, May 22, 1940 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. She was also the first first lady to write a monthly magazine column and to host a weekly radio show. 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. 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!" and
Queen Elizabeth in London, October 23, 1942 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. 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." In 1933, after she became first lady, a new hybrid tea rose was named after her (
Rosa x hybrida "Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt"). In 1937, she began writing her autobiography, all volumes of which were compiled into
The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt in 1961 (
Harper & Brothers, ).
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. 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." 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. 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. The NYA was shut down in 1943.
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 Interior Harold 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. 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. 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. 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. 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" 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. , a member of the
Black Cabinet, formed by African American federal employees, 1943 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. It was established as a New Deal project. 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
sharecropper Odell 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." 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., the president's
Secretary of the Treasury. "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.) The Norvelt firefighter's hall is named Roosevelt Hall in her honor. 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. In the early days of her all-female press conferences, she said they would not address "politics, legislation, or executive decision", since the role of the First Lady was expected to be non-political at that time. She also agreed at first that she would avoid discussing her views on pending congressional measures. Still, the press conferences provided a welcome opportunity for the women reporters to speak directly with the first lady, access that had been unavailable in previous administrations. in 1938 Just before Franklin assumed the presidency in February 1933, Roosevelt published an editorial in the ''Women's Daily News
that conflicted so sharply with his intended public spending policies that he published a rejoinder in the following issue. On entering the White House, she signed a contract with the magazine Woman's Home Companion'' to provide a monthly column, in which she answered mail sent to her by readers; the feature was canceled in 1936 as another presidential election approached. She continued her articles in other venues, publishing more than sixty articles in national magazines during her tenure as first lady. Roosevelt also began a syndicated newspaper column, titled "My Day", which appeared six days a week from 1936 to her death in 1962. In the column, she wrote about her daily activities but also her humanitarian concerns. Hickok and
George T. Bye, Roosevelt's
literary agent, encouraged her to write the column. From 1941 to her death in 1962, she also wrote an advice column,
If You Ask Me, first published in
Ladies Home Journal and then later in ''
McCall's. A selection of her columns was compiled in the book If You Ask Me: Essential Advice from Eleanor Roosevelt'' in 2018. Beasley has argued that Roosevelt's publications, which often dealt with women's issues and invited reader responses, represented a conscious attempt to use journalism "to overcome social isolation" for women by making "public communication a two-way channel". during a tour of Washington D.C. hotels presenting fundraisers for the President's Birthday Ball to fight
infantile paralysis (1944) Roosevelt also made extensive use of radio. She was not the first first lady to broadcast—her predecessor,
Lou Henry Hoover, had done that already. But Hoover did not have a regular radio program, whereas Roosevelt did. She first broadcast her own programs of radio commentary beginning on July 9, 1934. On that first show, she talked about the effect of movies on children, the need for a censor who could make sure movies did not glorify crime and violence, and her opinion about the recent
All-Star baseball game. She also read a commercial from a mattress company, which sponsored the broadcast. She said she would not accept any salary for being on the air, and that she would donate the amount ($3,000) to charity. Later that year, in November 1934, she broadcast a series of programs about children's education; it was heard on the
CBS Radio Network. Sponsored by a typewriter company, Roosevelt once again donated the money, giving it to the
American Friends Service Committee, to help with a school it operated. During 1934, Roosevelt set a record for the most times a first lady had spoken on radio: she spoke as a guest on other people's programs, as well as the host of her own, for a total of 28 times that year. In 1935, Roosevelt continued to host programs aimed at the female audience, including one called "It's A Woman's World." Each time, she donated the money she earned to charity. The association of a sponsor with the popular first lady resulted in increases in sales for that company: when the Selby Shoe Company sponsored a series of Roosevelt's programs, sales increased by 200%. The fact that her programs were sponsored created controversy, with her husband's political enemies expressing skepticism about whether she really did donate her salary to charity; they accused her of "profiteering." But her radio programs proved to be so popular with listeners that the criticisms had little effect. She continued to broadcast throughout the 1930s, sometimes on CBS and sometimes on
NBC.
