Hawaii. By tomorrow morning, the members of congress will have a full report, and be ready for action. And youve been listening to some of onerous votes radio address hours after the attack on pearl harbor in 1941. In fact, she gave that address before her husband, fdr, even spoke to the nation. For the next two hours, we are going to get to know this transformational first lady. Shes consistently ranked first in historians polls on first ladies. And we are going to look at her life, her relationships, and her time in the white house from 1933 to 1945. Well, good evening and welcome to cspans first ladies influence and image series. Joining us this evening to talk about owners about, allida black, who is the editor of the unnerves votes paper project at George Washington university, and a historian. Another historian, Doug Brinkley, whos also an author from rice university. Thank you both for being here with us this evening. Doug brinkley, its march 1933, the roosevelts are being inaugurated, the entered the white house. What are they walking into . What was the country like . Well, fdr didnt get to walk in. He came in on a wheelchair. The very fact that somebody was crippled from in the lower half, said we have nothing to fear but fear itself, and thats, perhaps, the most famous phrase out of any inauguration. And what people were hearing was unemployment, chaos, hoovervilles, agricultural anguished, topsoil had blown all over, dust bowls, the october 1929 crash of the stock market. So, our country was really in tatters. And there is Franklin Roosevelt, this man who is overcome such odds in his personal life, overcoming polio and being sidelined from politics, now ushering in a new progressive era and offering 100 days of the new deal programs right off the bat, what people call the alphabet soup of the new deal, trying to get banks to run properly, starting a civilian conservation corps that would plant two billion trees, starting to create you know the wpa at workers progress, get unemployment backup, jobs, jobs, jobs. A little black, in that first hundred days, what was eleanor was about doing and how did she define her role . Eleanor struggled to define her role because she was exceedingly active before she went into the white house. She was a party operative. She edited basically all of the National Democratic publications. As well as a new york state publications, covertly. She was on the board of labor union. Shes on the board of social reform organizations. She taught civics, history, literature, at a girl school. She was a Major Political force in her own right. So much so, that during the campaign, all of the major newspapers and United States would run full page stories on her own political career, and her own ambitions. That, when she comes into the white house, fdr says, you have to resign or your positions, you have to stay really, and be the traditional first lady. She tells a friend that the thought of living in the white house fills her with the greatest sense possible dread that, you know, that the white house eats women, that she fears a lifetime of white glove tests, you know . Where she is running her gloves down banister, to see if the dust has been taken off. And so, she says to fdr, let me help you with your mail. He says no. She says, well, let me help you with your calendar. He says no. So, shes like, well let me go out to be your eyes and ears, he says no. So, shes in the white house, desolate, just saying, you know, she loves her husband, she wants him to be happy, we but what has happened to my life . What has happened to my heart one independents . And so, literally, from the first day shes in the white house, shes trying to figure out how to resurrect her own voice in a way that will give her the tattooed she needs to be herself, while at the same time, not undercut her husbands agenda. Very quickly, Doug Brinkley, what were some of the issues that she got involved with. Oh, well, shes the great first lady as harry truman said, the first lady of the world. But she afraid she hated. Hated, yeah. Civil rights. She got involved with getting African Americans more equal rights, working in West Virginia with coal miners, and the working people of america. The forgotten people, the down trodden, and also, which im sure we will talk about a lot, womens issues, getting women into the forefront of american political life. She had no role model as first lady. She created this roll on her own, which is theres really nobody quite like. Or as he or she is in 1933, on the radio, talking to women about their need to volunteer. If that women are willing to do things because its going to help their neighbors, i think well win out, well win out not because of a government, not even because of our leaders, but because, as a people, weve had a vision and weve worked for it and weve seen it through. Allida black, she spent a a lot of time on the radio. Absolutely, she did. She was on the radio before fdr, she had her own radio show, she will have become her own syndicated columnist in 1935, beginning 1936. By the end of her life, shell right over 8000 columns, more than 500 articles, more than 27 books, gives 75 speeches a year, and write an average of 150 letters a day, all without a ghost writer. But if i could go back and piggyback on dug for a little bit, i mean, eleanor hit the ground running on policy in ways that we dont really think about. I mean, eleanor doesnt hit the ground on race. Eleanor doesnt hit the ground on education. Eleanor hits the ground on employment first. The second day of the roosevelt administration, the day i mean, im sorry, the day after fdr closes the banks, he sends the economy act to congress, which is going to cut federal employment by 25 , right . People are freaking out. The Unemployment Rate the official on obliterate is 25 . Anybody with a brain over squashed p will know that its really about 40, because its the first time that weve really started taking the Unemployment