greetings from the national archives flagship building in washington dc which sits on the ancestral lands other than a coach tank peoples. i'm david ferrio archivist of the united states and it's my pleasure to welcome you to this forum examining the life and

legacy of eleanor roosevelt few individuals had as dramatic effect on 20th century history both in this country and abroad than mrs roosevelt and we were proud to partn we are proud to partner with the franklin roosevelt library and museum on this evening's discussion. no scholar knows more about this tonight and spent more time examining her papers then the editor of the papers project. and former research professor of history and international affairs at george washington university. professor black is recognized as a leading expert on eleanor roosevelt -- and has written over ten books as well as a variety of politics and humor policy. she's also curated for presidential libraries and

other repositories. she is received awards from three universities to students and her teachings. she currently also serves as senior adviser to former secretary of state hillary rod and clinton. the spark for this evening is a new biography titled simply eleanor. which is now out and people back. this is the perfect biography for our times as well as a story of a determined woman who willed herself to become the voice for the voiceless, a fighter for freedom, and a tribute to the ability of america's true values. this comprehensive biography of eleanor roosevelt filled with new information put razor in all of her glorious and complexities. it is a wonderful read with valuable essence about leadership, partnership, and life. david nikolas is the best selling author of shorts and peanuts, which won the ambassador book award for biography. since we are partnering, this

is a homecoming of sorts as david is a graduate of the academy and has traversed the shores of walden pond in which british regular marched in the 1775. tonight's moderator back to the archives, tom putnam is the former director of the kennedy library, he served as acting director for the office shoal presidential library before he chose to abandon the 20th century by the siren song over former's, transcendentalist's, and revolutionaries. he's a close friend and he is spearheaded this partnership with the national archives and the fdr library. as you may know, the national archives administers a network of presidential libraries from herbert hoover to donald j trump. franklin d. roosevelt library was our first, we now have 15 libraries in total, more than 660 million pages of text records, 640,000 museum

objects. i'd like to express my appreciation to our colleagues at fdr and throughout the presidential library system who worked tirelessly to preserve access to the documents that define us as a people. i was pleased that in david nicklaus's acknowledgment, he calls out, and i quote, roosevelt library supervisor christian carter and her support team including matthew hansen, sara and patrick. he notes that in the stacks of hyde park, roosevelts papers rise 899 cubic feet, more than 1 million documents. the content traversing no fewer than nine ages of world history, from the victorian age to the space age. let me close with these words from this biography. luckily, eleanor result believed in protecting and guaranteeing individual freedom. nothing could have forged a greater trust with her future barack verse, scholars, and

historians then the counterintuitive measure of making her personal and professional papers available for all to study. i thank you all for joining us this evening, as we explore the life and legacy of eleanor roosevelt. with historian illegal black and david nikolas. >> i'm pleased to be sharing this virtual space with an old friend alicia and the new acquaintance david, who until this moment i only knew through written word. first the recent email, and more importantly this wonderful new biography which i really enjoyed reading the past few days. i should note that is still out in paperback. truly no gift would be better saying america smic or new year to your loved ones then this wonderful new biography. reading it, i realized that i have organized a number of forums, ten of them with a leader and others. i've never had the time to

great biographies so i think a leader for that opportunity. i thought for the next 60 minutes we would try to do the same, we are going to skip over large swaths of her life, and parts of the book, including can of the most really interesting personal stories which i fear we couldn't do justice to in the short conversation. but i hope that it picture interest and leaves you wanting more. there is also a possibility that our professional be aired on c-span and i'm hoping that we will -- both of you know a lot about roosevelt and to those of you who maybe it is your first introduction. we will try not to attuned too much information and i will help you fill in the blanks here in there, direct quotes from the biography. david is an artist who paints and i want to share some of his turns of phrase as part of my

questions. lastly, we have selected a few photos from our colleagues at the franklin roosevelt presidential library and museum. since that conversation is going to be organic, as we go through some of those things, they don't match the moments we're talking. we will cover the span of eleanor roosevelt's life. cradle to grave biography. let's begin talking about her childhood, it will be a few images. you quote her in the book as saying quote, i was brought up in a rather peculiar way. in terms of your terms of race, you describe her father who lived and his brother teddy roosevelt shadow as quote, a connoisseurs pleasure in an fulfillment. eleanor became her father's caregiver and quote, showed herself uncannily gifted at responding. that tells us a little bit about, briefly about her

childhood, especially her relationship with her mother and her father. >> the childhood we know that eleanor lived through is a childhood from, a victorian novel or an adventure story about a lost girl, the girl. eleanor was an oddly adult child because her parents were oddly childlike adults. the kind of sort of an fulfillment notion in elliott roosevelt is really that not only he is failing to live up to his brother theodore roosevelt, but they both had a father who was a great philanthropist, a great part of the family. he would be hard to live up to you by anybody. but elliott was falling down very quickly having no real purpose in life. there was no place for him, he wasn't finding a way to prove himself health, he didn't go into politics, there was no war. he was a very uncertain guy.

