Signing table. Thank you again for everyone attending here live. The signing table is directly outside the auditorium. Again we would like to thank mr. Peters on the habs of the lit fest and the lit fest appreciates your feedback which you can provide at pictures wrote lit best. Org. Thank you. [applause]. [inaudible conversation] [inaudible conversation] heres a look at books that are being published this week. Journalist Judith Schwartz look at ways to improve water availability and by the certification and water in plain sight. In the new trail appears, New York Post columnist naomi riley puts forth the policies she says will help american indians, from increased access to education to Legal Protections and entry into the free market. University at buffalo Political ScienceProfessor James campbell looks at the causes of americas Political Division in, polarize. In the grid Gretchen Bakke reports on americas aging Energy Infrastructure and how to modernize it. Neuroscientist dean burnett examines white brains work where they do. Why people remember faces but not names, search for things in plain sight and lie awake at night. In, idiot brain. Joe pollick talks about 19 truths that liberals cant handle. Look for these titles in bookstores this coming week and watch for many of the authors in the near future on book tv, on cspan2. [inaudible] [inaudible] good afternoon everyone. My name is kendra, im a member of archive staff at the Franklin D Roosevelt library and museum. On behalf of behalf of the Library Museum i like to welcome me to the reading festival. Franklin d roosevelts plan for the library to become the premier Research Institution for the studying of the entire assault era. The librarys Research Room is one of the busiest of all the president ial libraries in this years group of authors reflect the wide right of Research Done here. If you love the roosevelt reading festival i want to support this and other programs encourage you to become a member of the library. Please consider joining us on our 75th you University Programming later this month. You can learn more about membership and events at Debbie Debbie debbie. Fdr library. Org. Well go over the format for the sessions. At the top of each hour session begins with a 30 minute author talk followed by a ten minute question and answer period. Then the others will move to the tables in the lobby where you can purchase your books and have the other sign them. At the top of the next hour the process repeats itself. If you have a question please use the mic located to the left of the room and the author will call on you if you have questions. It is my pleasure to introduce marlene trust me. Marlene is the author of fair labor lawyer. She is now writing the history of new orleans home 1885 1946. But put strong personal experiences. Or been strong personal experiences. Or been at age 11, she was awarded the agency that seceded the home which she was raised a halfcentury earlier. The the two women spent time together while they attend a college and started her legal career. A former special assistant to the Maryland Attorney general, she supports laws governing tobacco, alcohol, and internet safety. For her writing she has funny from the national down from humanities, American Jews archive and the literary work from Supreme Court historical society. Please join me and will welcoming marlene chessmen. Thank you. It is an honor to be here at the fdr library. It was not even a twinkle in my eye when i was researching here that one day i would be back to speak about the book. So book. So i am grateful and honored to be here. Through a life that spans the 20th century, Bessie Margaret had made her mark on the biggest issues of her day. She served on the brilliant legal team that defended the constitutionality of fdrs new deal Tennessee Valley authority. She drafted rules for the nazi were trying trials in nuremberg ever more than three decades she championed the fair labor standards act, ultimately including the equal pay act. She was also a founder of the National Organization of women, known as now. Entrusted with the Labor Departments litigation, she presented 24 arguments at the Supreme Court, one of only three women in the 20th century to do so. She prevailed in 21 of them. For 20 for 20 years solicitors in general assign those arguments to her and she was the last Labor Department lawyer to receive that distinction. She began her legal career in 1931 only 2 of americas lawyers were women. She served in the federal government under six president s from fdr dash next then and nine labor secretarys start with frances perkins. She received every award the Labor Department offered and by 1963 was promoted to associate solicitor, the top nonpolitical legal goal position. In. In short, before there was a notorious rgb, as justice in spurt has been called, there was bessie. After retiring in 1972 she dated from the public record. It is not hard to understand why she deserves to be rescued from obscurity but id like to explain how i came to the task. In the fall 1974i was a freshman at Goucher College in baltimore. Far from my home in new orleans. My High School Guidance counselor had written margolin, a distinguished alumna from our class of 1925, the letter of introduction shown here. Through college, law school, and into my legal career i got to know bessie margolin. She margolin. She was the first female lawyer i ever met and we were connected by common childhood experiences. Bessie and i