Fdr started sketching what ended up being the structure here to incorporate elinors papers. When his archivist said, do you think she will give them to you, and fdr said, you can never tell what my missus is going to do. Which i think is a true statement about Eleanor Roosevelt. How many of you are members here today . Look at that. Thank you so much. Your support makes programs like this possible. We appreciate everything you do for us. The library is a federally funded institution, but we rely on private donations to allow us to do many nonfederal programs like exhibits and things like that. Today we have with us a very special friend and guest. She spent many days here when she was working on the Eleanor Roosevelt papers for George Washington university. Which is a tremendous resource. She is now with George Mason University down in virginia. She has put together a book that looks at the advice that Eleanor Roosevelt gave. I think it is amazing how relevant so many of the questions were, even though they are 50 years old. How relevant they are to our Society Today and the questions we are asking today. Her advice remains inspiring and practical at the same time. I think it is something we could all use right now. Some advice that will help us get through our daily lives. Please welcome mary jo binker. [applause] ms. Binker thank you. I am delighted to be here with you today. There is no place i enjoy being more than in hyde park and the hudson valley. So it is a great treat for me to be here with you. I am here to talk about my new book. If you ask me essential advice from Eleanor Roosevelt. Here, this is the top half of the page from one of the columns in 1953. This is a column she wrote for 21 years from 1941 until her death in 1962. She wrote it for two womens magazines, first of all ladies home journal from 1941 until 1949, then in 1949 she moved over to mccalls. She was with mccalls until her death in 1962. In the beginning, if you ask me was an idea before it was a column. The editors of ladies home journal envisioned it as a way for first lady Eleanor Roosevelt to combat the rumors, innuendos, and backstairs gossip about the white house, as well as a way to answer these other queries about which the public rightly or wrongly thinks it has to know. More practically, the editors thought that a question and answer column would be easier to edit, because they did not think Eleanor Roosevelt was a very good writer. That was the plan. But it did not work out that way, because Eleanor Roosevelt and her readers soon turned the column into a twoway conversation about almost every aspect of american life. Unlike my book, which is organized thematically, i have organized this talk chronologically, starting with the white house and world war ii, and i thought what we could do today would be to eavesdrop on the conversation that eleanor had with her readers. So, when the column first began in 1941, Franklin Roosevelt was beginning an unprecedented third term. Europe was at war and the Great Depression was ending as america geared up to become the arsenal of democracy. It was a tense and difficult time, and americans were jittery and afraid. By the spring of 1941, Eleanor Roosevelt was arguably one of the bestknown women in the united states. Millions of americans had seen her, heard her on the radio, or read her syndicated newspaper column, my day. She was both widely admired and roundly criticized for her support of minorities, women, and young people. It is worth noting that many of fdrs political opponents in the 1940 president ial campaign had worn Campaign Buttons that said we dont want eleanor either. So, by the time if you ask me began, Eleanor Roosevelt and the American Public had established a relationship. Which made writing to her seem natural and ordinary. Many of those first columns dealt with the military and homefront issues. Here are some of those questions. The first one comes from a military wife. Can you tell me why a soldier can get a furlough to see his dog while my husband cannot get a furlough for the first time to see his 14monthold son . Eleanor answers this way. My dear lady, it just happened that the soldier who went to see his dog was due for a furlough and someone made a good newspaper story out of it. I am sure that no man would be given a furlough unless he was entitled to it and he was allowed to leave at that particular time. The paramount consideration in granting any furloughs is the need of the military services, not the pleasure of the individual involved. The next one comes from a worried citizen. This citizen is worried about his money. What assurance have people that defense bonds are safe . Under weak and unsound leadership, the bonds might not be redeemable later. Eleanor says, you must have faith in your own ability and that of the rest of the country to choose sound leadership. There is nothing else you can rely upon except the judgment of the people as a whole to make your government efficient. Incidentally, if u. S. Bonds are not good, neither is anything else in the world. You might as well reconcile yourself to it. This one comes from a military mother. Why cant mothers know where their sons and daughters are . What harm could it do if our enemies knew that bill jones is in alaska or australia . Eleanor replies, if you and your children would use a little ingenuity, you would probably be able to keep each other informed about your whereabouts. If it were openly done, it might be harmful, not because the enemy would know bill jones was in australia or alaska, but because the enemy would be able to find out what group bill jones belonged to and from that might discover what opposition they were facing and the number of men probably involved. This is a