Use of media: Film and Television (1940). Distribution in the US by
James Roosevelt with filmed introduction by Eleanor Roosevelt. Film and television offered Roosevelt even greater power to shape public opinion and expand public thinking. In the latter part of her life, she made over two hundred appearances in film and television as First Lady and in private life. Roosevelt’s film career began with print in 1932 as she wrote articles for popular movie fan magazines such as
Modern Screen and
Photoplay and engaged readers on important issues with stories like
Democracy on the Screen,
Why We Roosevelts are Movie Fans, and
How the Movies Can Help Keep Us Out of War. In her daily newspaper column "My Day" she never hesitated to recommend favored movies, and later she even lent her name for advertising films of which she approved. Actual movie debuts on screen came in 1940, first in the short film
Hobby Lobby, which
The New Yorker quipped was "Mrs. Roosevelt's first adventure as a motion-picture actress", and then in a role narrating the prologue for the anti-Nazi film
Pastor Hall. Her son
James Roosevelt, a producer in Hollywood, enlisted her help with
Pastor Hall when the film was having trouble passing
Hays Code restrictions against propaganda. Roosevelt also tried her hand at screenwriting, producing the script for a civil defense film,
Women in Defense, narrated by
Katharine Hepburn, directed by
John Ford, and nominated for an
Academy Award for Best Documentary Short. Roosevelt also narrated another civil defense film,
Training Women for War Production. The 1950 short film
My Trip Abroad, was used by Roosevelt to report on the
Marshall Plan rebuilding efforts in Europe. '' (1956) with journalists
Ned Brooks, and
Lawrence Spivak of the Peace Corp,
Senteza Kajubi of Uganda (center), and Senator
Hubert Humphrey (smiling). An early adopter of television, Roosevelt made her small screen debut on the afternoon following
VE Day 1945, and the First Lady warned viewers against apathy and war-weariness. Five years later, she was the first woman to host a major American public affairs broadcast television show,
Today with Mrs. Roosevelt, a weekly program on NBC launched by her son Elliott.
Albert Einstein and
J Robert Oppenheimer were guests on the premiere episode, and it was Einstein’s first time on television. (Roosevelt didn't always get her way. When she announced Paul Robeson as an upcoming guest, conservatives swiftly put pressure on the network to cancel his appearance.) A second NBC show followed in 1951,
Mrs. Roosevelt Meets the Public. Aside from her own shows, Roosevelt played a significant role through television guest spots appearing with
Sarah Churchill,
Arlene Francis,
Bob Hope,
Edward R. Murrow,
Jack Paar,
Frank Sinatra,
Ed Sullivan, and
Mike Wallace, as well as several turns on
Meet the Press. She even participated as the mystery guest on game show
What’s My Line? to promote United Nations Day. Another first for Roosevelt and American women was her appearance on
Face the Nation with Republican Senator
Margaret Chase Smith.
Face the Nation had never featured women guests nor had they devoted a show to the topic of presidential candidates. Roosevelt and Smith debated the merits of candidates Adlai Stevenson versus Dwight Eisenhower in the 1956 presidential election. In 1959 Roosevelt began hosting
Prospects of Mankind, a monthly talk show on
National Educational Television, a precursor of PBS. Underwritten by the
Ford Foundation with donations from individuals like
Dore Schary, the show's advisory committee included
Henry Kissinger. It attracted some of the most influential, global figures of the era, including
John F. Kennedy on the day that he announced his candidacy for president,
Ralph Bunche, and
Bertrand Russell. Taped in different locations, including college campuses, European television stations and the United Nations, the format involved as many as four or five guests discussing one international affairs topic. In most cases, Roosevelt, the host and sometimes moderator, was the only woman on screen.
Prospects of Mankind ran until right before Roosevelt's death in 1962. Film and television also allowed Roosevelt the opportunity to expand the
persona she had built in radio and print as the wise, informative, trustworthy American woman and use it for influence and commercial success. As one example, her television support of
John F. Kennedy was so important, it may well have nudged his "hairline victory" over the line in the
1960 Presidential election. Roosevelt wasn't shy about using influence to benefit the entertainment industry careers of her children by lending her name to their projects, and in the case of Elliott, making him her agent for a time. Media appearances might serve two purposes, as in the case of her prologue to the anti-Nazi film
Pastor Hall, which was distributed by son John's production company or in the case of Good Luck Margarine, when
David Ogilvy paid her more than a quarter of a million dollars in today's currency to make a TV commercial in which Roosevelt also manages to mention world hunger. Other times, appearances were purely commercial. In 1949 CBS hired her for their 1949 televised Baking Contest Awards, where she stood alongside Philip and John S
Pillsbury,
Arthur Godfrey, and
Art Linkletter as she handed out the $70,000 in cash prizes and promoted
General Electric stoves. Roosevelt welcomed the revenue her media influence bought, most of which went to charity.
