Reader Ad Slot
Reader Ad Slot placeholder
If you would like to support SpookStack without paying out of pocket, please consider allowing advertising cookies. It helps cover hosting costs and keeps the archive free to browse. You can change this choice at any time.
Eleanor Roosevelt — Part 16
Page 36
36 / 57
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. The
Pg |
Le WWE ae ree apn en een ee ee
' 94-3-Y-S~ Satan
Community corrections
No user corrections yet.
Comments
No comments on this document yet.
Bottom Reader Ad Slot
Bottom Reader Ad Slot placeholder
If you would like to support SpookStack without paying out of pocket, please consider allowing advertising cookies. It helps cover hosting costs and keeps the archive free to browse. You can change this choice at any time.
Continue Exploring
Agency Collection
Explore This Archive Cluster
Broad Topic Hub
Topic Hub
bureau
Related subtopics
Subtopic
Subtopic
Subtopic
Subtopic
Subtopic
Subtopic