By tomorrow morning, the members of congress will have a report and be ready for action. Youve been listening to some of Eleanor Roosevelts address hours after the attack at pearl harbor. She gave that address before her husband 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 and first ladys polls. We will look at her life, her relationships and the time in the white house from 1933 to 1945. Welcome to first ladies influence and image series. Joining us tonight is allida black, the editor of the Eleanor Roosevelt papers project at George Washington university and an historian. Another historian, Doug Brinkley who is an author from rice university. Thank you for being here with us. Doug brickley, march 1933, inauguration and entered the white house. What are they walking into . Fdr did not get to walk in. He came in a wheelchair. The fact that somebody was crippled in the lower half said theres nothing to fear but fear itself. Thats perhaps the most famous phrase of the inauguration. What people was fearing was chaos, unemployment, agricultural angst. Dust bowls, october 1929 crash of the stock market. Our country was in tatters. That was friendly roosevelt, this man is over, such odds and his personal life, ushering in a new progressive era and offering 100 days of the new deal programs right off the bat where what people called the alphabet soup trying to get banks to run properly as starting a civilian conservation corps that would plant a billion trees. Create wpa get employment backup. Allida black him what was Eleanor Roosevelt to do and how she defining a role . She was struggling because she was active before she entered the white house. She added basically to the publications as well as the new york state publication. Shes on the board of labor unions and social reform. She told she taught civics and literature and girls school. She was a Major Political force in her all right. So much so that in the campaign, all of the major newspapers and the United States would run fullpage stories on her own political career and her own ambitions. When she comes in to the white house, fdr said you have to resign all of your positions and you have to stay and be the traditional first lady. She tells her friends and they filled her with the greatest sense of dread that the white house its women and that she fears a life of she is wearing her gloves. And so she says to fdr, let me help you with your mail. He says no. She said let me help you with your calendar. He said no. She said let me be your eyes and ears. He said no. She is in the white house desolate. Just saying she loves her husband and she wants him to be happy, but what has happened to my life . To my hardearned independence . From the first today she is in the white house, she is trying to figure out how to resurrect her own of voice in a way that will get her latitude that she needs to be herself while at the same time not undercut her husbands agenda. What were some the issues she got involved in . The first lady of the world. Civil rights, she got very involved in getting africanamericans more equal rights. Working in West Virginia with coal miners and the working people of america. The unforgotten and downtrodden people. Womens issues. Getting women into the forefront of american political life. She had no role model. She created of his role on her own. Theres nobody quite like her. But here she is in 1933 on the radio talking to women about their need to volunteer. At the women are willing if the women are willing because it is going to help their neighbors, we will win not even because of our leaders. But because as a people [indiscernible] we have seen it through. Allida, she spent a lot of time on the radio. She did. She had her own radio show. She would become her own syndicated columnist in 1935 and 1936. By the end of her life, she would write over 8000 columns. More than 27 books. Give 75 speeches a year. Writing 150 letters a day. If i could go back and piggybacked on doug, eleanor hit the ground running on policy in ways that we do not really think about. Eleanor does not hit the ground of race or education, she hits the ground on employment first. The second day of the roosevelt administration, i am sorry, the day after fdr closes the banks and sends the economy act to congress which will cut employment by 25 . People are freaking out. The official Unemployment Rate is 25 . Anybody with a brain will know it is about 40 . It is the first time we have started taking the Unemployment Rate and this is not take into account the 12 years a depression that hit the south and west. 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 use data lose your job if youre married to a federally employed man, eleanor is through the roof. She issues in this first week of her husbands presidency her own opinion piece saying this legislation is wrong. And so fdr and eleanor have dueling editorials in the paper in all of the Democratic Party press over the injustice of this act. She does win out. That is why she is so intense about women in that speech. True, but something fdr and the staff does not delight in. You are going to have to find Common Ground otherwise you are going to create a shambles of things. She did a marvelous job of holding her own and writing letters to the interior hopkins. In a way that was not a commandeering of trying to say will you look into this case for me. She handled, i think very well, the cross wire early out of the gate. I think we can give the public if we will examples of way good friends who respect each other and disagree. I will argue that fdr knew she was going to do this. Her correspondence shows this. Was they are trying to do is to bring this issue front and center and by support at her some of the backlash. Fdr sieges her information about 3. 