i personally think he was suffering from all kinds of self medication problems. those turn into alcohol problems quickly. when he married anna, it was a latch dish effort to get himself right. he was determined when he married her to do right, but very quickly they both discovered, both and elmo's parents discovered that they weren't very good at being parents. partly, they don't know anything about it. they also were very concerned in individuals and with -- the whole family, her family, the once powerful and rich in york had fallen down. they were marginalized by their fortunes. she wanted to be an intermediary between the old knickerbockers families. she was in some ways kind of an original model of a diplomat. she was a society lady who is bringing together the old 400 with the new 4000.

she was smart but absolutely dysfunctional mother. she put eleanor under a severe pressure of never living up to her expectations. her father on the other hand, eleanor's father, adored her. however, he was falling down drunk almost from her earliest days. she never stop trying to impress and fulfill his wishes for her as a horse woman, as a hunter, as a woman who was in charge of herself. i think he gave her a sense of roosevelt confidence but he himself was losing fast. it all fell apart very early in her life, she lost in 19 months her mother to diphtheria, an older brother, and older younger brother and then her father to alcoholism. off against the story of her life. >> let's turn to happier times.

there's this chrysalis moments where she becomes, perhaps, she attends the allen school in london and comes under the influence of the head minister who david quote, welcome each new people with the question, large amount given to you but to take things out for yourself. tell us more about her time. islands were schools outside of london. oh, i'm sorry. >> that's okay, that's good. >> if there's one person in her life that i wish i could have met, it would be murray so vest. she was a force of nature, a bolsheviks, a self proclaimed bolsheviks that described herself as a bolsheviks. she challenged eleanor to do one thing that as a historian,

i have tried to emulate, and which i think was the defining thing that eleanor learned in her life. that is, you can never know what do you think until you can argue the opinion of your fiercest critic with equal integrity. but eleanor went to allen's would, she was delighted to be out of a home that she found lonely and scary, as our great friend blanche cook notes. she had locks put on the inside of her bedroom doors. we know that her uncles also had alcoholism problems and loved to take potshots out of the family home. and she only really felt safe when she crawled up in a cherry tree. so allen's would, to her, was the place where she could be eleanor. and she blossomed there in a

way that was truly remarkable. she became the most popular girl in the school. she was elected captain of the field hockey team. eleanor says, the happiest day of my life was when i was elected captain of that team. so she is finally seeing that she has a brain and was free to move and she can have friends in her own right. eleanor had a spark of greatness. she moves eleanor to her dining room table, they have dinner together every night, they argue the great issues of the war. they argue the war, and eleanor writes her friend one night. i finally learned that i have a brain. i have argued the boer war and i have one each time. so how does this help eleanor

become eleanor? eleanor doesn't want to go home. she is elated to be talons would. she is asked to stay during the summers and they say to her, basically, of course you can stay. but you must learn to be independent. you must learn to live on a budget and make your own reservations. you must learn to speak the language of the communities that you visit. and most of all, you must remember that you are a guest in these communities. while you go to the opera and the museums and the stores and the fine restaurants, you owe have a duty to volunteer in hospitals. you must volunteer in settlement communities. you must learn to see the cities and all of their complexity and wholeness. eleanor revels in this. she is there so much because of

this. she wants to stay and teach there. she wants to teach history and civics, and english literature talons would. she becomes president and needs to make homemaker debut, which she doesn't want to do. she says to her, of course you must go home, you are a wrote roosevelt. she carries this with her for the next 50 years. madam kiss cells picture is in eleanor's bedroom in every residence she has. the letter basically says, of course he must go home and be a roosevelt. your uncle is in the white house, you have family responsibilities. but also remember, first and foremost, you are my eleanor. and you can make your own way in this world.

>> you have this lovely image. when she is leaving new york, she wants to go. eleanor isn't able to see the statue of liberty when they leave new york harbor. she wrote that she learned more about herself and she had ever known under the two diligent the mighty figure. she brings her back to the united states. >> i think alito really did it beautifully. i would just add that i think i would open up a part of eleanor that we have to remember that education at the time with thought to be hazardous to women's health. you must learn to argue even a

controversial point of view. i think there is also a scene on a train. there is one holiday where eleanor can't go home, and marie sylvester realizes that her great friend, the novelist, is living on the town. she decides they are going to get on the train. suddenly, marie sues at has things going out the window. they are off the train, eleanor's sense of spontaneity, which was so crushed by the expectations of edward ian women was suddenly opened up. she took home to america and odd thing that she noticed in her settlement work. she wanted to see italy with her own eyes and was sent down by madam sues at and walked the streets alone.