great question. This is a reader asking about a rumor. Is it true that soldiers from midwestern states, which are normally republican, are sent into combat zones before soldiers from democratic states . [laughter] eleanor replies, i have never heard anything so idiotic. [no audio] peace was at hand. The dropping of the atom bomb and the emerging cold war with the soviet union did not inspire confidence in the future. Closer to home, americans were concerned that the wartime prosperity would collapse without the stimulus of military production. Housing was in short supply and inflation was rampant. Politically, fdrs successor, harry truman, and his liberal supporters were trying to extend the new deal while the conservatives in both parties were trying to rein in what they called the socialistic excesses of the new deal. Social change added to the chaos. Women had left home to work in the factories or join the military. Africanamericans who had served in the military were coming home to segregation and discrimination. And other minorities were also facing poor working and living conditions. Like millions of other americans, Eleanor Roosevelt had to adjust to both her new status and life in postwar america. She moved back here to her home, intending to continue writing and lecturing as a private citizen. Harry truman, however, had other ideas. In december of 1945, he appointed her to the first u. S. Delegation to the inaugural session of the United NationsGeneral Assembly. It was a job she would hold for six years and led to her becoming chair of the United NationsHuman Rights Commission and one of the principal architects of the universal declaration of human rights. Here are some of the questions from that period. The first one comes from a reader worried about the economy. On every hand, you hear our country is heading into a bad depression. Do you think this is true . What should be done to avoid it . Eleanor says, i do not think we need to have a bad depression. If our economists and industrialists learned their lessons in the 1930s, it cannot be prevented by greedy men. It must be prevented by men with unselfish visions who see that no group can garner unto itself great resources and leave the mass of the people without their fair share. The next question has particular relevance. Do you think equal pay to women who fill mens jobs is economically justified . Eleanor replies, certainly, if women do the same work, i have always believed they should receive the same pay. Here is another one. A perennial problem from a male reader this time. I love and admire my wife. But there is one subject on which we can never agree. She thinks i should help with the dishes. Do you think this is a husbands work . Eleanor replies, i think anything connected with the home is as much the husbands work as the wifes. This silly idea that there is a division in housework seems to me foolish, when often the wife earns money outside the home as well as the husband. Certainly if there are children, the wife has two jobs. The one of being a mother and the other of being a wife. The kind of man who thinks that helping with the dishes is beneath him will also think that helping with the baby is beneath him. And then he is certainly not going to be a very successful father. The next question comes from a wife whose political views differ from her husbands. My husband says the Truman Administration is a cesspool of corruption. How can i answer him . Eleanor says, you can tell your husband that if any government is a cesspool of corruption, every individual citizen is responsible when the government is a republic. Governments do not become corrupt unless their citizens have allowed those standards to exist. If you live in a democracy, you set the standards as the individual citizen. You elect your representatives and the government belongs to you. You and i have to correct anything that is wrong. And we can always be heard. If anything is wrong, the blame is ours. Children often wrote to eleanor. Heres a question from a concerned younger citizen. I am in the sixth grade. What can i do to make the world more peaceful . You can learn to live harmoniously with people of your own age, even though they might be of different races and different religions. If you do that, you will be preparing your generation to live better and more peacefully in the world as a whole. Not every questioner was so polite. Here is one with an edge. Our newspaper published an amazing picture of you smiling, all sweetness and light, as you shook hands with russias ambassador at the recent opening of the u. N. Who are you kidding . [laughter] eleanor didnt miss a beat. I did not know i was kidding anyone. I was preserving the amenities. When you shake hands, you usually smile. To reach our seats in the General Assembly, we have to pass directly in front of the russian and United Kingdom delegates. I had known him for a long time. The newspaper photographers, who are always on the alert, insisted on taking the photograph. I believe as long as we serve in the General Assembly or anywhere in the United Nations, we must be polite to one another and we must be able to talk to one another in the hope that someday, this bridge will be used for the benefit of a peaceful settlement of our difficulties. Many of eleanors replies were much briefer than the one i just read to you. Consider this question. What do you think is the greatest single cause of misunderstanding between the nations of the world, both great and small . Eleanor had a oneword answer. Fear. The next era begins early in the 1950s after Dwight Eisenhower has been elected president and Eleanor Roosevelt has returned to private life. The increasing prosperity of the 1950s eased americans financial