Eleanor Roosevelt

(1884-1962)

Born into the American aristocracy and condemned to the window-dressing role of the political wife, Eleanor Roosevelt gently but firmly burst those bonds to become one of the most active and beloved reformers of her time and the most controversial First Lady of any time. A niece of Theodore Roosevelt, she was born into an elite New York family on October 11, 1884. Her childhood was intensely unhappy; after the death of her parents she was raised strictly by her grandmother. But in finishing school in London she discovered qualities of leadership, and in 1905, while she was working with the poor in New York, she married her distant cousin Franklin D. Roosevelt.

For years she played the role of dutiful wife in the shadow of an aristocratic mother-in-law and her husband’s expanding political career. After bearing six children, she worked for the Red Cross during World War I and for the League of Women Voters and the Woman’s Trade Union League in the 20s. Her confidence increased steadily, and when FDR was crippled with polio in 1921 she was increasingly to become his political stand-in and closest partner.

By the time FDR became President in 1933, Eleanor was a fully-developed political figure; she called him the politician, herself the agitator, and they became one of the great teams in American political history. As First Lady she held press conferences, had her own radio program, and wrote a daily syndicated newspaper column and a number of books, including the 1937 This Is My Story. She was accused of betraying her social class, and indeed she had: now a passionate egalitarian, she worked tirelessly for the rights of labor, women, the disadvantaged and racial minorities. Crushed when her husband died in 1945, she nonetheless continued on to her most notable achievements, serving form 1945-1952 as a United Nations delegate, where she was a major force in drafting the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights and in supporting Israel. During the 50s she was an unofficial ambassador-at-large, and in favoring dialogue with Russia during the Cold War said, “all of us are going to die together or we are going to live together, and if we are to live together we have to talk”. In that timeless observation she perhaps epitomized women’s wisdom in international relations. An activist to the end, she died in 1962.

The Fair Deal

The domestic reform program of Harry Truman was given the name in 1949, though the main points were laid down by the end of 1945. Truman sent a message to Congress which included 21 specific suggestions for legislative actions. He called for a substantial raise in the minimum wage, a dramatic extension of the Social Security System, national health insurance, federal aid to education and a government-sponsored housing project for the poor.

The president also pushed hard for civil rights legislation to protect blacks from discrimination. He asked Congress to extend the wartime Fair Employment Practices Commission, to pass a strong anti-lynching law and to take action to abolish poll taxes. In 1949 and executive order forbade segregation in the Armed Forces.

Truman succeeded in getting only two of his proposals: one established the Atomic Energy Commission and the other, the Employment Act, pledged the Federal Government to use all “practical” means to guarantee full employment.