this was unheard of, to walk the streets alone at the age of 18, 19. they were living in the home of an artist. that was unheard of. she was talking with the artist about his representation of the christ figure. she was doing critical thinking. she was doing what she was doing, which was this horrible process in for coming out. fortunately, the junior league just and had but begun its own participation in the settlement movement. this was a movement that had begun in -- the idea was essentially you make yourself a friend of the community. it was essentially college kids. the leagues were pretty advanced. they were embedding themselves

in communities. in eleanor's case, it was down to ribbon street. down to lower east side manhattan twice a week. it was an untold liberty. it was scary, and one of the things she noticed. she taught young italian children how to move in calisthenics class. she knew that what she had to do is get them away from their italian mothers long enough to listen to an american voice. they were incredibly protective of their young daughters, especially. she brought cousin franklin roosevelt down to the lower east side to see what it looked like when you brought someone

back to their tenement building. how could people live like this? it was absolutely crucial to his understanding that there was another way. this was not a philanthropy or club activity, this was the real stuff. she took to it in a way that you don't see the others in her peer group at the time. but she had to do these things. this was her first glimpse of what pluralist democracy looks like in a world where only corrupt politicians were in charge. >> explain for me again. she wasn't a supporter of women's suffrage.

i learned this in an exhibit we have on the 19th amendment. what was going on there? >> well, i would like to piggyback on what david said. that is a way to answer that, if we could, tom. one of the things that eleanor learns in the settlement world is to not act like her friends, who thought if they put a picture on the wall, life would be better. and the reason she learns this is shea becomes involved with immigrant union organizers. and they take her under their wing, both covertly during this time, and overtly later. to really show her the horrors of the triangle shirt waste factory fire, the horrors of the tenants where there are feces in stairwells.

where you have to step over buckets of urine in order to enter peoples rooms. who's rotting food and human waste was thrown outside the windows into the street. so, she sees disease, she sees them, she sees women literally changed to sewing machines. her whole focus is on protective worker legislation. her energy will begin in ribbon can street for her lifelong commitment to the living wage, her lifelong commitment to what we will call the fair labor standards act. her lifelong commitment to welcoming immigrants in ways

that value their own cultures while trying to expose them to democracy. against that backdrop, suffrage is not a priority. her priority is sanitation, her priority is the living wage. her priority is food. her priority are clean places to live and public education. she does not embrace the subject, the suffrage movement, because she is committed to progressive reform. that does not mean that she was opposed to suffrage. it just means she didn't prioritize it. and then once fdr he was campaigning to be vice president, he thinks, oh my god i have come up for suffrage, then she will move in that direction to support him and then dedicate her enormous

organizing talents to organizing new states precinct by precinct in a way that it had never been done before. so much so that war buffs, chicago, richard who become mayor, he said his staff to look at how eleanor roosevelt organize the state. >> again, i visit us to this. she just brought up franklin roosevelt. you have a lovely line that she saw her marriage as an opportunity to quote, manage the bad story of her parents. from now on, wrote, eleanor orthodox goodness was my ideal and ambition. talk about her meeting franklin roosevelt and their marriage, what their marriage was like. >> franklin was your fifth

cousin and they met on a train one summer day on a train going upriver. he in high park and she drew her grandmother's house. atlanta has already referenced, there were blocks on the inside of her door to protect her from her uncles who had once been charming young men around town, tennis champions and so forth, now predatory alcoholics who were dangerous and scary. eleanor's life, even her grandmother's house, in town as well where she lived in her coming out period and just after. at the time she met franklin, it was chaos. it was pure chaos, it was not knowing where she lived, not knowing what her future would be, where she was even going to go. franklin's life is settled and solid, it was backed by a mother who had created a couple

that eleanor attached to in a sense. they were, i think of them as a contact because franklin was an oddball. eleanor was odd in that she was left out. i think of her as being ghosted by the roosevelts. her own family was discontinued as one of her cousin said. there was no mother, there was no father, it was the younger brother on whom she doubted and took a parental role to the point where she, when hall went out the boy school, she was a parent who went off and presented herself on parents weekend. other than that, eleanor had no center in her life in terms of family. franklin was not just the center, he was a -- off of him came off a certainty, a confidence, a belief in himself that had been borne out of a hudson valley childhood in which he was the sort child, the sole heir to james

roosevelt, and sarah roosevelt. he was as much in his mother's eyes -- which meant that he had a certain, there is always gonna be a delanor in her life. franklin was always gonna be his mother's life. eleanor had a place in it, but tangentially. i think she understood franklin as being an odd duck because he had not been popular among his peers. she saw him as something of an outsider. she also saw him as a little like her father. he was charming, he was lovely, and he made the world a happy place for her when they were finally, not secretly engaged, but truly engaged. they married on st. patrick's day and teddy roosevelt, uncle ted, the president of the united states came to new york on various missions and to speak to societies and so forth. he gave eleanor to franklin in

a old fascist travel wedding. the irish traded outside and the old knickerbockers families, the roosevelts, we're still very much a part of -- all gathered under this double sided mention of one of eleanor's cousins. they were a power couple, seemingly. i think franklin, it is really important remember, she was the needs of the president of the united states. a president and a figure that he advised, as did so many men, young men of his generation. theodore roosevelt was not just the president, he was something new in the world. he had a worldview, a global view of america and its participation in the far east, in south america, in so many ways never going to get us into terrible trouble as a country. theodore roosevelt was shaping a ruled that franklin roosevelt very much wanted to be a part