worries, while at the same time heightening their social woes. Marriage rates have risen before and after world war ii as young people hurried to exchange vows before shipping off to combat or married as soon as they returned. These young couples also had more children. The nations birth rate rose from fewer than 20 births per 1000 in the 1930s to more than 25 births per 1000 in 1947. The increased birthrates and the rise of a Youth Culture characterized by discontent and rebelliousness and concerns over juvenile delinquency made childrearing questions more urgent. At the same time, divorce rates spiked, leading to uncertainty about how to deal with remarriage and blended families. Americans may have been more prosperous, but politically, they were uneasy about possible communist subversion in american life. Some people even began to fear their neighbors, along with many other suspect groups that also included career Public Servants, activists in the labor and civil rights movements, educators, clergyman, librarians, and individuals working in the media. Civil liberties contracted as the belief took hold that the rights of the accused could be ignored because the threat of communism was so severe. By 1953, Eleanor Roosevelt had returned to private life. By then, she had firmly established herself as a trusted source and confidant for many americans. Here are some typical questions from this period. We will start with a question from a marriageminded reader. What do you consider the three most important qualifications of a good husband . Eleanor says, that he shall be honest, not only in material things, but in intellectual things. That he shall be capable of real love. And that he should find the world an increasingly interesting place in which to live every day of his life. Here is one on birth control, which, in the 1950s, was still a controversial topic. Do you believe in planned parenthood . Eleanor does not mince any words. Yes, i do, if it is not used as an excuse to shirk having a family. I believe every married couple should have children if they are able to do so. But i believe they should use intelligence, so that the children will be healthy and the mother not physically exhausted. Of course, if this is against your religious beliefs, this is a different matter. Outside of that, it would seem sensible to plan intelligently for the Family Health and happiness. This next one is probably one of my most favorite of all the questions. My husband wants our son to play football and i dont. Dont you think that bodily Contact Sports, as he called them, are necessary to the development of a boys character . Eleanor says, i dont know that Contact Sports are necessary to the development of a boys character, but i know if a boy wants to play football and you, for any reason, keep him from it, you will probably find that his character or his temper at least will not improve. He will probably align himself with his father and you will be left on the outside. So i advise you not to be too vocal about your feelings. I can tell you, i took this advice and she is absolutely right. [laughter] here is one that is very contemporary. My son and his wife are republicans, but my daughter recently married a man who favors the democrats. No matter how hard i try, i cannot keep the two couples from getting into nasty political arguments. It ruins all of our visits. Tell me, please, how do you handle political differences in your family . Eleanor replies, i try to make them amusing. We have vast differences in our family. All of them love to argue. They can argue passionately about things they do not care about. Anyone who did not know them would think they were about to kill one another. But i find a little laughter and teasing, and, if necessary, arbitrarily changing the subject, make our family gatherings rather entertaining. Here is another one that comes straight out of todays headlines. How do you feel about wiretapping . Is it justifiable . When used against criminal, spies, and potential traders traitors . Eleanor says, the only time i think it is justifiable as if the authorities know or have reason to suspect they must use it to find potential spies or traitors. And then it should only be used by the most responsible authorities. Wiretapping for any other reasons whatsoever should never be allowed. Eleanor roosevelts association with many liberal groups led many people to assume that she was a communist sympathizer. Here is a question from one of those readers. What is your answer to people who accuse you of being procommunist . A very simple one. I have never been a communist. Nor in favor of communism at home or abroad. But i have never been afraid to come in contact with communists. I think it would be a poor democrat who could not stand up and meet the communists and their theories. Lastly, men like huey long and senator mccarthy have aroused fears of a man on horseback in the united states. Under what circumstances would we stand in danger of a dictatorship and what would be the best ways for citizens to recognize the potential danger and oppose it . Eleanor says, men who have the instincts for dictatorship are always a danger in any society. Free citizens must be alert to preserve their liberties. In the united states, it is easy to discover a demagogue, but it sometimes requires courage to stand up immediately and say you do not agree with certain methods and ideas. However, if we want to preserve our liberties, we had better show that courage. It is the only way i know of to remain a free people. The final era coincides with the last years of eleanors life. By the late 1950s, a growing restlessness was simmering under the seemingly placid surface of american life. The cold war, the burgeoning civil