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Eleanor Roosevelt — Part 16

57 pages · May 09, 2026 · Document date: Apr 20, 1953 · Broad topic: Civil Rights · Topic: Eleanor Roosevelt · 57 pages OCR'd
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JANUARY 1949 Icnely ones, she reveals, since she had no companions of her own age, and consequently she_read voracitisly, In 1899 she was taken to England and placed in Allenswood, a school for girls. Remaining abrond for three years, she spent vacations in travel on the Continent. At the age of cixhtcen she returned to the United States to make her home with cousins, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Parish, Jr., and to be presented to socicty. . During the years before her marriage, Miss Roosevelt taught at the Rivington Strect Settle- ment House. When she was nineteen, her fifth cousin, Franklin Dvlano Roosevelt, then a Harvard undergraduate, asked her to marry him; but in deference to, the wishes of the young man’s mother, the couple postponed their marriage for three years. On March 17, 1905, Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt were_married, that date being selected because President Theadore Roosevelt could then be m New York to give the bride away. At the time of the Marriage the future President was a student at Columbia University Law School. Mrs, Roosevelt remarks in her autobiography that during the early years of her marriage she was dependent on the elder Mrs. Roosevelt and on Mrs, Parish for advice-—“I suppose I was fitting pretty well in the pattern of a fairly conventional, quiet, young, society matron,” ig Mrs. Roosevelt's own comment. In January 1911 her husband was elected a New York State Senator, the family—the Roosevelts had three children by .this time— moved to Alhany, and’ Mrs. Roosevelt received her first contact with nolitics and government. int Apri! i913 her husband was appointed ASSISLANL Secretary ot the Navy in the Wilson Administration, and the Roosevelts went to Washington, Mrs. Roosevelt's days were taken up with paying and rectiving calls, as was expected of the wife of a Government official. In 1920 she saw more of the political scene when her husband was candidate for the Vice- Presidency on the Democratic ticket, with Cox running for President against Harding. _ After the defcat of the Democratic party in that election, Franklin Roosevelt entered the praclice of law in New York. Mrs. Roosevelt took a course in shorthand and typing and accepted an invitation to join the board of the League of Women Voters, In 1921, her husband was stricken with infantile paralysis, and, acting on his physician's advice, Mrs. Roosevelt increased her political interests in order to rekindle her husband's interest in pub- lic affairs. Instead of serving on boards she began to take a more active part in organiza- tion work, juining the Women’s Trade Union Lesage and participating in the affairs of the State Democratic party. In 1924 she began four years’ service as financial chairman of the women’s division of the “tate party. Together with Marion Dickerman, whom she had met through the W.T.ULL., Mrs. Roose- velt also founded the Val-Kill Furniture Sho a tunproht store and factory established in Hyde Park to give employment to disabled men, From that time on she was active in New York State politics and in social service. Wide World Photos ELEANOR ROOSEVELT (In 1926 she was the leading speaker in the Senatorial campaign for Robert F. Wagner “.} A year later, with Miss Dickerman and Nancy Cook, she bought the Todhunter School, a New York private school for girls; and acting as vice-principal, for six years she taught socicl- ogy, etonomics, and government. hen, in VAG hee beeches A wens ate sted ene UF ey ee EE LONS WSS Goctls ULoveTns vl New Wark Gente che snmenitad waal-le os sha school from Albany, spending three days in New York and four at the Executive Mansion in the State capital. “The Rooseveits were now a political team," observed Ruby Black in Eleanor Roosevelt; A Biography. “ ‘Eleanor and I' was a phrase common in Governor Roosevelt's intimate discussions of issues, poli- cies, and plans.” In charge of women’s work in the Democratic party, Airs. Roosevelt is credited by James Farley “, according to Miss Black, for the fact that in 1930, for the first time, upstate New York went Democratic. In 1932, when her husband was the Presidential candidate, Mrs. Roosevelt planned the extension of women's division to a nation-wide scale; “her name could not appear in this work,” declared Miss Black, “but her advice and her planning and her ‘sense of politics’ were there.” On March 4, 1933, Franklin Delano Roosc- velt was inaugurated as the thirty-second Presi- dent of the United States, and Eleanor Roose- vele began her twelve years as First Lady. She sold her interest in the Val-Kill furntture factory and gave up the editorship she had assumed in June 1932 of a Macfadden publica- tion, Hebies, jus) Baines (ber daughter, Anna, was her assistant during this brief connection). Bowing to protests, she also discontinued her appearance on a conunercial radio program. In her first year at the White House, Mrs. Roosevelt bean her press conferences, the first of theif kind ever held by a First Lady, and altended only by women journalists. 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