of and want to emulate, to mimic. i think marrying eleanor was a fast ticket for a guy who eleanor side appeared at one of theodore's inaugurations, was marked down in these paper as franklin b roosevelt. no one really knew who this young cousin was firm up river. eleanor was, along with alice roosevelt, cousin theodore's oldest daughter, for better known. when they got together, their honeymoon, long story to go into but simply to say, it was right out of a, if discovering that he had married -- it was a citizen cane moment for franklin. now my destiny will be fulfilled. in coming down with hives on their honeymoon, doing what he wanted to do, not so much what they wanted to do, dominating her in a certain kind of way that was to say, i'm going to do what i want to do and you

will follow me. it suggested that they were not as well matched as they might have seemed to people. in fact, he was gonna be a marriage of on fulfillment. i think they discovered it to both of their shocks on the honeymoon, they pretty quickly began to appear. it was clear that their marriage was going to be a complicated relationship which was dominated by his mother and by the old expectations, the old world's. both of them generally have a place in it, both wanted to emerge from it quickly. >> let me stick with you, i'll give you a couple of quotes and maybe you can tell -- you can quickly tell the lucy mercer story. you're right, similar to what you are saying, as a couple they were foiled, eleanor, an old woman with an eternally young man. he endured intensity and she endured his pranks.

for franklin, the principally boyish world was a source of entitlement his whole life. he was not intentionally unkind, but he could be cold, he was often cruel. she is addicted to frankness that would plays headlines across the nation. he wrote, her husband's first instinct was to tell that he was a bender of fact, some shakiness that he believed no one would catch on. maybe just briefly tell that she does catch on, what does she discovers about lucy mercer? >> lucy mercer was a young woman in washington from a similar background, and alcoholic father and a very social mother. they too had fallen down, lucy guy job with eleanor as eleanor's personal secretary. eleanor and master the trade of political life.

choose extremely good at sorting out all of the different washington games and functions -- she was about the fifth most powerful in the under cabinet and it was an important spot as assistant secretary of the navy. owner was very much in charge of what she was doing, she did very well. there was also overwhelming. as another child was on the way in 1914, as she was pregnant in 1950, lucy came into the household and almost immediately franklin lost his holder. it was a relationship that took place over a number of years and we can see it in 1917 as the united states is in the war and franklin is consumed with war and the navy department. as eleanor's herself now about to be consumed in her own contribution in education from the war in the red cross army canteen. lucy mercer and franklin had a

relationship, a love affair that eleanor discovered by accident when franklin returned from europe from a navy department trip to the front. he was suffering from symptoms of a flu, spanish flu. from the troop ship he was on. his luggage was a partial, we don't know quite know how many or what it looks like but some number of letters she came across in his suitcase that was made quite clear that he had, that she had, whose ian franklin had both lost their parts to one each other. a new relationship was going to have to be forged if eleanor and franklin were going to move forward. fdr could not have gotten divorced and kept his standing as the politician. lucy mercer was not the iron frame in which to stretch his life. his mother made this very clear

to him. i think he knew this anyway. it took elementary stand up to the mom. lucy mercer would've been a divorced, would've been marrying -- marrying a catholic. it was not something that was going to work in the politics of the democratic party at the time. although franklin did run as soon as 1920, he ran with a divorced candidate, mr. cox. if fdr was to be who he was to be with eleanor, eleanor had to be a part of his life, and he knew that. his mother knew this, his mother was absolutely not in favor of a divorce. she was very much in favor of eleanor and i think they both formed at the time, eleanor and her mother, a bond that sorted out certain things about how the relationships was going to move forward. losing frankly never stops in each other and when she returns

in the story, i don't think significantly and i'm very -- my sense is that polio itself and the rearrangement of their lives after polio is far more important than the ridge ranger and of their life post-lucy mercer. >> a lovely quote in the book, david says, middle resentment can have the effect of appearing selfish. frank and eleanor turned outward, the more disappointed they work by each other the more readily they took on the problems of the world. if you want to respond to what david just said and maybe you can talk your focus on the problems of the world, -- >> i think david is an extraordinary writer. i think he is put his heart and soul into this book. i think we should all read the book. this is my third conversation with david where i have beat

the desk saying, go buy the book. i have to say, there is some major disagreements that i have with david. and one of them, one of the major ones is that franklin a was ready to do anything when he got married. he was a dandy boy. this is a man who was mobbed by politicians. this was a man who couldn't even give a coherent political campaign speech. eleanor had more of an engaged, active career that franklin did. so eleanor, i think david and i totally agree on is that to define eleanor roosevelt by lucy mercer is to define i

don't know, a christmas tree by the branch. i mean, it is not there. what happened, i think, is that eleanor loved being in washington, not because of the social duties, she hated that, that's why she hired lucy. what's she liked about washington was being able to work with the organizations, not the junior league, but the international working women's lead. the international committee's -- what's she end up doing was learning how to manage the household, how to welcome politicians at home in harmony. how to welcome wheeler's and dealers in washington by not leading the conversations. otherwise, eleanor stayed. by the time lucy hits, eleanor

