington's death in 2000, ten years after Elliott's death.^[55] With James Brough, Elliott also wrote a highly personal book about his parents called The Roosevelts of Hyde Park: An Untold Story, in which he revealed details about the sexual lives of his parents, including his father's relationships with mistress Lucy Mercer and secretary Marguerite ("Missy") LeHand,^[56] as well as graphic details surrounding the illness that crippled his father. Published in 1973, the biography also contains valuable insights into FDR's run for vice president, his rise to the governorship of New York, and his capture of the presidency in 1932, particularly with the help of Louis Howe. When Elliott published this book in 1973, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr. led the family's denunciation of him; the book was fiercely repudiated by all Elliott's siblings. Another of the siblings, James, published My Parents, a Differing View (with Bill Libby, 1976), which was written in part as a response to Elliott's book. A sequel to An Untold Story with James Brough, published in 1975 and titled A Rendezvous With Destiny, carried the Roosevelt saga to the end of World War II. Mother R.: Eleanor Roosevelt's Untold Story, also with Brough, was published in 1977. Eleanor Roosevelt, with Love: A Centenary Remembrance, came out in 1984.

Other relationships

Eleanor had a close relationship with her aunt, Maude Livingston Hall. The younger sister of Eleanor's mother, Maude was only six years older than Eleanor and the two grew up together in the home of Maude's mother, Eleanor's grandmother. Their relationship was more like sisters than aunt and niece.^[57] After Maude divorced her first husband, the champion polo player Lawrence Waterbury, in 1912, she married the playwright and novelist David Gray in 1914 in a small ceremony attended only by Eleanor and the Roosevelt family lawyer, John M. Hackett.^[58] The couple maintained a close relationship with Eleanor and F.D.R, and Eleanor was instrumental in successfully advocating for David Gray's appointment as United States minister to Ireland; a post he held during World War II from 1940 to 1947.^[57]

In the 1930s, Roosevelt had a very close relationship with aviator Amelia Earhart (1897–1937). One time, the two snuck out from the White House and went to a party dressed up for the occasion. After flying with Earhart, Roosevelt obtained a student permit but did not further pursue her plans to learn to fly. Franklin was not in favor of his wife becoming a pilot. Nevertheless, the two women communicated frequently throughout their lives.^[59]

Roosevelt also had a close relationship with Associated Press (AP) reporter Lorena Hickok (1893–1968), who covered her during the last months of the presidential campaign and "fell madly in love with her." During this period, Roosevelt wrote daily 10- to 15-page letters to "Hick," who was planning to write a biography of the First Lady. The letters included such endearments as, "I want to put my arms around you & kiss you at the corner of your mouth,"^[62] and, "I can't kiss you, so I kiss your 'picture' good night and good morning!"^[63] At Franklin's 1933 inauguration, Roosevelt wore a sapphire ring Hickok had given her.^[64]FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover despised Roosevelt's liberalism, her stance regarding civil rights, and criticisms of Hoover's surveillance tactics by both her and her husband, and so Hoover maintained a large file on Roosevelt,^[65][66] which the filmmakers of the biopic J. Edgar (2011) indicate included compromising evidence of this relationship, with which Hoover intended to blackmail Roosevelt. Compromised as a reporter, Hickok soon resigned her position with the AP to be closer to Roosevelt, who secured her a job as an investigator for a New Deal program.

