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    Eleanor Roosevelt - Activist First Lady

    By cmaukonen on Mon, 11/08/2010 - 6:10pm |

    Most people don't remember who the First Ladies of the White House were. There were a few that stood out. Jackie Kennedy, Lady Bird Johnson, Pat Nixon, Laura Bush, Hillary Clinton. I myself cannot remember President Eisenhower's wife name. And I wonder how many remember that Bess Truman was the wife of Harry S Truman.

    Most were not very memorable as they pretty much remained behind the scenes. Attending luncheons or giving them but not really very active while in the White House. Recently it was Hillary Clinton.  But before her there was Eleanor Roosevelt.  Probably one of the most active and activist First Ladies of the Twentieth Century and truly a woman of the people.  She was not a particularly attractive woman and even while in the White House tended to dress in a rather frumpy manner.  But she was not all that interested in putting on airs, as it were. She did live a rather sheltered life growing up in opulence but this did not have a negative effect on her attitudes or beliefs.

    Growing up a lonely and shy girl in wealth and comfort, she returned to New York from Allenswood, at 18 with confidence in herself and a conscience of a social nature.  Her marriage to Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), brought her into the world of politics of which she proved a fast learner.  When her husband was Assistant Secretary of the Navy during World War I, she supported the war effort by volunteering for the Red Cross.  She was also an active member of the women's suffrage movement.

    In 1921 when a bout with polio left Franklin Roosevelt crippled, her steadfast encouragement enabled him to return to politics and win the governorship of New York (1929-1933).  In the process she became his political surrogate, speaking in his behalf to the citizenry, relaying their feedback to him, and giving her input as well.  During this period she also opened the Val-Kill furniture factory in New York to provide job relief to the unemployed and became part owner of Todhunter, an all girls private school in New York City.

    When FDR was elected to the presidency, Eleanor Roosevelt reluctantly became first lady, yet she proved a great innovator in this capacity.  Her tenure (1933-1945) was the longest only because her husband's tenure as president was the longest, but Eleanor Roosevelt became the first activist first lady.  With press conferences and her daily column she kept the public up-to-date on White House policies; in particular the New Deal.  She persuaded FDR to create the National Youth Administration (NYA), which provided financial aid to students and job training to young men and women.  Her concern for disadvantaged black Americans, prompted her to work closely with organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and in 1939 she resigned from the Daughters of the American Revolution in protest to their preventing black singer Marian Anderson from performing at Constitution Hall.

    After the United States entered World War II, Eleanor Roosevelt channeled her energies into the war effort.  She did this first by mustering up civilian volunteerism as assistant director of the Office of Civilian Defense (OCD), and by visiting U.S. troops abroad.

    When Franklin D. Roosevelt died in office in 1945, Eleanor Roosevelt's role as first lady was over, but her career was not.  She became a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly, specializing in humanitarian, social, and cultural issues.  In 1948, she drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which affirmed life, liberty, and equality internationally for all people regardless of race, creed or color.  Additionally, she helped in the establishment of the state of Israel and attempted negotiations, albeit cautiously, with the Soviet Union (now Russia).

    During the depression she would travel throughout America and meet with those who were the hardest hit.

    Eleanor was an old hand at politics by the time Franklin was elected president in 1932. She realized that as a president’s wife she was expected to deal exclusively with social activities, but she aimed to be more useful. The "New Deal" program for coping with the disastrous effects of the Great Depression offered opportunities for her at the forefront of the Roosevelt Administration. Franklin depended on Eleanor to gather first-hand knowledge since he could not and soon she became known as Eleanor Roosevelt humanitarian. Besides bringing him vivid descriptions of the country’s plight, she urged swift action to change conditions she considered intolerable. Eleanor toured the country extensively, observing poverty-stricken rural areas, city slums, prisons, and even the inside of coal mines.

    "Franklin and I had a desire to see improvements for people. I knew about social conditions, perhaps more than he did. But he knew about government and how you could use government to improve certain things. And I think we began to get an understanding of teamwork." http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eleanor/filmmore/transcript/transcript1.html

    "Very often he would bait me into giving an opinion by stating as his own a point of view with which he knew I would disagree. I remember one occasion, I became extremely vehement and irritated. The next day to my complete surprise he calmly stated as his own the arguments that I had given him!" http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eleanor/filmmore/transcript/transcript1.html

    She also was very active in the media writing newspaper columns and magazine columns and even had a radio show.