feels betrayed, not just because franklin's her husband, but that she has sacrificed so much of her independents to try to make this work. so when they come back together, i think it takes remarkable maturity to pull this off. for parents and teachers, i look at the roosevelt marriage at this point as a venn diagram. they have their separate lives, and then they have the time they are in the middle, what is in the middle is bad velcro with superglue on it. the marriage disintegrates when that velcro in the middle

collapses. there are two things that you that i think. first of all, is when louis dies in 1935. he is absolutely correct. the second thing that really rips it apart is harry hopkins, who eleanor brought into the white house, who really supported when fdr turned on him and when hicks turns on him. when the war comes and hawkins says goodbye to the new deal, and becomes the associate press, assistant press to be fdr, there is no center. they began to figure out how to live distinctly separate lives in the same institution. one point i think that is very important and david makes this point, blanche makes this point,

i make this point. after polio the roosevelts never spent more than six months a year together. they are always apart than they are together. she is traveling, he is traveling. so they figure out how to coexist in a way that gives them the space to become the people they have become. i think that is, i don't know the word for it, the most immense contribution to america in its most perilous time that i can think of. imagine the great depression without eleanor roosevelt. imagine world war ii without eleanor roosevelt. without eleanor, there would not have been fdr in the white house. >> we are running short on time.

you talk about the white house years, especially in her public role. i'm gonna have a leader talk about the post presidential years. david, give us a word or two about what she meant to the country during those years in the white house and how she communicated. and and>> i'm going to quote ap because she said something quite wonderful but win in the white house which is the white house needs women. eleanor after the white house, after eleanor the white house was never the same for women. women were a part of a -- eleanor was a proxy, she was a proxy for people where people came to the president, eleanor came to you. i think one of the most important thing she did right away was that she made the first lady a mobile, separate part of the institution. her -- if you are in the middle of this country in june of 1933

and liked -- you heard overhead a plane, you looked up and you saw that in that little wing it machine, the first lady of the united states was going to california, that was a little glimmer of hope. something was going right, things might work out after all. who was she anyway? eleanor brought herself to people, she also brought out of people something that i think you saw in figures like muhammad ali, in figures like perhaps mahatma gandhi. you see somebody who is bringing people, people wanted to be the best selves around her. when she saw them connected, they were on best behavior, but also she brought out of them the feeling that they could be something, not just her but to their communities, to their country. i think eleanor also, in her size and in her easy way that

she had finally with people, having gotten out of her own shyness, having brought her voice which we think of as being behind fluidity. was actually quite modulated when she was close off with people. she brought people into a feeling of, of closeness to something that was, for that moment, our duly foreign or something enormous. she brought down to size, she was as much of mainstream as she was of the white house. i think this is something that you don't see again for a long, long time in first lady dumb. she also make sure that people understood that they did have a voice in washington and she did bring -- she was literally practical, pragmatic. her uncle had given a sense of a government as a pragmatic place. she and franklin in their separateness could be disinterested, they could be pragmatic. they try things, they experiment.

they were willing to try again, and again, and again. it didn't fit that, let's look at the problem. there was a continuous nurse in her that people often criticize eleanor for not having followed through, or not coming to conclusions. i found it difficult myself thinking, i'm to bring this to a conclusion. well, sometimes she didn't bring things to a conclusion, she did move on to the next thing. that motion, that sense of fort motion of continuous optimism, of hope, pragmatism, and challenging the slow walking of everything in washington made her, even the way she walked in the white house. the rapidity, the movement, and the continuous-ness, you really get a sense of how fluid she made this previously utterly paralytic job. that's exactly what she wasn't doing most of the time. so, i think what eleanor did

was she created an entirely new version of a woman, of a first lady and of the presidents wife. we think now of the first lady, it is a tradition now that she has one cause. michelle obama has this, mrs. bush has literacy. michelle obama had magician. eleanor was holistic. she was not, she was an equal opportunity first lady. she had many constituents and constituencies and causes. above and beyond that, she also had a voice that was a real voice with real opinions. her column, my day, was extraordinary in that way. a syndicated news calling, a newspaper column, no first lady had ever done anything like that. in 1935 under her death, she connected to people as a neighbor, as a concerned citizen, as a friend, as first

lady. a voice that was so familiar it would be a voice that you would want to respond to, want to do something, want to contribute. she had a continuous mess in writing and in her voice, in her appearances in the newsreel. you saw so much more of the first lady, you heard her, you felt her presence in ways that didn't repeat itself for years. >> once you talk about the white house years. there's a quote here from david, just a starlet douglas said, -- eleanor told whom he was wrong. she was his antenna, and i know she usually followed his advice. fdr had complete faith in her judgment and her ability. er omaybe a few words about eler and the white house. >> well, i think a lot of people talk about her, they don't talk about her understanding her policy and how to get it through.

