Eleanor Roosevelt : Volume II, the Defining Years, 1933-1938

by Cook, Blanche Wiesen (Author)

• ISBN13: 9780140178944
• ISBN10: 0140178945
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-06-01
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)

Summary

Historians, politicians, feminists, critics, and reviewers everywhere have praised Blanche Wiesen Cook's monumental Eleanor Roosevelt as the definitive portrait of this towering female figure of the twentieth century. Now in her long-awaited, majestic second volume, Cook takes readers through the tumultuous era of the Great Depression, the New Deal, and the gathering storms of World War II, the years of the Roosevelts' greatest challenges and finest achievements. In her remarkably engaging narrative, Cook gives us the complete Eleanor Roosevelt- an adventurous, romantic woman, a devoted wife and mother, and a visionary policymaker and social activist who often took unpopular stands, counter to her husband's policies, especially on issues such as racial justice and women's rights. A biography of scholarship and daring, it is a book for all readers of American history.

Author Biography

Historian and journalist, Blanche Wiesen Cook is Distinguished Professor of History at John Jay College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Senior editor of the Garland Library of War and Peace, author of Crystal Eastman on Women and Revolution and The Declassified Eisenhower, she is a former vice-president for research of the American Historical Association.

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments	xi
Introduction	1	(8)
Becoming First Lady	9	(22)
Public and Private-Domains	31	(21)
ER's Revenge: Henrietta Nesbitt, Head Housekeeper	52	(8)
Mobilizing the Women's Network: Friendships, Press Conferences, Patronage	60	(10)
ER's New Deal for Women	70	(22)
Family Discord and the London Economic Conference	92	(23)
Private Times and Reports from Germany	115	(15)
Creating a New Community	130	(23)
The Quest for Racial Justice	153	(24)
The Crusade to End Lynching	177	(13)
Private Friendship, Public Time	190	(24)
Negotiating the Political Rapids	214	(19)
1935: Promises and Compromises	233	(31)
The Victories of Summer, 1935	264	(19)
Mobilizing for New Action	283	(21)
A Silence Beyond Repair	304	(31)
Red Scare and Campaign Strategies, 1936	335	(18)
The Roosevelt Hearth, After Howe	353	(10)
The Election of 1936	363	(26)
Postelection Missions	389	(18)
Second Chance for the New Deal	407	(13)
1937: To Build a New Movement	420	(15)
A First Lady's Survival: Work and Run	435	(17)
This is My Story	452	(32)
This Troubled World, 1938	484	(25)
Race Radicals, Youth and Hope	509	(29)
Storms on Every Front	538	(39)
Notes	577	(75)
Notes on Sources and Selected Bibliography	652	(15)
Index	667