    Mass Media and Communications:
    Perhaps there was no more important decision among her initial deeds as First Lady than her decision to continue her work as a writer, public speaker and media figure. It helped in her mission to inform the public, provoke discussion and debate on conversation, rally public support for efforts she believed in or promoted as part of the Administration. It helped to forge a permanent image in the public mind at the time of not just Eleanor Roosevelt as a distinct personality but to shift the perception of what “First Lady” could mean.

    Press Conferences:  On 6 March 1933, two days after becoming First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt held what was to become the first of 348 press conferences, with nearly 35 women in attendance. The idea emerged from her burgeoning friendship with Associated Press reporter Lorena Hickok as a direct measure to help women reporters keep their jobs during the depression. She conducted them to help keep the American people informed of her White House life and the political activities of the Administration, but to provoke national consciousness about larger issues and crises of the day, and to do so in newspaper print. The press conferences afforded her the chance to focus on breaking news whether it was the threat that Hitler presented to Europe or the endemic problems of Washington, D.C.’s social welfare institutions. They were, however, coordinated with the President’s Press Office and there is evidence that sometimes they felt it wiser to have the First Lady break news related to the President or the Administration, rather than through the West Wing. Some forty news organizations were credentialed to have one representative attend the First Lady press conferences, a certification that was controlled by the President’s Press Secretary (the position of First Lady’s Press Secretary did not yet exist).

    What made Eleanor Roosevelt’s White House press conferences even more unique was the open ban on any male reporters. Large publications wanted to carry the news which Mrs. Roosevelt generated, but could do so only by continuing to employ the women reporters given exclusive access to the press conferences. On one occasion, following her return from the South Pacific during the war, men reporters were permitted entrance. This practice, largely uncriticized, proved crucial in establishing women reporters as part of the permanent and modern White House Press Corps, their presence and professionalism soon becoming part of the familiar fabric of the working White House. Previous to this, women reporters in Washington were confined to coverage of “style” issues, such as entertaining and clothes. While expected to continue to cover these topics, their “beat” expanded, with the First Lady’s focus on substantive and serious problems. Her sustaining the press conferences through the Depression and WWII, they covered economics, commerce, defense and foreign affairs issues. The press conferences ultimately raised women into the ranks of professional journalism. Her solidarity with them remained strong. For example, when the women reporters were excluded from the professional male journalist gathering of the annual Gridiron Dinner, she created the “Gridiron Widows” and hosted the event in the White House.

    After some initial press conferences taking place in the Green Room, Mrs. Roosevelt moved them to the private floor of the mansion, in the designated “Monroe Room” where she had replaced reproduction antiques of the Monroe Era, with sturdy furniture produced by Val-Kill Industries, the factory she helped to created. Initially, no direct quotation of the First Lady was permitted without her permission. She had an aide who attended and transcribed the exchanges. The conferences lasted about an hour. On occasion, she invited special women guests who might be visiting the White House to attend, giving the reporters access to them. In time print reporters for the radio broadcast were permitted to attend, but at no time were either still or moving cameras allowed in,. Eventually, the weekly attendance swelled to 115 but was reduced drastically by the first year of World War II. Government information agency representatives were also permitted to attend, but not to ask questions. By 1942, the group formally organized as Mrs. Roosevelt’s Press Conference Association, with a five-member board that met monthly to review policy and membership. The last press conference was held 12 April 1945, several hours before the President’s sudden death

    Monthly Magazine Columnist: In August of 1933, five months after becoming First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt contracted with the monthly Women’s Home Companion magazine to pen a column called “I Want You to Write to Me.” It was an open invitation for the public to submit questions asking her questions that provoked her advice, personal opinions and providing of information on issues both personal and political. It also encouraged the public to offer their own opinions and observations during the Great Depression and War-Preparedness years. Earning $1000 a month for the endeavor, she donated the fee outright to various charities. The response was overwhelming. Within just five months, about 300,000 individuals had written to her. She continued the column until the July 1935 edition. In her initial columns, she avidly espoused the agenda of the Roosevelt Administration, but over time was forced to curtail political topics. The magazine editors ended the contract to avoid the suggestion that they supported FDR – or any political candidate – as efforts began for his 1936 re-election campaign.