Rate, and it doesnt take into account the 20 years that depression has hit the south and the west. And so, to take 25 of the federal payroll out in the middle of the depression, and to say, to federally employed women, that you are going to lose your job if youre married to a federally employed man, eleanor hits the roof. And she issues, in this first week of her husbands presidency, her own opinion piece, saying this legislation is wrong. And so, fdr and fdr and eleanor have dueling editorials in the paper, dueling editorials in all of the Democratic Party press over the injustice of this act, and she does win out, which is why shes so intense about women in that speech. True, but its something that fdr and the white house staff doesnt like, and Eleanor Roosevelt is very, very cognizant that you just cant be on wrong message with your husband all the time, that you are going to find common ground. Otherwise, you are going to create just a shambles of things. And she did a marvelous job of kind of holding her own, writing letters to herald achilles at interior, harry options she was close with. But trying to say, will you look into this one case for me . And so, she handled, i think, very well, but shes mentioned the one time they caught a bit of a crossed wire early out of the gate, but she fell in line well. I think we could give the program good friends who respect each other can disagree. I will argue that fdr knew that she was going to do this. The correspondence shows that. And so, what they were trying to do is to bring this issue front and center, you know, and by support and curtail some of the backlash. I mean, that same day, fdr feeds her information about 3. 2 beer being served in the white house right after prohibition, right there in the white house. And so, he feeds this to eleanor in her own press conferences to release this. So, they coordinate. You know, and they and when they go at each other, they go at each other deliberately to get the country engaged, i think. So, before we and the snapshot, and go back and look at ellen a response life, at what point did fdr and his inner circle learn to use her as his eyes and ears and as an asset . Well, i dont think its just a one day or a one particular point. It depends on who it was. I think smart people like Harry Hopkins knew that she was important, and she had the president s ear, and that what she said mattered. Same week with ickes, who i mentioned before. She represented the liberal wing of the new deal. Fdr had to win over southern democrat conservatives. Fdr was very scared on issues of race during his presidency, because he had to run for reelection, was worried about things owners about really pioneered in an ability to people to be with African Americans, talk to them, be in photo ops, and in that way, youre right, she helped fdr in a lot, and theyre working in unity, but she was a force to be reckoned with. Wherever she went, i think of it and world war ii, when she got to go to europe, and went to london, and britain, and everybody just love seeing her. And then she went to the pacific, we and bowl the just said we had never had somebody who was so beloved by the troops quite like her before. She became an ambassador for the president , and whenever she would just walk in, there was a new yorker cartoon that was famous of showing a coal miner we underground and saying whats Eleanor Roosevelt doing here . Many ways a stalking horse for some of his policies, putting up trial balloons and things of that nature. Well, i would disagree. I would say that the reason that eleanor, for example, got to go to the pacific, because she had been arguing to go to the pacific for several years, because she wanted to cover the pacific the way that we ernie pyle had covered all of the military that was fighting in the atlantic. And the kept turning her down because holesy didnt want her to go. He will later say that his biggest mistake in the war. Henry in his diary rights they turned her down in europe because she wanted to go the red cross there, and if you kidnapped Eleanor Roosevelt, its a disaster. So, you dont we dont want to exaggerate Eleanor Roosevelt here. I do want to say just the one thing, since doug brought up the trip to the pacific. Its very clear on. This Henry Wallace writes in his diary, that mrs. R finally gets to go to the pacific because the knee grows situation is too high. She goes right after the race riots, and detroit where she is blamed for this race riots. I think, for our audience to really understand the progression, you know, we need to look at eleanor before she really starts race because eleanor really doesnt start race until 35 and 36. Thats what we are going to do. We are going to go back and we will come back to the war as we go on this evening. We have to our stock well on arrival in her influence an image. We will put the phone numbers on the screen. If your are regular rupture of cnn, you know that all of our programs are interactive programs. We want to hear from you. We want your participation. 202 is the area code, 5853380 if you live in the Eastern Central time zone. 5853881 if you live in the mountain and pacific time zones. You can also put a comment on facebook at facebook. Com cspan, you will see the first ladies section right there, reagan sent us a tweet firstladies or firstladies, and we will get to as many of those as we can. Professor Doug Brinkley, what kind of world was Eleanor Roosevelt born into in 1884 . Who were hurt people . Well, she was born in new york city. Part of that social swirl, social society. Those built name is as good a name as you are going to get, and of course her father is elliott roosevelt, the brother of Theodore Roosevelt. Elliott was quite a character in his own right. He had problems with alcohol, opiates, and the leg, but he was a Great Outdoors person, a great hunter, a great bon vivant, and something owners felt loved madly. Her father, even he was absentee quite a bit, and