There is considerable debate about whether or not Roosevelt had a sexual relationship with Hickok. It was known in the White House press corps at the time that Hickok was a lesbian.^[68] Scholars, including Lillian Faderman^[64] and Hazel Rowley, have asserted that there was a physical component to the relationship, while Hickok biographer Doris Faber has argued that the insinuative phrases have misled historians. Doris Kearns Goodwin stated in her 1994 Pulitzer Prize–winning account of the Roosevelts that "whether Hick and Eleanor went beyond kisses and hugs" could not be determined with certainty. Roosevelt was close friends with several lesbian couples, such as Nancy Cook and Marion Dickerman, and Esther Lape and Elizabeth Fisher Read, suggesting that she understood lesbianism; Marie Souvestre, Roosevelt's childhood teacher and a great influence on her later thinking, was also a lesbian. Faber published some of Roosevelt and Hickok's correspondence in 1980, but concluded that the lovestruck phrasing was simply an "unusually belated schoolgirl crush"^[71] and warned historians not to be misled. Researcher Leila J. Rupp criticized Faber's argument, calling her book "a case study in homophobia" and arguing that Faber unwittingly presented "page after page of evidence that delineates the growth and development of a love affair between the two women."^[72] In 1992, Roosevelt biographer Blanche Wiesen Cook argued that the relationship was in fact romantic, generating national attention.^[71][73][74] A 2011 essay by Russell Baker reviewing two new Roosevelt biographies in the New York Review of Books (Franklin and Eleanor: An Extraordinary Marriage, by Hazel Rowley, and Eleanor Roosevelt: Transformative First Lady, by Maurine H. Beasley) stated, "That the Hickok relationship was indeed erotic now seems beyond dispute considering what is known about the letters they exchanged."^[63]

In the same years, Washington gossip linked Roosevelt romantically with New Deal administrator Harry Hopkins, with whom she worked closely. Roosevelt also had a close relationship with New York State Police sergeant Earl Miller, who was assigned by the president to be her bodyguard. Roosevelt was 44 years old when she met Miller, 32, in 1929. He became her friend as well as her official escort, teaching her different sports, such as diving and riding, and coached her in tennis. Biographer Blanche Wiesen Cook writes that Miller was Roosevelt's "first romantic involvement" in her middle years.Hazel Rowley concludes, "There is no doubt that Eleanor was in love with Earl for a time ... But they are most unlikely to have had an 'affair'."

Roosevelt's friendship with Miller occurred at the same time that her husband had a rumored relationship with his secretary, Marguerite "Missy" LeHand. Smith writes, "remarkably, both ER and Franklin recognized, accepted, and encouraged the arrangement... Eleanor and Franklin were strong-willed people who cared greatly for each other's happiness but realized their own inability to provide for it." Roosevelt and Miller's relationship is said to have continued until her death in 1962. They are thought to have corresponded daily, but all letters have been lost. According to rumor, the letters were anonymously purchased and destroyed, or locked away when she died.

Roosevelt was a longtime friend of Carrie Chapman Catt and gave her the Chi Omega award at the White House in 1941.^[81]

Attitudes toward Jewish people

Until middle age, Eleanor Roosevelt exhibited antisemitic tendencies. In a 1918 letter to her mother-in-law, she declared, the "Jew party [was] appalling.... I never wish to hear money, jewels or sables mentioned again."^[82][83] When she became co-owner of the Todhunter school in New York City, a limited number of Jews were admitted. Most students were upper-class Protestants, and Roosevelt said that the spirit of the school "would be different if we had too large a proportion of Jewish children." She said the problem was that "the country is still full of immigrant Jews, very unlike ourselves."^[84]

By 1929, however, when she made those statements, her social circle had begun to include a number of Jews, including Elinor and Henry Morgenthau Jr., Bernard Baruch, Edith and Herbert H. Lehman, and Rose Schneiderman.^[84][85][86] In the 1930s, once she had become first lady, she began speaking out against the growing antisemitism in Europe and the United States and advocating for allowing more Jewish refugees into the United States.^[85] However, according to historian Michelle Mart, while serving as first lady, "Although it is clear from all accounts that Roosevelt 'cared deeply' about the plight of European Jews, her public actions remained limited, and she refrained from pressing for radical policies to rescue the Jews."^[85]

After World War II she became a staunch champion of Israel, which she admired for its commitment to New Deal values.^[85][87]

Public life before the White House

In the 1920 presidential election, Franklin was nominated as the running mate of Democratic presidential candidate James M. Cox. Roosevelt joined Franklin in touring the country, making her first campaign appearances. Cox was defeated by Republican Warren G. Harding, who won with 404 electoral votes to 127.