rights movement, the increasing visibility of poverty, and the rising frustrations of women and other marginalized groups were becoming more apparent. Nevertheless, the 1960s opened on a note of hopeful optimism, inspired in part by the election of a youthful president , john f. Kennedy. By the early 1960s, eleanor was well into her 70s, but still maintaining a hectic schedule. She was still writing my day, but on a reduced basis. Three columns a week instead of six. She was still traveling extensively and had added teaching and a Monthly Public AffairsTelevision Program to her schedule. At president kennedys request, she had also become the chair of the president s commission on the status of women. She continued to be active in the civil rights and labor movements and the democratic party. And she was still writing if you ask me. By this point, she had been a public figure for almost 40 years. She had seen it all and done most of it. She was used to being in the public eye and there were few questions that fazed her. Here are some of the questions from that period. About her age. Does it ever bother you that your age, a womans traditional secret, is known to all the world . [laughter] eleanor says, no, my age has been known for so long it does not bother me at all. About her looks. How do you explain the fact that you have grown much better looking as you have grown older . [laughter] we should all be so lucky, right . I thank you for the compliment. It simply means as you grow older, people do not expect you to be as goodlooking as they expect a younger person to be. So, they are kinder in their judgments. [laughter] here is a question that draws on her long relationship with her mother in law. Do do you think it is possible for two mature women, motherinlaw and daughterinlaw, for instance, to live under one roof in peaceful coexistence . Eleanor says simply, i think it possible, but not probable. [laughter] 1960, of course, was an election year. Readers wanted to know eleanors views. Here is one from a prospective voter. In any election year, there is always a big argument about whether it is better to vote a straight ticket or split your ballot. Would you please tell me what you think . Eleanor says, i have always thought this is something individual must decide for himself. I decided a long while ago that voting for the individual rather than the party was valid in local elections, but not in elections covering state and national issues. One chooses a party because on the whole, the party has shown a record of accomplishment that approximate ones ideas of good government. Nothing is ever perfect, of course, but once a choice has been made, it seems to me that anything beyond the local level should be a question of voting for a party, rather than an individual. This next one is a question about life in the white house, a topic that eleanor was qualified to address. Shortly, we will have not only a new president , but a new first lady. What will be the most difficult problem the first lady will face . Eleanor replies, living her own life as she wants to live it. There are certain things you are obliged to do as first lady. In many ways, you are hemmed in, and you have to fight your way out if you feel you really want some life of your own. Here is a question from 1961 that displays eleanors political acumen. Would you care to make a longrange prediction and tell us who you think the republican candidate for president will be in 1964 . This is what she replies. There will undoubtedly be some soulsearching in the Republican Party that may lead to the nomination of mr. Rockefeller or perhaps mr. Goldwater. Who knows . She correctly identified people and, of course, Barry Goldwater was the nominee in 1964. Here is another question about politics. At the time of his appointment to the cabinet, there was publicity that Robert Mcnamara had to sell his ford holdings. He was the president of ford before he joined the government. Do you think it is necessary to penalize Public Servants in this way . It seems to me that if our cabinet members cannot be trusted to separate personal interests from public duty, they shouldnt be trusted in such important positions at all. Eleanor says, it is customary, and has been for many years, for people accepting positions in government to divest themselves of holdings in any enterprise that does business with the government. It is not a question of distrust. It is a question of influence. That might stem from the fact that they have such holdings. Therefore, it is probably a wise decision that no one working in the government should have a considerable interest in any company transacting business with the government. One final question about women in politics. This comes from march of 1962, so shortly before eleanor dies. Do you feel there is a double standard in politics . That is, are women candidates for office treated more gently by their opponents than men . Eleanor replies, i have watched a great many men in political life, and i think there may be more reticence in bringing up certain types of accusations against a woman. I have an idea that if those accusations have foundation in fact, they will not be left out of a political campaign. When anyone, man or woman, goes into politics, i believe one has to develop a pretty tough skin and take for granted that one will be treated no more gently than any other candidate. More than 50 years have passed since eleanor wrote those words. And if you ask me, much has changed, yet much remains the same. Although we live in an increasingly wired world where events seem to move at warp speed and every day brings a fresh controversy, we still worry about our relationships, our childrens upbringing, and how to make a living. Social