her mother, i think the key thing for onerous vote was they both died quite when she was young. She loses her mother and loses her father, and thats quite dramatic. Beyond that, if she moves up to tivoli, in the hudson river valley, hudson is a great story in america from the bay of new york, and all of the transpired along the river, you know, whether its in George Washington and newburgh, or the steamboat, it was currier and ives world along the hudson river and she was born grew up just down the road from spring would, the home of Franklin Roosevelt, her distant cousin. Did she have a happy childhood . Now. Well, the only place that she ever felt safe in typically it was climbing at the top of a there is significant evidencez that some of her uncles who are alcoholics to hotshots hotter out of windows. The thing that is very remarkable about owners wealth is to the extent to which she is able to transcend that sadness. She writes a young boy in the fifties, when he severely beaten in a school, a young boy, six or seven years old, and he goes up to a water fountain to get a little cone, you know, like one of those plastic cups, paper cups. And, i mean, hes really hes been so badly, he bleeds on the cup. And he writes her. And he says, you know, basically, im in school, and now im terrified. You know, what do i do . Young africanamerican boy. And she writes him back, and he sends her the cup, ive held a cup in my hand, and she writes him this extraordinary letter that says that she can only imagine how violated he must feel, because school is supposed to be a safe place. But she understands a painful childhood. She understands disappointment, and she understands violence. And the only advice that you can offer him is what shes told herself, and that is, courage is more exhilarating than fear. And in a long run, it is easier. All we have to have is the courage to look ourselves in the mirror, and take one step better the time. And so, in many ways, what Eleanor Roosevelt is doing, not in the same sense of engaging in psycho history by any means, but she is expanding her circle of family, and learns through a series of ups and downs that family is, really, what you construct for yourself. We who was Marie Souvestre in her education . Well, Marie Souvestre was the head mistress of allenswood academy, and eleanor goes to london when she is 14. This is after her parents died . This is after her parents died. Shes our friend at ten. Her mother dies when she six. Her father dies and shes ten. And so shes living in shes dividing her time between tivoli with her maternal grandmother, who loves her, but whos very strict and is, you know, wont let her play a lot. And really is doesnt see to her education, so much so that eleanor becomes an embarrassment, her lack of education, to other members of the family. And so, her mothers sister says to her grandmother, well, we promised anna, owners mother, that we would send her to allens would. She goes to allenswood academy, which is basically her center court walton today, a school of 33 girls and she works with mademoiselle souvestre who she later calls a closet bolshevik. And mademoiselle souvestre sees an eleanor this spunk and this mine that nobody has seen. She teaches her that the only way to really be sure about what you think is to be able to argue both sides of an issue with equal conviction. And so, eleanor writes in her diary, shouldnt keep her diary, but sometimes she would just write notes to herself, said i finally learned that i have a brain. I have argued the war with mademoiselle, and i have won each time. She doesnt want to go home. I mean, who would want to go home when you have this . So, shes days in the summer with mademoiselle, and in 15 seconds, if you will, mademoiselle system or you can stay with me, but you have to learn to be independent. We can travel, but you must set a budget. You have to learn to make reservations. And when you go to places, remember that you are a guest, and you dont just do the opera, you dont just shop, you also work in the settlement houses, you volunteer in hospitals, and you try to learn the language of the community that you are in. And so, when eleanor leaves allenswood at 18, mademoiselle souvestre writes a letter that owner will carry with her for the rest of her life, that says of course, you must go home, and make your debut. You, after all, our roosevelt. And teddy is now president of the United States. But first and foremost, you are my eleanor, and i expect great things from you in your own right in this world. Owes her relationship with president Teddy Roosevelt . Well, he loved her. He would say that needs an uncle, right . Yeah, and he loved her. I think he was pretty hard on her father, elliott, when he started he had gotten a one pregnant that was working in a house, and he was angry. He called him a kind of blundering swine. My own brother, hes embarrassed the family. And to our could be very hard if you broke propriety in the things. So, he beat up some on his brother. He loved his brother, tremendously, in fact. Theodore is whats great is time early in his life was going hunting in western iowa with the father. But when he commit suicide, i think tea are felt a real special kinship to eleanor, but just as nicely said, eleanor had a great sparkle in her eye, and a great intelligence. She developed her courage over a period of time, and i think Theodore Roosevelt admired that about her, so he was there to give them away when she married Franklin Roosevelt in new york city on st. Patricks day. We and it was tr who was arranged to to be a part of two roosevelts getting married. And it sounds like, at this point in her life, she developed some sense of what social issues were important to her. Well, she had an exposure to. Him she hadnt interest. But she is still very hot between two world. Shes caught between the world in london, that she loves, and wants to stay in. She wants to teach, she wants to live there, she