if you look at some of the landmark pieces of legislation that came out of the white house. especially, well in the two sections of the new deal. in the first 100 days, fdr pits the economy act forward and it fires on for women who are employed -- in the same paper, side by side, her husband, he is wrong. he backs down, the women get their jobs back. their problems with the social security act. eleanor goes in behind the scenes and take teams with francis perkins to get part of the social security act through. if you look at the national youth administration, which is the first form of americore'd, this is totally eleanor and

buffoon. if you look at women in the cc sea camp, that is buffoon. if you look at the federal theater project, the federal dance project, the whole wall of government in preserving people's voices and art combatting fear, that is totally eleanor roosevelt. if you look behind the scenes to organize democratic senators who were very leery. the affair wage and standards act, gave us minimum wages and maximum hours. eleanor is heavily involved in that. when there is the major debate over the world court, should the united states be involved in the world court? who does the white house and out to debate the two republican senators against? it eleanor roosevelt. and she had her own career, was such a successful journalist, not just my day, but monthly

syndicated columns, book contracts, her first book is march 1933. it is up to the women. by the end of her time in the white house, who are publications are paying her more money than fdr makes as president. >> let me bring up the slide of fdr in his last days. david, maybe can briefly tell a story of her role. >> fdr died in april 12th 1945, with a cerebral hemorrhage. he was posing as a portrait painted by women -- with him was his cousin and lucy mercer, from athens, south carolina. she had been here in his later white house years as he grew

sick and as his life was coming to a close as the war itself was dragging on. fdr found some solace or some enjoyment and pleasure in -- eleanor and franklin's daughter. i don't see an enormous, i don't see enormous significance in the fact that lucy was there and eleanor wasn't. eleanor was doing her own work. she was part of an entire, she's probably the most important of the roosevelt administration at that moment in terms of recognizing how things were about to go with the creation of what eleanor had dreamed of, the united nations. almost everything at that point. her main contribution i think to the country at this moment, which was a moment of terrible trauma. people losing the president of

12 years, losing the president, their war leader. they were losing a figure, a primitive, a primal sense of loss father, a chief commander. people were rocked to the core. eleanor stepped forward and made a very firm and clear statement about how the country was going to move forward. one of the first thing she did when she saw harry truman, who was summoned, she herself was brought back from a top she was given and sense whatsapp me. she was told the president was dead, she was in washington. she came back to the white house and harry truman was summoned from the senate. he walked in and came upstairs, there was mrs. roosevelt. there was anna roosevelt, and several of roosevelt's systems and so forth. she stepped forward and the

president is dead. harry truman looked at eleanor roosevelt and said, mrs. roosevelt, what can we do for you? she said, harry what can we do for you? you are the one who is now in trouble. i think in the transfer from that moment forward for next few days when she got out of the white house in record time, everything she did was for harry truman as president of the united states. one of the more unlikely presidents ever to step into the job. he was sworn in that afternoon. but that time eleanor was on her way to palm springs. i want to say very quickly, she had buried dozens of roosevelt's. she was practically the family undertaker. eleanor had been called upon from her earliest days to bury her relatives. she was constantly visiting funeral -- visiting cemeteries and making sure gravestones were properly placed and so forth.

she was as pragmatic and as realistic about the event of someone's death. she also felt very strongly that what was most important now was carrying forward her husband's legacy. also, the transfer of power to harry truman which was, as i said, unlikely. it was as much, it was as important as anything to do with the memory of franklin roosevelt himself, a moralizing franklin. she did an extraordinary job with this, a dignified job with it. his funeral, which she sought from dhaka to washington and into the white house, then on to hyde park and rose garden. she created a figure of dignity and a figure of lasting courage that people remembered and spoke about for years. >> we are getting to the last minutes, which is too bad

because i know there's so much to talk about, the whole presidential period and white house years. david, i thought it was one of the best parts of the book. alicia, tell us the role that she plays in a world, a states woman. >> briefly put, the last letter that she writes when she is leaving the white house ends with this. for those of us who have lived in franklin shadow, moments come where you must wonder what we can achieve under our own momentum. within two weeks people have asked her to the secretary of labor, one for the governor of new york. they had the most preeminent private college in the united states run what would be the first major liberal political pact. to be a political director of the union.