Following the onset of Franklin's paralytic illness in 1921, Roosevelt began serving as a stand-in for her incapacitated husband, making public appearances on his behalf, often carefully coached by Louis Howe. She also started working with the Women's Trade Union League (WTUL), raising funds in support of the union's goals: a 48-hour workweek, minimum wage, and the abolition of child labor.^[19] Throughout the 1920s, Roosevelt became increasingly influential as a leader in the New York State Democratic Party while Franklin used her contacts among Democratic women to strengthen his standing with them, winning their committed support for the future. In 1924, she campaigned for Democrat Alfred E. Smith in his successful re-election bid as governor of New York State against the Republican nominee and her first cousin Theodore Roosevelt Jr. Franklin had spoken out on Theodore's "wretched record" as Assistant Secretary of the Navy during the Teapot Dome scandal, and in return, Theodore said of him, "He's a maverick! He does not wear the brand of our family," which infuriated her. She dogged Theodore on the New York State campaign trail in a car fitted with a papier-mâché bonnet shaped like a giant teapot that was made to emit simulated steam (to remind voters of Theodore's supposed, but later disproved, connections to the scandal), and countered his speeches with those of her own, calling him immature.^[91] She would later decry these methods, admitting that they were below her dignity but saying that they had been contrived by Democratic Party "dirty tricksters." Theodore was defeated by 105,000 votes, and he never forgave her. By 1928, Roosevelt was promoting Smith's candidacy for president and Franklin's nomination as the Democratic Party's candidate for governor of New York, succeeding Smith. Although Smith lost the presidential race, Franklin won and the Roosevelts moved into the governor's mansion in Albany, New York. During Franklin's term as governor, Roosevelt traveled widely in the state to make speeches and inspect state facilities on his behalf, reporting her findings to him at the end of each trip.

In 1927, she joined friends Marion Dickerman and Nancy Cook in buying the Todhunter School for Girls, a finishing school which also offered college preparatory courses, in New York City. At the school, Roosevelt taught upper-level courses in American literature and history, emphasizing independent thought, current events, and social engagement. She continued to teach three days a week while FDR served as governor, but was forced to leave teaching after his election as president.^[94]

Also in 1927, she established Val-Kill Industries with Cook, Dickerman, and Caroline O'Day, three friends she met through her activities in the Women's Division of the New York State Democratic Party. It was located on the banks of a stream that flowed through the Roosevelt family estate in Hyde Park, New York. Roosevelt and her business partners financed the construction of a small factory to provide supplemental income for local farming families who would make furniture, pewter, and homespun cloth using traditional craft methods. Capitalizing on the popularity of the Colonial Revival, most Val-Kill products were modeled on eighteenth-century forms. Roosevelt promoted Val-Kill through interviews and public appearances. Val-Kill Industries never became the subsistence program that Roosevelt and her friends imagined, but it did pave the way for larger New Deal initiatives during Franklin's presidential administration. Cook's failing health and pressures from the Great Depression compelled the women to dissolve the partnership in 1938, at which time Roosevelt converted the shop buildings into a cottage at Val-Kill, that eventually became her permanent residence after Franklin died in 1945. Otto Berge acquired the contents of the factory and the use of the Val-Kill name to continue making colonial-style furniture until he retired in 1975. In 1977, Roosevelt's cottage at Val-Kill and its surrounding property of 181 acres (0.73 km2),^[96] was formally designated by an act of Congress as the Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, "to commemorate for the education, inspiration, and benefit of present and future generations the life and work of an outstanding woman in American history."^[96]

First Lady of the United States (1933–1945)

Roosevelt became First Lady of the United States when Franklin was inaugurated on March 4, 1933. Having known all of the twentieth century's previous first ladies, she was seriously depressed at having to assume the role, which had traditionally been restricted to domesticity and hostessing. Her immediate predecessor, Lou Henry Hoover, had ended her feminist activism on becoming first lady, stating her intention to be only a "backdrop for Bertie." Eleanor's distress at these precedents was severe enough that Hickok subtitled her biography of Roosevelt "Reluctant First Lady".