issues Like Health Care and abortion are still with us. Our domestic politics are increasingly fractious. And the world remains a dangerous place. The questions and answers in if you ask me are a vibrant conversation between one woman and her fellow citizens on issues as relevant as the latest tweet. They remind us that in times of tumultuous change, our hopes and desires and worries remain constant. Perhaps that is why, after half a century, Eleanor Roosevelts words remain so powerful. Thank you. [applause] mr. Sparrow mary jo will answer some questions now. If you would queue up along the microphone here so our friends at cspan can get the questions, [no audio]e happy to answer you. Ok, as the first lady, was she as outgoing a person when she first became first lady or was it after franklin found he was going to have to have some help . Since mrs. Hoover was so outgoing and her husband very shy, in the case of the roosevelts, mrs. Roosevelt, was she originally very shy and quiet and then because of fdr had to come out and take, partially, his place . Ms. Binker as a young wife, yes. She was extremely shy and selfconscious. But she trained herself over time to overcome that. And by the time the roosevelts enter the white house in 1933, she has already established herself as a public figure, at least in the state of new york, because she has been the governors wife for four years. She was also, by that time, very active in the democratic party. I think in terms of what she was doing in the white house, she was looking as much for a role to fill because she did not want to be stuck in the house hosting tea parties and shaking hands. She wanted to be doing something that she felt was meaningful. And so she went to franklin and she was trying to figure out what to do and he said, do what you think you want to do and i will tell people, that is my missus, i cant do a thing with her. I think that is how they proceeded. She evolved that role. There is no fourpoint plan in her papers where she says, i will now transform the role of first lady. It is an evolutionary thing. She tries several different things, press conferences. She begins to travel and is doing lecture tours twice a year. She continues to be involved in different causes that she had been involved in before. But she steps that up and moves it onto a national stage. She begins to write, at the end of 1935, she starts my day. So these are things it is always evolving. She is always one to reach for more opportunities. Franklin really doesnt get in the way. That would have been really dumb if he had, because she was a freight train. You are an expert on her my day column. Would you talk about the difference between what she wrote in her newspaper column versus what she put in her advice column . Ms. Binker my day is a daily diary. One of my students once said to me, you know, eleanor was the original blogger. It does read like a blog. She doesnt know daytoday any more than her readers. She can only write what she knows. So she is writing about her daily activities and she is writing about things that are of the moment. Right . So that is one big difference. This, i think, is more directed, because it is based off the readers questions. She is not saying anything that does not have a basis in what is on the mind of her reader. And that is very different. Whereas my day, she can write about whatever she wants to. Whatever is top of mind. The place she saw last night, the conference she is hosting today, the trip she is going to take next week. But if these people are not interested, it is not going to be discussed. When i was working on this book, i was amazed about how few questions there were about the United Nations. I really had to scrounge. That was not something that readers of these publications seemed to be interested in. I should say about that, the way this column was written, readers would write in their questions, but they wrote to the magazine. They did not write to the white house. So then the editors would go through all the questions and they would group them. Maybe there would be some that were similar. They put together the questions and then they would send them to eleanor. She would write them the answers and then ship the questions back. So there was also a filter there. In the magazine that was not there in my day, and i think that is another difference. Probably, they weeded out more of the hostile questions or the questions that were really, they just did not think their readers would be interested in. [laughter] are you aware of any advice that she might have had for the media . Ms. Binker not directly. Eleanor roosevelt kind of considered herself part of the media. Once she started writing my day, she actually joins the newspaper guild. The union. She has a union card. She is very clear that she does not think that the newspapers are always all they should be. She does say that biased stories should never be written. But she is well aware that they are. And what she advocates is for us as citizens to read as widely as possible. To read both sides of an issue. And to do that rather than relying on a single source. But she doesnt really come out and criticize the media very much. And in part, it is because she has a lot of really close relationships. The women who covered her in her press conferences, many of them become good friends. And after she leaves the white house, she considers herself a newspaper woman. So she is in the fold, so to speak. Yes, maam. With regard to the earlier question about how eleanor had changed over time, dont you think her friends had an extraordinary role in this . After all, the furniture factory was nans project. The press conferences were hicks and louis helped her with her speeches. There