she says, know that she wants to speak with her own voice. in december, truman calls her to appoint her to that united nations because she has become his major critic. he appoints her to the un to get her out of the country because he is not -- he is basically clueless on wage and price and rent controls. she turns him down. her son and her secretary basically say, are you flipping kidding me? you have been in war zones twice, you have spent five weeks in the pacific. you flew on on fresh aircraft and blew out your eardrums. you have lost the -- you know all the major leaders of the world and you are not going to take this flipping job? she calls him back, she takes

it, she goes over there. arthur and the boys, as she calls them, she is the only woman on the delegation, appointed her to committee three. the appointment on cultural concerns. thinking that you won't cause any trouble there because there are concerned with the bomb. they have totally forgotten about refugees, refugees becomes the major issue in the first session of the general assembly. eleanor becomes the point person on that and debates the great russian debater. so and then is unanimously appointed by the entire body of the un, all 51 nations to chair but will become the human commission on human life. the united states opposed but had to be convinced to support her. out of that comes, with her

negotiation, the single most important political document of the post war era which is that universal declaration of human rights. why do i make that claim? it is used as the model for more constitutions and more state governors, her own beloved rights. it has been used in every single piece of reconciliation. civil war negotiation of the past 40 years was used in iraq, it was used in afghanistan, it was used in pakistan, liberia, brazil, peru. in it, although it is the last article that is negotiated out of the 30, the article that has been adopted into international law, even by the conservative

united states supreme court. that is article one. all human beings are born equal and dignity ended and rights. they are endowed with reason and should treat one another in the spirit of brotherhood. as i look at my watch, i have a minute so i'll try, honest to god, to tell the story in a minute. it takes her three years, more than 300 meetings that last more than 30,000 hours. she meets with every member, every employee, diplomat, clear service, and janitorial, and food service in the un to get their buy-in to this document. in order to negotiate it she had to work with members of 18 countries who don't agree on government, marriage, childhood, private property, the right to

travel, with the purpose of citizenship is. they agree on nothing. other than by god, they will beat the germans. if the countries didn't like the delegates, they would send somebody else. it was musical chairs on who is going to negotiate this. at the 11th hour, she gets this, article one. that is the first time in the history of the world that men, women, and children of all races, all regions, all ethnicities, all religions are treated equally in a covenant. she also makes a faithful decision because she wants this to be legal and binding, she works on a bill but she realizes that is not going to happen.

she said the greatest thing, she says -- what we have to have is we have to have a vision for the world to hold, to be a counter force to the holocaust, the bomb, 60 million refugees, and jim crow in the united states. that decision worked because it takes more than 25 years to get the covenants, civil rights, social economic and cultural rights. the declaration is there informing governments and building movements. >> david mentioned she received a standing ovation when she walked into the general assembly on december 10th 1948. >> the first standing ovation in the history of the united nations. let me just say one thing about her ability to negotiate.

she treats the soviets, even though she is just -- there is no word to describe it, other than that. even in my day, which is now syndicated throughout europe, she is taking on the russians in her column as she is negotiating with them. but, they say who she is. she understands how to negotiate with him and she convinces the soviet bloc to abstain. not to oppose, but to abstain. that is a mark of fierce, fierce negotiations. forget diplomacy, this is power politics to the and degree. >> but see the last slides, i want to set you up david to tell a more personal story. we just have a couple of slides of roosevelt in her later years.

she is the titular head of the democratic party. she endorses adelaide stevenson in the 50s. begrudgingly endorses john f. kennedy because he's a little worried that he dodged a vote. here she is actually with jfk on the set of a program called prospects of mankind, a monthly tv program. it was shown on w gba. to the next slide, alison. an interesting slide, a cartoon that david mentions in the book. a young boy saying, of course i know who that is, it is mrs. roosevelt, pointing at the statue of liberty. >> can i say one thing about that cartoon? first of all, it's a little girl, not a little boy. and the second thing is, this was released the day after

eleanor says to joe mccarthy, if you want to call me i'll come. that is why she does this cartoon. it is not a sakran, sweet, eleanor cartoon. it is like, you want me to go to congress and defend, stand up to joe mccarthy when not one democrat will? when jack kennedy runs away, call me, welcome. that's what that cartoon is. that cartoon was at the top of her stairwell in her home and she saw it every night. she understood exactly what that meant. >> thank you for explaining. now go back to the jfk, this is roosevelt. david you pick this up.

>> i thought we were going to be in the white house with president kennedy announcing the peace corps, prospects of mankind. we are actually in london and mrs. roosevelt in the center, on the right is paul, one of the producers. on the left is my mother who is one of the producers of prospects of mankind. notably, the only woman here. there is burton russell behind. this is a typical day on the set. they happen to be in england for this particular broadcast. mother spoke frequently when i was a child about eleanor and i think one of the reasons eleanor roosevelt was an enormous presence in my household, i kind of thought actually we were related to her in some way. although of course, so did david given and other people who had mrs. roosevelt icons on

their kitchen hanging where their mothers and grandmothers hung out. the thing that was important to me about writing about eleanor roosevelt and looking at eleanor roosevelt, listening to leaders describe the true history of eleanor roosevelt, and everybody by the way to the works of illegal black because you are missing something, if you have not included those in the syllabus. the important thing here is that we all thought. we all thought we understood american history we all know that we didn't. we are now rewriting history. eleanor roosevelt wanted to expand democracy to include more people, she wanted my mother on this program. she won a woman on this program. we did not have an inclusive multi racial democracy during the eleanor roosevelt 78 of -- from 1884 to 1962.