With support from Howe and Hickok, Roosevelt set out to redefine the position. According to her biographer Blanche Wiesen Cook, she became "the most controversial First Lady in United States history" in the process. Despite criticism of them both, with her husband's strong support she continued with the active business and speaking agenda she had begun before assuming the role of first lady in an era when few married women had careers. She was the first presidential spouse to hold regular press conferences and in 1940 became the first to speak at a national party convention. She also wrote a daily and widely syndicated newspaper column, "My Day", another first for a presidential spouse.^[102] She was also the first first lady to write a monthly magazine column and to host a weekly radio show.^[103]

In the first year of her husband's administration, Roosevelt was determined to match his presidential salary, and she earned $75,000 from her lectures and writing, most of which she gave to charity. By 1941, she was receiving lecture fees of $1,000, and was made an honorary member of Phi Beta Kappa at one of her lectures to celebrate her achievements.^[105][106]

Roosevelt maintained a heavy travel schedule in her twelve years in the White House, frequently making personal appearances at labor meetings to assure Depression-era workers that the White House was mindful of their plight. In one famous cartoon of the time from The New Yorker magazine (June 3, 1933), satirizing a visit she had made to a mine, an astonished coal miner, peering down a dark tunnel, says to a co-worker, "For gosh sakes, here comes Mrs. Roosevelt!"^[107][108]

In early 1933, the "Bonus Army", a protest group of World War I veterans, marched on Washington for the second time in two years, calling for their veteran bonus certificates to be awarded early. The previous year, President Hoover had ordered them dispersed, and the U.S. Army cavalry charged and bombarded the veterans with tear gas.^[109] This time, Roosevelt visited the veterans at their muddy campsite, listening to their concerns and singing army songs with them. The meeting defused the tension between the veterans and the administration, and one of the marchers later commented, "Hoover sent the Army. [President] Roosevelt sent his wife."^[111]

In 1933, after she became first lady, a new hybrid tea rose was named after her (Rosa x hybrida "Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt").^[112]

In 1937, she began writing her autobiography, all volumes of which were compiled into The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt in 1961 (Harper & Brothers, ISBN 0-306-80476-X).

American Youth Congress and National Youth Administration

The American Youth Congress (AYC) was formed in 1935 to advocate for youth rights in U.S. politics, and it was responsible for introducing the American Youth Bill of Rights to the U.S. Congress. Roosevelt's relationship with the AYC eventually led to the formation of the National Youth Administration, a New Deal agency in the United States, founded in 1935, that focused on providing work and education for Americans between the ages of 16 and 25.^{[113][114][115]} The NYA was headed by Aubrey Willis Williams, a prominent liberal from Alabama who was close to Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins. Speaking of the NYA in the 1930s, Roosevelt expressed her concern about ageism, stating that "I live in real terror when I think we may be losing this generation. We have got to bring these young people into the active life of the community and make them feel that they are necessary."^[116] In 1939 the Dies Committee subpoenaed leaders of the AYC, who, in addition to serving the AYC, also were members of the Young Communist League. Roosevelt was in attendance at the hearings and afterward invited the subpoenaed witnesses to board at the White House during their stay in Washington D.C. Joseph P. Lash was one of her boarders. On February 10, 1940, members of the AYC, as guests of Roosevelt in her capacity as first lady, attended a picnic on the White House lawn where they were addressed by Franklin from the South Portico. The President admonished them to condemn not merely the Nazi regime but all dictatorships.^[117] The President was reportedly booed by the group. Afterwards, many of the same youth picketed the White House as representatives of the American Peace Mobilization. Among them was Joseph Cadden, one of Roosevelt's overnight boarders. Later in 1940, despite Roosevelt's publication of her reasons "Why I still believe in the Youth Congress," the American Youth Congress was disbanded.^[118] The NYA was shut down in 1943.^[119]

Arthurdale

Roosevelt's chief project during her husband's first two terms was the establishment of a planned community in Arthurdale, West Virginia. On August 18, 1933, at Hickok's urging, Roosevelt visited the families of homeless miners in Morgantown, West Virginia, who had been blacklisted following union activities. Deeply affected by the visit, Roosevelt proposed a resettlement community for the miners at Arthurdale, where they could make a living by subsistence farming, handicrafts, and a local manufacturing plant. She hoped the project could become a model for "a new kind of community" in the U.S., in which workers would be better cared for. Her husband enthusiastically supported the project.