was a lot of interaction with her friends that really helped her along, dont you think . Ms. Binker totally. In fact, i want to write a book about just that subject. [laughter] that talks about the people who made eleanor and call it the making of Eleanor Roosevelt. Most definitely it was a cooperative venture. She was extremely fortunate in her friends. Particularly louis howe. I think she would not have been who she was without them. And that they often get short shrift. Because franklin is so dominant. I dont say that in any negative way. But he just takes up a lot of space. And people kind of go there and they dont stop to kind of look behind eleanor and see all of these other people. Esther would be another good example of somebody who, frankly, has never gotten her due and was a remarkable woman. And molly the same way. Yes, i completely agree. All of those people had a huge role in the making of Eleanor Roosevelt. [inaudible] ms. Binker i cant start anything until january of 2019. I am kind of busy. But i am working on it. Was eleanor compensated for her writing . Was she the first or only first lady to have some kind of job outside of the white house . Ms. Binker she was most definitely compensated. In fact, i was talking to paul about this. When she started writing for the ladies home journal, they paid her 2000 an issue. That was pretty serious money in 1941. In fact, i tried to figure out using an inflation calculator how much money that would be. In 2018 dollars, that would be more than 35,000 a column. When she moved to mccalls in 1949, they paid her 3000 a column. In 2018, that would be about 25,000 a column. She was making serious money. And she was giving a lot of it away. Eleanor had the perspective that money was an indicator of value and of importance. She understood that she lived in a monetary society. And that money was a measure of worth. And she wanted to be compensated. Because she was working. Did she do a lot of volunteer work . Yeah, totally. But she wanted that money because it was her means to further the goals that she had for a more just and inclusive society. Did eleanor receive any letters about franklins health and his polio . Ms. Binker yes. I did not include them in this talk, but yes. They did ask her to address that very specifically. There are people that say, now enough time has passed, would you comment on whether or not he was Strong Enough or healthy enough to run for a fourth term . I know there was a general agreement with photographers not to show his paralysis. Ms. Binker right, exactly. But i wonder if the same thing happened on these questions. Ms. Binker yes, and she is very circumspect. She says, well, you know, the doctors all said that if he wanted to do it, he could do it. Thats what she was saying for public consumption. Is has never been clear to me what eleanor knew when and whether she really realized the true extent of his health. Because by 1945, they are both extremely busy and tired and they are going in different directions. And it is really very hard to know, and do you really want to admit that . As a person . Do you want to say, i knew my husband was dying . But oh well. I do not think so. Thank you. You cited one of her answers in which she encouraged people to befriend others of different races and different religions. One of the things that was different now is that there was probably some more naked pushback by some of the public against that. Any interesting stories that would surprise us now about people taking a public stand against that principle . Ms. Binker yes. In the magazine as well, there are a number of questions where people are asking about integration, for example. Many of the questions revolve around this question of intermarriage. Would you let your granddaughter marry a person of another race . Or would you let one of your granddaughters go to a racially mixed school . Or, why are we talking about the south when the schools in new york city are full of Puerto Ricans . So there is definitely that bias that eleanor is speaking into. If you are asking me, is she making any converts to her cause, i would say not necessarily. Because at that time, those things were not really done. You didnt extend yourself. Even now, i think it is hard for some people to move out of their comfort zone. She is certainly always talking about it. She is talking about it for the entire time that she is in the white house. But i cant say she had Great Success with that. A couple of questions about the media. Why did she go from the journal to mccalls . What kind of magazine was mccalls . What kind of demographic did it appeal to . Who was reading that particular magazine . Third question. Was there any competition to have her as a columnist or did she have to fight to get with mccalls . Were there other competing journals . Ms. Binker those are all great questions. I cannot wait to answer. I was hoping somebody would ask me. She went to mccalls because she had a relationship with mccalls. That dated back into the 1930s. They had serialized the first volume of her memoirs. It had been very successful. So the column grew out of that. The editors wanted to keep that relationship going, right . This is the first lady. So they started up in 1941 and it went until 1949. In 1949, there was a little tiff. The presenting issue was the second volume of eleanors memoirs. At that time, ladies home journal was edited by a husband and wife team. Bruce and beatrice, and bruce, when you read his correspondence and the memoir left, he comes across as a little bit pompous, to tell you the truth. He has read this book and he does not like it. He tells her, this reads like you wrote it while you were riding a bicycle on the way to a fire. [laughter] and