2 beer right after prohibition. He asks her in her own press conferences to release his information. They coordinate. And when they go at each other, they go at each other deliberately to get the country engaged. Before we end the snapshot and go back and look at Eleanor Roosevelts life, at what point did fdr and his inner circle learned to use her as eyes and ears and as an asset . Not just one day, it depends on who it was. Smart people like Harry Hopkins knew she was important. What she said it mattered. Fdr had to win over southern democrats and conservatives. He was very scared on issues of race door his presidency because he was worried about things eleanor really pioneered and facilitated. She talked to American People. She helped fdr a lot. They are working in unity. She was a force to be reckoned with. Wherever she went, i think about world war ii when she went to europe and london and britain, everybody just love seeing her. She went to the pacific, they said we never had somebody so beloved like her before. She became a kind of ambassador for the president stopped short just walk in, there was a new yorker cartoon that was famous showing a coal miner saying what is Eleanor Roosevelt doing care . Putting up trial balloons and things of that nature. I would disagree. I would say that the reason that Roosevelt Eleanor went to the pacific is because she was arguing to go for several years because she wanted to cover the pacific the way of the fighting in the atlantic. They kept turning her down. He did not want her to go. He said it was the biggest mistake in the world. Henry wallace they turned her down and going to europe because she wanted to go with the red cross. If you kidnapped Eleanor Roosevelt, it is a disaster. We do not want to exaggerate. I do want to say the one thing that doug brought up. The trip to the pacific. She finally got to go to the pacific. She goes right after the race riots where she is blamed for those race riots. For our audience to really understand the progression, we need to look at eleanor. She really does not started racing until 1935. That is what were going to do. Well go back to the wars. We have two hours to talk about Eleanor Roosevelt and her influence and image. Well put the phone numbers on the screen. You know all of our programs are interactive programs. We want your participation. It is a put a comment on facebook and you can see the first ladies section right there. You can send us a tweet. Firstladies. Professor Doug Brinkley, what kind of world was eleanor born into . She was born in new york city. Part of that social swirl, societal stop the roosevelt name was as good as you could get. Her father was elliot roosevelt. The brother of theodore roosevelt. Elliott was a character. A great hunter. Somebody eleanor loved madly. Her mother, the key thing for Eleanor Roosevelt was they both died when she was quite young. She loses her mother and her father. That is quite dramatic. Beyond that as she moves up, the hudson is a great story in america. To the bay of new york, on the transpired along the river. Whether it is the new George Washington or the steamboat, the world along the hudson river. She grew up just down the road from springwood. The home of friendly roosevelt, her distant cousin. Did she have a happy childhood . No. She said the only time she felt safe was climbing on top of a cherry tree. Theres significant evidence that some of her uncles who were alcoholics took shots at her. Shes able to transcend that sadness. She writes a young boy in the 1950s when he was severely beaten a younger boy, six or seven years old, he went to a water fountain. He had a little plastic cup. He is beaten so badly that he bleeds on the cup. He writes her. He said basically i am in school and now i am terrified. What do i do . The only africanamerican boy. She writes him and he sent her the cup. I have held the cup. She writes him this extraordinary letter that says she can only imagine how violated he must feel because school is supposed to be a safe place. But she understands the painful childhood. She understands violence. And the only advice she can offer him is what she is told herself. And that is, courage is more exhilarating than fear. In the long run, it is easier. What she is doing, 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. Who was Marie Souvestre . She was the headmistress of Allenwood Academy. She goes when she is 14. She is living, shes dividing her time between her maternal grandmother who loves her but was very strict and what not to let her play a lot. And really does not see to her education. So much so that eleanor becomes an embarrassment for lack of education through other members of the family. Her mothers sister says to her grandmother, we promised anna, eleanors mother was sent her to allenwood and she goes to Allenwood Academy where wimbledon is today. A school of 33 girls. She works with Marie Souvestre who she calls Marie Souvestre sees and eleanor this bunk and mind spunk and mind nobody has seen. She teaches her the only way to be sure of what you think is to argue both sides of an issue with people. Eleanor writes in her diary, she did not keep a diary but sometimes she would write notes to herself. She said i finally learned i have a brain. And so she does not want to go home. Who would want to go home when you have this . She stays in the summer with Marie Souvestre. She says to her you can stay with me but you have to learn to be independent. We can travel that you must set a budget. You have to learn to make reservations. When you go to places, remember you are a guest. You do not just shop, you were a settlement houses and you volunteer in hospitals. And you try to learn the language of the community you are in. When eleanor leads allenwood at the age of 18, Marie Souvestre write her a letter that eleanor will carry for her for the rest of her life that says of course she must go home and make a debut, you are a roosevelt. Teddy is president of