After an initial, disastrous experiment with prefab houses, construction began again in 1934 to Roosevelt's specifications, this time with "every modern convenience", including indoor plumbing and central steam heat. Families occupied the first fifty homes in June, and agreed to repay the government in thirty years' time. Though Roosevelt had hoped for a racially mixed community, the miners insisted on limiting membership to white Christians. After losing a community vote, Roosevelt recommended the creation of other communities for the excluded black and Jewish miners. The experience motivated Roosevelt to become much more outspoken on the issue of racial discrimination.

Roosevelt remained a vigorous fundraiser for the community for several years, as well as spending most of her own income on the project. However, the project was criticized by both the political left and right. Conservatives condemned it as socialist and a "communist plot", while Democratic members of Congress opposed government competition with private enterprise.Secretary of the InteriorHarold Ickes also opposed the project, citing its high per-family cost. Arthurdale continued to sink as a government spending priority for the federal government until 1941, when the U.S. sold off the last of its holdings in the community at a loss.^[130]

Later commentators generally described the Arthurdale experiment as a failure. Roosevelt herself was sharply discouraged by a 1940 visit in which she felt the town had become excessively dependent on outside assistance. However, the residents considered the town a "utopia" compared to their previous circumstances, and many were returned to economic self-sufficiency.^[130] Roosevelt personally considered the project a success, later speaking of the improvements she saw in people's lives there and stating, "I don't know whether you think that is worth half a million dollars. But I do."

Civil rights activism

Roosevelt is seen by historians as having been significantly more advanced than her husband on civil rights.^[133] During Franklin's administration, Roosevelt became an important connection to the African-American population in the era of segregation.^[133] Despite the President's desire to placate Southern sentiment, Roosevelt was vocal in her support of the civil rights movement. After her experience with Arthurdale and her inspections of New Deal programs in Southern states, she concluded that New Deal programs were discriminating against African-Americans, who received a disproportionately small share of relief money. Roosevelt became one of the only voices in her husband's administration insisting that benefits be equally extended to Americans of all races.

Roosevelt also broke with tradition by inviting hundreds of African-American guests to the White House. In 1936 she became aware of conditions at the National Training School for Girls, a predominantly Black reform school once located in the Palisades neighborhood of Washington, D.C. She visited the school, wrote about it in her "My Day" column, lobbied for additional funding, and pressed for changes in staffing and curriculum. Her White House invitation to the students became an issue in Franklin's 1936 re-election campaign.^[137] When the Black singer Marian Anderson was denied the use of Washington's Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1939, Roosevelt resigned from the group in protest and helped arrange another concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.^[107]

African American author Zora Neale Hurston criticized Roosevelt, however, for failing to challenge the decision of the Board of Education of DC, now called the District of Columbia State Board of Education, to simultaneously deny Anderson a singing venue at the auditorium of the all-white Central High School. “As far as the high-school auditorium is concerned,” Hurston declared “to jump the people responsible for racial bias would be to accuse and expose the accusers themselves. The District of Columbia has no home rule; it is controlled by congressional committees, and Congress at the time was overwhelmingly Democratic. It was controlled by the very people who were screaming so loudly against the DAR. To my way of thinking, both places should have been denounced, or neither.” The Board retained its policy of exclusion long after Anderson's concert at the Lincoln Memorial.^[138]

Roosevelt later presented Anderson to the King and Queen of the United Kingdom after Anderson performed at a White House dinner. Roosevelt also arranged the appointment of African-American educator Mary McLeod Bethune, with whom she had struck up a friendship, as Director of the Division of Negro Affairs of the National Youth Administration.^[141] To avoid problems with the staff when Bethune would visit the White House, Roosevelt would meet her at the gate, embrace her, and walk in with her arm-in-arm.

She was involved by being "the eyes and the ears"^[143] of the New Deal. She looked to the future and was committed to social reform. One of those programs helped working women receive better wages. The New Deal also placed women into less machine work and more white-collar work. Women did not have to work in the factories making war supplies because men were coming home so they could take over the long days and nights women had been working to contribute to the war efforts. Roosevelt brought unprecedented activism and ability to the role of the first lady.^[144]

In contrast to her usual support of African-American rights, the "sundown town" Eleanor, in West Virginia, was named for her and was established in 1934 when she and Franklin visited the county and developed it as a test site for families. As a "sundown town", like other Franklin Roosevelt towns around the nation (such as Greenbelt, Greenhills, Greendale, Hanford, or Norris), it was for whites only.^[145] It was established as a New Deal project.^[146]