were wards of the same southern jewish childrens Welfare Agency which educated i said its Newman School a halfcentury apart. Bessie personified excellence in the law and in public service, at a time when women attorneys were discouraged if not outright prevented from pursuing opportunities available to men while protecting the rights of millions of American Workers she also advance the careers of countless government lawyers and employees. Many of whom sought out her prestigious and demanding tutelage. The late Simon Sokolov who is chief judge of both marylands court of appeals and the federal Fourth Circuit and a former solicitor general offered only to suggestions for lawyers seeking a career in federal appellate practice. They should work in either the office of the solicitor general naturally or the office of bessie margolin. I would like to share her journey from beneficiarys social justice to its powerful advocate and along the way i offer a few examples of the wonderful resources here at the fdr library that enabled me to understand bessie margolins journey. These were resources that preserved the needles of her remarkable life amid the archival haystack of more celebrated individuals. Bessie was born in 19 oh 09 in brooklyn new york, the First American born daughter of jewish immigrants. From there to escape new yorks tough and crowded conditions bessies families made its way to memphis, tennessee. About one year after giving birth to a third child, bessies mother died leaving bessies father alone to care for his three young children. The margolins plight attracted the attention of them memphis rabbi who petitioned the jewish orphans home in new orleans to accept the children as have four friend. In 1913, the orphanage the orphanage admitted bessie at age four and her siblings. Proclaimed a magnificent monument to hebrew pennell vince, the home as it was known, set prominently on st. Charles avenue near the stately mansions of new orleans most prosperous citizens. As both a stunning contrast stunning contrast to the humble origins of its young residents and an inspiring symbol of what each of them could and many of them did achieve. In the home bessie grew up with more than 150 other orphans and half orphans throughout the deep south. Its trustees were not content to provide them with a mere subsistence. Instead, the home groom to bessie as an allamerican girl who shut honor on the local Jewish Community and reflected the values and culture of her prosperous benefactors. In addition to a religious education and reform judaism which preached and modeled social justice, the home provided bessie a robust secular education at the Isadore NewmanManual Training School where the cuttingedge curriculum emphasize manual skills like Home Economics and woodworking, as well as rigorous academics. The home, built this unique school to educate its words but also admitted new orleans children of all religions whose parents pay tuition. Newman quickly became what it remains today, one of the souths finest College Prep Schools and there, bessie excelled in every subject. She graduated from newman in 1925 is a 16yearold leader who is comfortable and a coed setting, competing, succeeding, and winning respect. Besides leaving the debate club and the girls student council, bessie was valedictorian and won the scholarship to attend newcomb college. Tulane universitys cornett college for women. Bessie spent two years at newcomb, ranking among the top ten in in her class. The audacious a bessie wanted more. Bessie decided to attend a school, tulane law schools only woman woman at the time bessie felt isolated and selfconscious. She and her male classmates soon adjusted to each other. When a professor assigned assigned a Court Case Involving an accident and that mans bathroom, no one wanted to recite the facts of the the case because were embarrassed to use the word toilet in mixed company. When one poor fellow finally blurted out the word washroom, they all sighed with relief. In june, 1930 at age 21, bessie completed her liberal arts and lost studies with honors in only five years. She graduated honors in only five years. She graduated second in her Law School Class and was an editor of the law review. Tulane law schools urged yelp last school dean Charles Clark to hire bessie or award her fellowship for graduate study. Clark found bessie worthy of a job job but refused to consider her for a fellowship because he did not want to encourage her to pursue a career teaching law that simply did not exist for a woman. They assured clark that bessie was, in his words, quote, quote a levelheaded girl who knew some things in this world must be taken as they are. With her fate determined by the two deans, bessie accepted a Research Position with yale law professor Ernest Lorenz and. An an expert in comparative law and conflicts. While in new haven, bessie impressed both lorenz and and a widely popular young faculty member, william o douglas. The future Supreme Court justice. With their health their health bessie overcame dean clarks earlier opposition and she became the first woman awarded yells sterling fellowship for graduate study. With her yale doctorate, bessie moved to washington for a new opportunity. She applied she applied for a job at the Tennessee Valley authority which congress had just created and realized fdrs new deal vision of supplying electricity to the balance most impoverished residents. Among her letters of recommendation, professor lorenz and wrote