the United States. First and foremost, you are my eleanor. I expected great things from you and your own right in this world. What was the relationship with the president . He loved her. He loved her. He was very hard on her. On the father, elliott. He got a woman pregnant that was working in a house. Angry and called him a philandering swine, my little brother, he is embarrassed the family. He beat up somebody was that he loved his brother tremendously. One of his greatest times early was going hunting in western iowa. When he commits suicide, i think theodore felt a kinship to eleanor. Eleanor had a great sparkle in her eye and intelligence. She developed her courage over a period of time. He was there to give them away when they got married on st. Patricks day. It sounds like at this point she has developed some sense of what social issues are important to her. She had exposure to them. She had an interest. She is caught between the world and london you love and want to stay in. She wants to teach. She does not want to come home. She is caught between the demand of being the daughter of the most beautiful debutante as the New York Times repeatedly called her mother and the social expectations of the needs of the president. Just trying to figure out of the dance. Theodore became bigger than life. She turned the name and relationship and the connections to a big influence. I found it very interesting, around 1936, she edited a volume of her fathers biggame hunting letters were she kept where she kept a tiger skin of her father. She had every reason to be angry at her dad. He was bit of a deadbeat father. She never had any angst against him. She had a forgiving nature. We are talking very early 20th century here. It was in 1905 that she met fdr. They become reacquainted. They had met apparently when there were young a little bit as springwood. They were cognizant of each other. A met on a train ride. They met on a train ride. It began a romantic interlude through letters and seeing each other. From 1905 through the 1920s, a very busy time in the roosevelts life. They went to live in springwood at hyde park with franklins mother. We visited a springwood. Heres a little video. [video clip] when she fell in love with friendly roosevelt in 1905 when they got married, they would move in with franklins mother, sarah. Sarah owned and operated this home referred to as springwood since the year 1900 when sarahs elderly father had passed away. Because this was sarahs home, she made the decisions here. She also handled the finances of the home and was the matriarch of the family. This is where the family gathered for the daily meals, the activities are important because they reflected the interaction of the family. Sarah roosevelt sat at the head of the table. Franklin at the other end. And eleanor would find whichever seat was comfortable for for her. This was a bad room they shared as adults. Up until 1918 when infidelity was discovered within the marriage. From that point on, mrs. Roosevelt insisted on not sharing the same bed with franklin roosevelt. At that time, mrs. Roosevelt chose a bedroom right next to this room. This was an area where she could be by herself. It was a bit of a private space for her. The furniture was used by mrs. Roosevelt. One of the few areas where she could get privacy. When mrs. Roosevelt was in hyde park and franklin was also here, it was a given they would both asleep here in the house. If for some reason franklin was not in hyde park, mrs. Roosevelt here on her own would choose to spend her time a couple of short miles away. In this direction, we have the entrance of Sarah Roosevelt. Her bed room is sandwiched between sarahs and her husbands just like in her life that she was sandwiched between them. A little bit of talk about her motherinlaw. What was Sarah Roosevelt alike . Franklin roosevelt was her only child. He had a half brother. Sarah could be very domineering. She was overly protective in a good way. He used to go play and birdwatching. He enjoyed the order the job ornithological society. There are even pictures of him wearing the dress and having long hair. I think she was a good mother and terms of loving and kept her i will and kept her eye on him. People felt bad about eleanor having to deal with her. She was very intensely loving and caring. Fdr cared the world a bar. He was seen sometimes to be happiest when she was around. In fact, she was opposed to their marriage. Very much so, hes you said youre going to put the family and shame. He was saying mother i have to marry eleanor. She came around to some degree with the wedding. Is it a love story . Yes. I would like to talk about eleanor and sarah. So much of that as doug has referenced put in little cookiecutter things. When eleanors mother died when she was six, she was so embarrassed by her daughter. When eleanor falls in love with fdr, she very much hopes that sarah will be a surrogate mother to her. And so you see lots of overtures to this. As doug said, sarah created this cocoon of love around fdr. Others have memorably reconstructed to say sarahs love for fdr gave him the cushion to take the risk that he needed to leave later on. When they come together, we do not know a lot because eleanor burned the letters when she found out about lucy. We really cannot reconstructe that. What we can do is supposed based on the best evidence that we have got and i think that the record is pretty clear that fdr confided in eleanor his ambitions. She did not laugh at him. She saw him as a very, handsome, charming hunk. Everybody same as a dapper pretty boy. He was a hunk. If our views get to see him walking and swimming. He made her laugh. He could see and those sparkling blue eyes something that was there that other people do not see. The level of trust is there. If they said together for a year despite my moms best interest to keep them apart and then they ha