Roosevelt lobbied behind the scenes for the 1934 Costigan-Wagner Bill to make lynching a federal crime, including arranging a meeting between Franklin and NAACP president Walter Francis White. Fearing he would lose the votes of Southern congressional delegations for his legislative agenda, however, Franklin refused to publicly support the bill, which proved unable to pass the Senate. In 1942, Roosevelt worked with activist Pauli Murray to persuade Franklin to appeal on behalf of sharecropperOdell Waller, convicted of killing a white farmer during a fight; though Franklin sent a letter to Virginia Governor Colgate Darden urging him to commute the sentence to life imprisonment, Waller was executed as scheduled.

Roosevelt's support of African-American rights made her an unpopular figure among whites in the South. Rumors spread of "Eleanor Clubs" formed by servants to oppose their employers and "Eleanor Tuesdays" on which African-American men would knock down white women on the street, though no evidence has ever been found of either practice. When race riots broke out in Detroit in June 1943, critics in both the North and South wrote that Roosevelt was to blame. At the same time, she grew so popular among African-Americans, previously a reliable Republican voting bloc, that they became a consistent base of support for the Democratic Party.

During the war, however, Roosevelt failed to help labor leader A. Philip Randolph after E.H. Crump, the Democratic Boss of Memphis and a close ally and friend of the president, quite openly violated his constitutional rights. In 1943, Randolph had launched a personal campaign for free speech in Memphis in response to Crump's use of strong-arm and political pressure tactics to drive two prominent local black Republicans, J.B. Martin and Randolph's friend Robert Church Jr. from the city. When Randolph came to the city, Crump had denied him venues and intimidated local black leaders by threatening them with jail into withdrawing speaking invitations. Randolph urged Roosevelt, who had also friendly political ties with Crump, to do something to counter Crump's "fascist" denial of free speech, but she refused. Her reply to Randolph on December 18 read in full: "I referred your letter to a friend of mine when I received it and I am sorry it has not been answered before. I was advised not to do anything, as it might do more harm than good."^[153]

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Roosevelt spoke out against Japanese-American prejudice, warning against the "great hysteria against minority groups." She also privately opposed her husband's Executive Order 9066, which required Japanese-Americans in many areas of the U.S. to enter internment camps. She was widely criticized for her defense of Japanese-American citizens, including a call by the Los Angeles Times that she be "forced to retire from public life" over her stand on the issue.

Norvelt

On May 21, 1937, Roosevelt visited Westmoreland Homesteads to mark the arrival of the community's final homesteader. Accompanying her on the trip was Elinor Morgenthau, the wife of Henry Morgenthau Jr.,^[157] the president's Secretary of the Treasury.^[158] "I am no believer in paternalism. I do not like charities," Eleanor Roosevelt had said earlier. But cooperative communities such as Westmoreland Homesteads, she went on, offered an alternative to "our rather settled ideas" that could "provide equality of opportunity for all and prevent the recurrence of a similar disaster [depression] in the future." Residents were so taken by her personal expression of interest in the program that they promptly agreed to rename the community in her honor. (The new town name, Norvelt, was a combination of the last syllables in her names: EleaNOR RooseVELT.)^[159] The Norvelt firefighter's hall is named Roosevelt Hall in her honor.^[158]

Use of media

Roosevelt was an unprecedentedly outspoken First Lady who made far more use of the media than her predecessors; she held 348 press conferences over the span of her husband's 12-year presidency. Inspired by her relationship with Hickok, Roosevelt placed a ban on male reporters attending the press conferences, effectively forcing newspapers to keep female reporters on staff in order to cover them. She relaxed the rule only once, on her return from her 1943 Pacific trip.^[161] Because the Gridiron Club banned women from its annual Gridiron Dinner for journalists, Roosevelt hosted a competing event for female reporters at the White House, which she called "Gridiron Widows". She was interviewed by many newspapers; the New Orleans journalist Iris Kelso described Roosevelt as her most interesting interviewee ever.^[163] In the early days of her all-female press conferences, she said they would not address "politics, legislation, or executive decision",^[164]