Eleanor Roosevelt
(1884-1962) dictionary: “American diplomat, writer, humanitarian, and
political figure; wife of Franklin Delano
Roosevelt.”
First Lady:
Eleanor: "Now I'll
have no identity."
"I have never tried
to influence Franklin on anything he did."
"set the tone"
for administration;
Longest-serving First
Lady;
Mother died when she was
8, father when 10;
Girls’ school
England - Marie Souvestre:
“the happiest
years of my life”;
settlement house, NY
Lower East Side;
National Consumers
League;
1905 married cousin
Franklin D. Roosevelt;
birth to six
children;
WWI, Washington - FDR
asst sec’y Navy;
volunteer hospital, Red
Cross, canteens;
1921 FDR hit by
polio;
“I’m only
being active until you can be again, it isn’t such a great desire on
my part
to serve the world again and I’ll fall back into habits of sloth quite
easily!”
earlier, Eleanor
dismissed politics as “a sinister affair”;
League of Women
Voters;
Women’s Trade
Union League;
head women’s
division NY Democratic party;
1928 headed national
women’s division of Democrat Al Smith’s run for presidency;
New York Times
editorial: “Mrs. Roosevelt, a highly intelligent and capable
politician.”
Eleanor was “the strongest argument that could be
presented against those who hold that by entering politics, a woman is bound to
lose her womanliness and charm.”
1928 FDR elected
governor of NY state;
Eleanor: for women,
“Home comes first. But in
second and third and last place there is room for countless other
concerns… and so if anyone were to ask me what I want out of life, I
would say – the opportunity for doing something useful.”
the Great Depression
-
1920s prosperity;
1928 consumer spending
falling, slowdown in production – layoffs;
Oct. 24, 1929 stock
market crash;
Oct.-Dec. unemployment
jumped to 4 million.
By 1931, 5000 banks
closed;
Unemployment rate over
25%;
1929-1933 GNP fell
29%;
breadlines, soup
kitchens;
over one million tramps
- a "migration of despair."
Starvation,
malnutrition:
dysentery, pellagra;
Marriage and birth rates
down;
Number of working women
actually rose;
Backlash -
“don’t steal a job from a man.”
Stereotype – women
working for “pin money”;
Ames - 3 women teachers
forced to leave job;
Federal govt fired
hundreds of women;
more than 80% of
Americans
believed that as long as husband had job, women’s place was in
home;
“I
would rather turn on the gas and put an end to the whole family rather than let
my wife support me”
domestic service, office
work, teaching, nursing;
1932 FDR carried all but
six states;
"a pleasant man who
without any important qualifications for the office, would very much like to be
president."
"a new deal for the
American people" -
inauguration: "the
only thing we have to fear is fear itself".
New Deal -
“alphabet soup” of new programs;
Eleanor - New Deal place
for women;
“I never wanted to
be a President’s wife, and don’t want it now.”
“Things cannot be
completely changed in five minutes.
Yet I do believe that even a few people who want to understand, to help
and to do the right thing for the great numbers of people… can
help.”
1934, 75,000 homeless
single women in NY;
White House Conference
on the Emergency Needs of Women;
helped create jobs for
100,000 women;
news conferences for
women reporters;
daily column, “My
Day”;
weekly radio show;
proud she had
“earned as much as Franklin”
racial justice & civil rights -
1934: “to deny any
part of a population the opportunities for more enjoyment in life, for higher
aspirations is a menace to the nation as a whole… We must learn to work
together, all of us, regardless of race or creed or color; we must wipe
out… any feeling of intolerance. We go ahead together or we go down
together.”
1939 Daughters of the
American Revolution - contralto Marian Anderson;
Lincoln Memorial -
audience of 75,000;
“getting the pants
off Eleanor and onto Franklin”;
Eleanor: “every
woman in public life needs to develop skin as tough as rhinoceros
hide.”
18-year old factory
girl, “Say, she’s swell.
Why, I’m not ashamed of being a girl any more.”
1938 Life
greatest woman alive;
WWII co-director Office
of Civilian Defense
1942 state visit to
England;
visited almost every
theater of war;
April, 1945 FDR
died.
1945 Truman named
Eleanor to US delegation to United Nations.
Eleanor, “this old
lady holds up very well under the load of work here, and believe me, it is
formidable.”
chair of new UN Human
Rights Commission -
push to write Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (1948).
Michigan Senator
Vandenberg, “I take back everything I ever said about her, and believe
me, it’s been plenty.”
77th
birthday, “I suppose I should slow down… [but] life must be lived,
curiosity must be kept alive…. The thing I am most grateful for is for an
interesting life – and the opportunities I had to learn along the
way.”
Nat’l Advisory
Council for Peace Corps;
“I do not think
women should be judged as women alone when it comes to appointing them or
electing them purely because they are women,” but plenty of women were
talented & deserved chance.
1932 Frances Perkins
secretary of labor - first woman cabinet officer;
Mt Holyoke, Hull House,
National Consumers League, investigating 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist
fire;
In NY, first woman state
industrial commissioner;
Dewson “After all,
you owe it to the women.
Don’t be such a baby, Frances. You do the right thing. I’ll murder you if you
don’t.”
1935 Social Security Act
-
support of dependent
widows & children
disadvantage “only
when climbing trees.”
“I have always
felt that it was not I alone who was appointed to the cabinet, but that it was
all the women in America.”
1935 Mary McLeod Bethune
-director of the National Youth Administration’s Office of Minority
Affairs -
the “Black
Cabinet”;
president
Bethune-Cookman College;
the National Association
of Colored Women;
the National Council of
Negro Women;
committees for National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the National
Urban League;
Bethune, “if these
talented white women were working at such responsible jobs at a time of
national crisis, I could do the same thing. I visualized dozens of Negro women coming after me, filling
positions of high trust and strategic importance.”
Ruth Bryan Owen first
female US ambassador (Denmark, 1933-36);
Florence Allen first woman judge on US Court of
Appeals;