you think about this. She is talking about the second volume of her memoirs deals with her time in the white house. Shes got some pretty dramatic stuff that she could be relating. One of the things i always find so interesting, people in her eleanors contemporaries thought she was very forthright and very honest. She was just putting it out there. I think for us, when we read her memoirs and her autobiography, we think, this is kind of bland. I read it and i think, she is not telling you the whole story. In fact, i am teaching a class this semester and i am having my students read the autobiography just to get a sense of the scope of eleanors life. And i spend 15 minutes every class time saying, i know this is what she wrote, but this is what was really going on. Because i do not want them to think it is all sweetness and light. So, bruce did not like this book and he wanted her to spend three months working with a collaborator. In effect, he wanted her to dish. I mean, he wanted color, he wanted drama, he wanted the inside story. She did not want to do it. So her son elliott at the time was her representative. Elliott took the manuscript and walked down the street mccalls, which was the arch competitor to ladies home journal. The editor there, this was the era when men edited womens magazines, so think about that. So otis said, yeah, great. He not only took the manuscript, he took the column. And the goulds, they never really had a contract with eleanor. It was a kind of back of the envelope kind of thing, a handshake deal. So she was free to go. And she went. And otis knew what he had. And he bent over backwards for the next 13 years to make her happy. And she stayed with him until she died. As to her marketability, i would say it was probably highest in the intervening, from about 1945, 1946 to about 1960. 1960, there is a beginning of a dropoff. It is because she is getting older. Time is moving on and things are changing. So i would say that she took advantage of her peak opportunity. But i think if she had cut it all off at 1960, it would have been more difficult to get back in the game. Anything else . There is going to be a book signing. [inaudible] the books are for sale and please buy them all. [laughter] im always the last. Did she lobby harry truman to get her post at the u. N. . Ms. Binker no. In fact, when truman called, she turned it down first. She said, i cant do that. Im not a lawyer. I dont know anything about international law. You have to understand, this was december 1945. Nobody knew what the u. N. Was going to be. There were a lot of people on both sides of the atlantic who predicted its failure, like the league of nations. So this is not exactly a plum job. He was not offering to make her ambassador or something. He was really sending her into the jaws of the lion. Because they were going to go to this meeting in january in london and they were going to try to set up what eleanor would call the machinery for the effective use of the United Nations. While she was certainly interested, she certainly followed all of the preparatory work, you know, the Dumbarton Oaks agreement and all of that stuff, she had been involved in promoting it, and if you remember, had franklin lived, he wanted her to go with him and they were going to go to San Francisco in may of 1945 for the u. N. Conference where they would sign the charter. So she was in it. She knew everything and the this is also a wonderful story one of the last things she did in the white house, the day franklin died, she was meeting with a state Department Official about the question of trusteeship. In other words, what were we going to do with these colonies that, now the war is over and the germans had colonies and other people had colonies, what are we going to do with these people . Are we going to make them independent . Are we going to put them under the trusteeship of the United Nations . How are we going to work that out . So she was totally into it. But i do not think she was expecting to have that job. She did turn harry truman down and she put down the phone and one of her sons was with her and her secretary and she told them and they said, you call him back. You have to take that job. So they kind of beat up on her little bit until she called harry truman back and said, ok, i will do it. Thank you. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] announcer if you like American History tv, keep up with test during the week on facebook, twitter and youtube. Learn about what happened on this day in history and see preview clips of up coming programs. Announcer American History tv on cspan3, exploring the events that tell the american story every weekend. The 75thend come on anniversary of the atomic bombings of hiroshima and 4 55,ki, japan, today at veteran eugene december t and oh talks about his assignment to the Manhattan Project and working on the nagasaki bomb. 6 00 p. M. , an exhibit marking the anniversary of the bombings. At the American University museum. Watch American History tv today on cspan3. Announcer youre watching American History tv. Event coverage, a witness accounts, archival films, lectures in college classrooms, and visits to museums and historic places. All weekend every weekend on cspan3. Cspan has unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and Public Policy events. Cspan watch all of Public Affairs programming online or on our free radio app or through our social media feeds. Cspan created by americas companies. E history,tures in phyllis schlafly, author or editor of more than 20 books talks about the roots of the modern conservative movement as well as the role of womens issues and conservative politics. She was a guest lecturer at the Citadel College in south carolina