    In May of 1941, she began a new monthly column, “If You Ask Me,” for Ladies Home Journal, receiving $2500 a month. Journal editors reviewed the mail sent to Mrs. Roosevelt at the magazine and chose the questions for her to answer, about ten each month. The topics were again a mix of the personal and the political. Her column in this magazine continued through the rest of her White House years, until 1949, when she signed a five-year contract for a monthly column with McCall’s magazine.

    Newspaper Column: On 30 December 1935, two years and nine months into her tenure as First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt wrote the first of what would become her famous syndicated newspaper column, My Day.  As First Lady, she wrote it six days a week; the only break during her White House tenure occurring on the four days following her husband’s death. Within three years, My Day was syndicated in 62 daily newspapers with a readership of over 4 million. It was distributed by the United Features Syndicate and earned her about $1000 monthly, a rate which shifted depending on the number of newspaper subscriptions. It replaced an earlier, failed weekly column that focused strictly on White House entertaining. Although My Day was usually placed in the women’s section of a newspaper alongside advertisements targeted to the women’s market, they were widely read by men, especially those following politics.

    The subject of each day was usually a reflection of an issue, individual, incident or event she had encountered or engaged in, giving the worlds a genuine first-person account of life near the presidency. Written in simple, almost bland language, the column helped to craft her image as an accessible average American wife and mother – despite the reality that she was hardly that.  Initially, many of the columns were light in nature, giving the public a glimpse at the amusing and poignant anecdotes entailed in her daily life as the wife of the president and mother of his children. In short time, however, she used the column to touch on larger public issues, controversies in which she was involved – and even to provoke public debate. It was in My Day, for example, that she announced and explained her resignation from the Daughters of the American Revolution over the organization’s refusal to lease their auditorium to permit African-American contralto singer Marian Anderson to perform there. Although she claimed in 1939 that the President never interfered in the content of her columns, she did later write that he often shared Administration ideas or reports, or other information with the intention of her presenting it casually in the column to gauge public reaction. The column was a useful public relations tool for the Administration as well, for she could provide a seemingly spontaneous glimpse into his work or reactions to legislation in a way that shaped a long-range plan.

    The First Lady usually dictated the day’s column to her secretary or, when she travelled solo, pecked it out on a typewriter herself.  She found it relatively easy to do, usually occupying about a half an hour each day. After the White House, she continued the column but its contents became more partisan as she voiced stronger opinions on global issues and  Democratic Party politics.

    Magazine Article Writer: On many occasions, Eleanor Roosevelt found that a subject she felt required closer consideration was best served by her writing about it in a lengthy magazine article. She had no one exclusive contract with a publication, giving her the freedom to choose specialized venues to reach target audiences. She addressed the moral necessity of civil rights, for example, in magazines ranging from The Saturday Evening Post to The American Magazine to The New Republic.

    Radio Host: Eleanor Roosevelt had nearly a decade of experience as a radio commentator by the time she became First Lady. During the transition, following the 1932 election, she contracted to deliver twelve radio news commentaries for the Pond’s cold cream company. Despite editorial criticism that it was undignified for the president’s wife to undertake such overtly commercial ventures, she would continue to do them as First Lady, claiming she was motivated to do so because it permitted her to continue raising large sums for the charities she donated the fees to. In 1935, she contracted with a roofing company at $500 a minute, and subsequently for a mattress company, typewriter and shoe company, doing various series of multiple broadcasts on different subjects like higher education or events in the news. In 1937 she signed with NBC Radio to carry her radio shows with various commercial sponsors. That year, it was again with Pond’s, from which she earned $3000 for each of her thirteen broadcasts. In 1940 the number and length of the broadcasts were increased to twenty-six fifteen minute broadcasts. The lengthiest and most famous of her series, however, took place on Sunday nights spanning seven months from 1941 to 1942. This series included her address to the nation on the night of December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor Day, following the President’s declaration of war when the Japanese air forces attacked the United States. These were sponsored by the Pan-American Coffee Bureau which represented a consortium of eight Latin American coffee-producing nations. From these foreign countries, the First Lady earned $28,000 for the Sunday night series. While the primary audiences for her broadcasts were women, the shows she did during the immediate pre-war and wartime called on all citizens to support the President’s policies of support to England and volunteer their services as the U.S. entered the war.