to hire its first woman lawyer. Bessie was intent on the legal career as a primary objective from which she would not be deflected by considerations of marriage. Bessie thus began her federal government career with a pledge that she would be married to her job instead of a man. Fearing competition, Public Utility Companies hurl charges of socialism that turned into lawsuits. To defend this new deal cornerstone they hired harvard law graduate an experienced trial where the justice department. He may bessie a key member of tvas a brilliant legal team. Two landmark Supreme Court cases that established the legality of it tbas Power Program and later the Tennessee ElectricPower Company over shadowed tvas legal work in the early years. Bessie researched, prepared witnesses, and materially shake the breathable cases. And her other work she negotiated contracts and got courtroom experience and condemnation cases despite years resistance for a woman lawyer from local attorneys, judges, and even witnesses. Bessie won the respect of her tba colleagues including herbert s martz, pictured in the top left of the group photo would go on to serve as a general counsel to the Atomic Energy commission and whose papers i researched at the library. How did bessie feel about her chosen profession . She shared her thoughts in the magazine. Laws to greatly greatly restricted for women with considerable prejudice against them she wrote. She offered this nononsense advice. A woman attorney must manage to be accepted and treated as another man and must be willing to take responsibility, criticism, and hard work in the same spirit as to the men attorney. She must aim to become one of the men without however big coming masculine or overly aggressive in her approach. Bessie practice what she preached throughout her career. In march, 1939 bessie joined the Labor Department where another great new deal program awaited and for smit. Theyre the smit. Theyre the fair labor standards act of 1938 invoked federal commerce powers to prohibit child labor into guaranteed minimum wages and overtime. Bessie was there as every new aspect of the law was tested. Her first week she traveled home to new orleans where she was a motion. By years and she returned to new orleans several more times on fl essay matters including a Supreme Court lawsuit that challenged the minimum wage for textile workers, then 32. 5 cents per hour. The. The new Orleans Press loved bessies local over and girl story. One full fulllength photo shown here captured bessie and oppose more cheesecake than lawyerly. Why wasnt she married the press wanted to know. The reporter recounted bessies quay response this way. I havent had time to love. Then she smiled. But i am not a a mu. I am just uncontaminated. Doctor marble and brush back a lock of soft, black hair, hair, so far she had it. Bessie remarks was a witty like a line from a Katherine Hepburn movie. Revealing bessies passion for wordsmith three. Second, she seemed neither defensive or selfconscious about being single. There, it just was not true. Im going to digress to discuss a topic im often ask about discuss a topic im often ask about and that is bessies personal life. It doesnt fit neatly in the confines of her career history, precisely illustrates the challenges she faced as an ambitious, professional woman overtime. During law school bessie was engaged to her classmate, the dashing bob butler. She broke it off in late 1933, surprising no 33, surprising no one who knew her except perhaps for bob. Little did bob realize that his dream of marrying bessie was doomed from the start. When he gave her a book inscribed, to my sweetheart bess, she inscribed the margins and blank pages of the very same book as you can see here with extensive passages from virginia works recent ominous essay, a room of ones own. Extolling the importance of women having space, literally and figuratively. Then there was larry fly, bessies tvas tva boss who is married with two children. Their affair was a widespread secret. That that is what colleagues, flies wife and even bessie told flies daughter who is writing her fathers never finish biography. Remarkably, the romance did not impair by supervision of tva lawyers who prays to fly for running one of the best law departments inside or out of government. Nor did any colleague every claim that he favored her in a tva with assignments or promotions she did not merit. The romance however had other consequences for marble in an fly who is appointed chair of the federal communications commission. In 1943 georgia congressman, eugene cox, commandeered a congressional eugene cox, commandeered a Congressional Committee to investigate the fcc, accusing him and the agency of gestapo tactics to control the media and other on american activities. The investigators scrutinize the bessie of flies tva travel vouchers shown here to uncover socalled honeymoon trips they took together at government expense and interrogated bessies housekeepers, landlords, neighbors and coworkers. But before cox ever question fly publicly about the affair, congressman sam rayburn and Lyndon Johnson interceded. Rayburn reportedly told cox and i quote, there in going to be no sex in this investigation. Theres too damn many of us that are vulnerable on that score. Although cox oblige, bessies romance with fly kept resurfacing. In 1947 bessies membership in 47 bessies membership in the National Lawyers guild and other liberal groups raced a red flag so to speak for the governm