World War II , Eleanor Roosevelt and
Admiral Halsey in the
South Pacific Theater, 1943 On May 10, 1940,
Germany invaded Belgium,
Luxembourg, and
the Netherlands, marking the end of the relatively conflict-free "
Phoney War" phase of
World War II. As the U.S. began to move toward war footing, Roosevelt found herself again depressed, fearing that her role in fighting for domestic justice would become extraneous in a nation focused on foreign affairs. She briefly considered traveling to Europe to work with the
Red Cross, but was dissuaded by presidential advisers who pointed out the consequences should the president's wife be captured as a
prisoner of war. She soon found other wartime causes to work on, however, beginning with a popular movement to allow the immigration of European refugee children. She also lobbied her husband to allow greater immigration of groups persecuted by the Nazis, including Jews, but fears of
fifth columnists caused Franklin to restrict immigration rather than expanding it. Roosevelt successfully secured political refugee status for eighty-three Jewish refugees from the
S.S. Quanza in August 1940, but was refused on many other occasions. Her son James later wrote that "her deepest regret at the end of her life" was that she had not forced Franklin to accept more refugees from Nazism during the war. Roosevelt was also active on the
home front. Beginning in 1941, she co-chaired the
Office of Civilian Defense (OCD) with New York City Mayor
Fiorello H. LaGuardia, working to give civilian volunteers expanded roles in war preparations. She soon found herself in a power struggle with LaGuardia, who preferred to focus on narrower aspects of defense, while she saw solutions to broader social problems as equally important to the war effort. Though LaGuardia resigned from the OCD in December 1941, Roosevelt was forced to resign following anger in the
House of Representatives over high salaries for several OCD appointments, including two of her close friends. Also in 1941, the short film
Women in Defense, written by Roosevelt, was released. It was produced by the
Office of Emergency Management and briefly outlines the way in which women could help prepare the country for the possibility of war. There is also a segment on the types of costumes women would wear while engaged in war work. At the end of the film, the narrator explains women are vital to securing a healthy American home life and raising children "which has always been the first line of defense". In October 1942, Roosevelt toured England, visiting with American troops and inspecting British forces. Her visits drew enormous crowds and received almost unanimously favorable press in both England and America. In August 1943, she visited American troops in the South Pacific on a morale-building tour, of which Admiral
William Halsey Jr. later said, "she alone accomplished more good than any other person, or any groups of civilians, who had passed through my area." For her part, Roosevelt was left shaken and deeply depressed by seeing the war's carnage. A number of Congressional Republicans criticized her for using scarce wartime resources for her trip, prompting Franklin to suggest that she take a break from traveling. Roosevelt supported increased roles for women and African-Americans in the war effort, and began to advocate for women to be given factory jobs a year before it became a widespread practice. In 1942, she urged women of all social backgrounds to learn trades, saying: "if I were of a debutante age I would go into a factory–any factory where I could learn a skill and be useful." Roosevelt learned of the high rate of absenteeism among working mothers, and she campaigned for government-sponsored day care. She supported the
Tuskegee Airmen in their successful effort to become the first black combat pilots, visiting the
Tuskegee Air Corps Advanced Flying School in
Alabama. She also flew with African-American chief civilian instructor
C. Alfred "Chief" Anderson. Anderson had been flying since 1929 and was responsible for training thousands of rookie pilots; he took her on a half-hour flight in a Piper J-3 Cub. After landing, she cheerfully announced, "Well, you can fly all right." The subsequent brouhaha over the first lady's flight had such an impact it is often mistakenly cited as the start of the
Civilian Pilot Training Program at Tuskegee, even though the program was already five months old. Roosevelt did use her position as a trustee of the
Julius Rosenwald Fund to arrange a loan of $175,000 to help finance the building of
Moton Field. In 1947 she attended the
National Conference on the German Problem in New York, which she had helped organize. It issued a statement that "any plans to resurrect the economic and political power of Germany" would be dangerous to international security. ==Years after the White House==