until she was 36 years old, america's democratic institutions worked only four white males. almost all the power was held by rich, white men. owner did not even live to see the voting rights act of 1954. she did not live to see the united states outlaw violence in the qing. but what we are listening and hearing today and why eleanor speaks to us today is about this fight we are now engaged in, another fight for the survival of democracy and it is about not just that, it is about the vote which is the central one. but about gender equity, about patriotism, with that is. about america's place in that international world. eleanor still stands for what she stood for than, that fearlessness, compassion, service, dedication, hard work, i think what she stands for even more is the idea of change and of accepting and reaching

for change continuously and fearlessly. this is why i think we're gonna keep hearing the story told again and again. the suggestion that you could fit her into an hour is insane, there is so much more and i commend you back to the works of a lead of black. i also commend people to understanding eleanor in and of herself really as a person, not just simply as a political figure. she has so much to give us. >> and we end with an eleanor quote? >> yes, we can. but lots -- >> of, oh my suitcase! sorry. >> we'll go for another two or three minutes. >> okay. >> we're giving an endorsement to one of our cosponsors, franklin d. roosevelt.

and there's this lovely picture of mr. roosevelt that's well-known. i remember turning a corner, and when you actually see the picture, this is how it's displayed at the fdr library and museum. it's wonderful institution, or david and elite i have both spent hours doing research -- >> and i'm a trustee. i just want to say it's holy ground. we'll leave it with that. but this picture was taken in 1960 on a tarmac in liberty, after eleanor had basically -- john kennedy into coming civil rights gathering at a baptist church in harlem, which is where he says that he will abolish discrimination with one stroke of a pen. she traveled with secret service. she carried her own luggage.

that's her suitcase that she gave to maureen, her great secretary, when eleanor died. eleanor goes, the suitcase goes with her to chicago, where she spends almost six days in and out of black churches and labor halls. jack kennedy becomes president, because he winds illinois by 220 something thousand votes. he was behind when eleanor went to chicago, because nixon had a better civil rights record. he won chicago by the black vote. and the labor vote that eleanor receives, because bobby went after hop up, and jack voted to weaken the civil rights act. so this suitcase encapsulates

everything. but what she would say to -- >> here's your quote. >> okay, because this is what david is saying. it's, democracy is only as strong as its weakest link. >> yeah. >> and the last senate she ever wrote, not for publication, was this. staying aloof is not a solution. it is a cowardly evasion. >> very nice. david, you have the final word, and i'll close this up. >> i strongly recommend that everyone, if they ever have the chance, visit the rose garden, or franklin and eleanor roosevelt by interest. it's a shocker to find eleanor roosevelt their, and her mother's garden, and yet, there's something quite lovely and wonderful about seeing them

both together there forever. i've never failed to walk into the rose garden without being terribly moved by these two purposeful lives that were joined, i think, in a sense, unlike any other couple i can think of in a shared idea about the people, and about doing things for the people, and for the people, and with every sense that i commonplace solution could be found, or some kind of solution could be found to help people build better lives in america and therefore, build a better america. but primarily, to help people build better lives. that's the exceptional, i think, what's exceptional about the results. an american exceptionalism, it's about their consideration of human individuals as individuals, but also as the people. >> here is a more personal quote.

you have to accept whatever comes, and the only important thing is that you meet with courage and with the best that you have to give. and david, alicia, you gave the best you had to give tonight. thank you for sharing an hour with us. we thank all of you who have been watching this and virtual form, and we wish you all look at night. >> here's a portion. >> this is a sweet. and represents the blue furnitures. james monroe, who had been our minister to france, returns to the white house as the first president after the -- 1870. he brings with him this extraordinary 53 piece suite of furniture from the french cabinet maker, and it is there, in the white house, it was originally about color, not a

blue color. overtime, it becomes warren and out of fashion. by the time the buchanan presidency comes around, i think it's been whittled down to one piece of the 53. this is tragic. this was the time before the kennedy presidency, when there was no collection. and i don't come into the white house for one president. the next president come along, and it would go away. there was nothing that requires that to stay in the white house collection. that changed with the kennedys and the johnson's. but at this point, this beautiful 53 piece set of furniture comes in for buchanan, and is gone except for one piece. -- and if you have to claim as many pieces as she could. we worked with her on that, and other first ladies since. to this day, i believe there are ten regional pieces now in the white house collection. is that right? 11? 11 pieces in the collection, including that table and the fire screen you see there is the most recent.

if you'd seen that when it was acquired, you wouldn't have looked at it twice. it looks like a piece of junk that had been in the trash somewhere. it's been extraordinarily restored, and this entire suite, thanks to melissa's leadership, the entire team that they put together to restore this furniture back to its original state, it is exquisite and spectacular. >> watch the full program anytime online at c-span dot org slash history. american history tv. saturdays on c-span two. exploring the people and events that tell the american story. at 10 am eastern, grammy award winner and public enemy cofounder chuck d. talks about the music of social change and his songs that shook the planet project. and at 2 pm, on the presidency, will feature a profile of former first lady pat nixon, with scholars looking at mrs.