    Even after FDR had passed away she remained heavily involved being made Special envoy to the UN’s Commission on Human Rights.  With a life like that, she would have little time to go shopping for new clothes in Paris. Truly a remarkable woman. It is said that we need another FDR but I think we also need another Eleanor Roosevelt as well. Maybe even more so.

    Comments

    Good post, and timely points.

    But I don't believe you dissed Dolly Madison.


    by Doctor Cleveland on Mon, 11/08/2010 - 7:18pm

    I thought she made deserts or something.


    by cmaukonen on Mon, 11/08/2010 - 7:46pm

    Well, her most famous moment is saving the Constitution, the Declaration, and a portrait of Washington while the British troops were closing in on the going-to-have-be-Whitewashed-after-the-Brits-burn-it House. So that's her old-school history book claim to fame.

    Her real achievements are stereotypically "for the ladies"  but they matter, because she ended up essentially being protocol chief for her husband and, before him, for Jefferson (who as a widower had no first lady). Jefferson and Madison were so deep in their own heads, and so committed to their own idea of being revolutionaries, that they were going to dispense with any kind of basic etiquette toward foreign ambassadors (who represented 1. massive navies and 2. our only trading partners). Mrs. Madison had to become their ambassador to the actual world, and sort out the problem of how you develop a set of diplomatic niceties that a.) loudly, clearly say "Democratic Republic" instead of monarchy, b.) still suggest the actual dignity of our national offices, and c.) don't completely infuriate representatives of major powers for no good reason. Trickier to solve than it sounds.


    by Doctor Cleveland on Mon, 11/08/2010 - 8:58pm

    I think Dolly Madison was the first wife to be called "First Lady."   Anyone out there know for sure?


    by trkingmomoe on Mon, 11/08/2010 - 9:21pm

    According to Wikipedia: "The title "First Lady" originated in the United States in 1849, when President Zachary Taylor called Dolley Madison "First Lady" at her state funeral while reciting a eulogy written by himself ..." "Harriet Lane, niece of bachelor President James Buchanan was the first woman to be called First Lady while actually serving in that position. The phrase appeared in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Monthly in 1860, when he wrote, "The Lady of the White House, and by courtesy, the First Lady of the Land." Once Harriet Lane was called First Lady, the term was applied retrospectively to her predecessors."

     

     


    by MrSmith1 on Mon, 11/08/2010 - 9:41pm

    Cool post. Thanks.


    by kgb999 on Mon, 11/08/2010 - 7:50pm

    Will this be on the test?


    by Donal on Mon, 11/08/2010 - 8:01pm

    Good post, C.  Eleanor was a grand lady, a true friend of labor, and a tireless worker for civil rights before it was the popular thing to do.  Her resignation from the DAR over their treatment of marian Anderson and her subsequent invitation to Anderson to sing at the Lincoln Memorial marked her as someone to be hated and derided by the other side, and they did it with a vengeance.

    She was an easy mark--awkward and homely, with a voice worse than nails on a blackboard--but if she was bothered by them she never let it be known in public. 

    Thanks for another reminder of the paths a true Democrat takes.  I'm proud to be a member of the same party as dear Eleanor Roosevelt.


    by Ramona on Mon, 11/08/2010 - 9:35pm

    To bad it's not the same party though. Frown


    by cmaukonen on Mon, 11/08/2010 - 9:49pm

    It could be if Democrats look back to where we were and what we've achieved, and have the guts to get back to basics again. Too many Democrats worked too hard as the party of the people to give it up to the bunch we've always fought against.

    We're NOT just like Republicans--no matter how much our "leaders" want to turn us in that direction. This is NOT who we're supposed to be. We need to elect Democrats who are proud to be Democrats, or we all lose. (I'm still looking for that handbook. I know it's around somewhere.)

    Democrats who get it today? Anthony Weiner. Dennis Kucinich. Russ Feingold. Barbara Boxer. Jim Clyburn. (I'm thinking. . .)


    by Ramona on Mon, 11/08/2010 - 10:31pm

    The Democratic Party today is what you get when the Me Generation becomes Democrats.   My biggest problem with Obama and more than a few Democrats is that they are spoiled technocrats and policy wonks and are lacking in sensitivity and empathy.


    by cmaukonen on Mon, 11/08/2010 - 11:26pm