[inaudible conversations] good afternoon, everyone. My name is kendra and im a member of the archive staff here and on behalf of the Library Museum i would like to welcome you to the 2016 reading festival. Franklin d. Roosevelt planned for it to become premier Research Institution for the entire roosevelt era. The Research Room is consistently one of the busiest of all president ial libraries and this years group of authors reflects variety on here. You look the reading festival and want to support the programs that we do here, i encourage you to become a member and please consider joining us our 75th anniversary programming later this month. You can learn more about membership and events at wwfdr library. Org. Let me quick i will go over the format for the festivals session, a session begins with 30minute author talk followed by tenminute question and answer period. Then the authors will move to the tables in the lobby next to the new deal store where you can purchase the books and have author 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 side of the of the room there and the author will call on you if you have questions. Now my pleasure to spruce marlene trestman, Bessie Margolin. She is now writing the history 1855 to 1946. Both books draw on personal experiences, award of agency, two men the two women spent time together while tres, the ma attended college and started legal career. A former special assistant to the attorney general, Consumer Protection laws governing tobacco, alcohol and internet safety and twice earned Exceptional Service awards. For her writing, funding from national endowment, American Jewish archives and literary award from the Supreme Court historical society. Please join me in welcoming marlene, the trestmen. [applause] thank you, its an honor to be here. It was not even a twinkle in my eye that one day you would be back to speak about the book so im grateful and very honored to be here. Through a life expand the 20th century, bessie made her mark on the best issues of her day, she served on the brilliant legal team that defended the constitutionality of fdrs new deal and drafted rules for the nazi war crimes trials and for more than three decades she champion the fair labor standards act ultimately included the equal pay act and she was also a founder of the National Organization for women known as now. Entrusted with the Labor Departments litigation, margolin presented 24 arguments at the Supreme Court, one of only three women in the 20th century to do so. And she prevailed in 21 of them. For 20 years solicitors general assigned those arguments to her and she was the last Labor Department lawyer to receive that distinction. She began her legal career in 1930 when only 2 of americas lawyers were women. She served in the federal government under six president s from fdr to nixon and nine labor secretaries starting with francis perkins. She received every award the Labor Department offered and by 1963 promoted to associate solicitor, the Labor Departments nonpolitical legal position. In short, before there was a notorious rbg as Justice Ginsburg has been called there was margolin. After retiring, margolin faded from the public record. Its not hard to understand why she deserves to be rescued from obscurity but i would like to explain how i came to the task. In the fall of 1974 i was a freshman at college in baltimore far from my home in new orleans. My High School Guidance counsel had written magnoli, the letter of introduction shown here. Through College Law School and into my legal career i got to know Bessie Margolin, the first female lawyer i had ever met and we were connect bid common child experiences, bessie and i were wards from the same Jewish Welfare Agency which educated us at its Newman School a half century 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 advanced the careers of counselless government lawyers and employees, many of whom sought out her demanding toot the federal Fourth Circuit and a former solicitor general offered only two 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 beneficiary to powerful advocate and along the wayly offer just a few examples of the wonderful resources here at the fdr library that enabled me to understand bessies journey, these were resource that is preserve it had needles of her remarkable live amid hay stacks of individuals. There to escape new york tough and crowded conditions, bessies family made its way to memphis, tennessee about a year after giving birth to a third child, bessies mother died leaving bessies father alone to carry care for the children. In 1913 the orphanage admitted bessie at age four and siblings proclaim ad magnificent monument to hebrew, the home as it was known sat prominently on st. Charles avenue near the stately mansions of new who are lanes most prosperous citizens. It was both a stunning contrast to the humble origins of residents and inspiring symbol of what each of them could and what many of them did achieve. In the home bessie grew up with more than 150 other orphans and half orphans throughout the deep south. Trustees were not content to provide with mere assistance, instead the homegrown bessie shed honor on the local Jewish Community and reflect it had values and culture of prosperous benefactors. The home provided bessie a robust secular education at the Manual Training School where the cutting edge curriculum emphasized manual skills like Home Economics and wood working as well as rigorous academics. The home built this unique school to educate its words but admitted new who who new orleans children, one of the south finest prep schools and there bessie excelled in every subject. She graduated from newman as a 16yearold leader who was comfortable in a coed setting competing, succeeding and winning respect. Besides leading debate club bessie was valedictorian. Bessie spent two years ranking among the top 10 in her class. But the audacious bessie wanted more. Bessie decided to attend law school something no other girl from the orphanage had ever done. Bessie felt isolated and selfcorrespondence, but she and her male classmates soon adjusted to each other when a professor assigned a torts case assigned involving an accident in a mans bathroom, no one wanted to recite the facts of the case because they were embarrassed to use the word toilet in mix company. When one poor fellow blurted washroom they all sighed in relief. At age 21, bessie completed liberal arts and law studies with honors in only five years, she graduated second in her Law School Class and was an editor of the law review. Twolane law school harris, urged yale law schools dean to hire bessie or award her for graduate study, clark found bessii worthy for a job but refuse today consider fellowship because he did not want to encourage you to pursue a career teaching law that simply did not exist for a woman. Harris assured clark that bessie was in his words, quote, a levelheaded girl who knew some things in this world must be taken as they are, end quote. Or so he thought. With her fate determined by the two deans, bessie accept ad Research Position with yale law professor ernst, an expert in comparative law and conflicts. While in new heaven bessie impressed faculty member. Future Supreme Court justice, with their help bessie over jim dean clarks opposition and she became the first woman awarded yale sterling fellowship for graduate studies. With her yale doctorate bessie moved to washington for a new opportunity. She applied for a job at the Tennessee Valley authority which congress had just created to realize fdrs new deal vision of supplying electricity to the valley most impoverish residents. Among letters of recommendations, professors wrote what apparently convinced, the tba to hire first woman lawyer. Bessie thus began the federal government career with a pledge that she would be married to her job instead of a man. Hearing tba competition, public utility companies, charges of socialism that turned into lawsuits, to defend the new deal, tba hired harvard law graduate and experienced trial lawyer from the justice department, made bessie a key member. Two landmark Supreme Court cases that establish it had legality of power program, later the Tennessee Electric Power Company overshadowed work over the years and bessii, researched, prepared witnesses and materially shaped the briefs in both cases. In her other work, she negotiated contracts and got courtroom experience in condemnation cases despite fierce resistance for a woman lawyer from local attorneys, judges and even witnesses. Bessie won the respect of her tba colleagues including herbert marks, pictured in the top left of the group photo, who would go onto serve as general counsel to the Atomic Energy commission and whose papers i researched here at the library. How did burkes essii feel about her chosen profession . In 1938 she shared her thoughts and her magazine. Law is still too greatly restricted to woman with considerable prejudice against them she wrote and she offered this no nonsense 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 do the men attorneys. She must aim to become one of the men without, however, becoming masculine. Bessie practice what she preached in her career. Bessie joined the department. There the fair labor standards act of 1938 invoked federal commerce powers to prohibit child labor and to guaranty 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 won a motion to quash the subpoena. By years end she return today new orleans several more times on flsa matters including a Supreme Court bound lawsuit that challenged the minimum wage for text tile workers, then 32 and a half cents an hour. The new Orleans Press loved bessies local orphan girl make good story, one photo show here captures bessie in a pose more cheesecake thanlawyererly. Why isnt she married, they wanted to know. I Vice President had time for love, then she smiled, but im not immune. Im just uncontaminated. So far she added, well, bessiis remark merit several notes, first it was witty like a line from a movie revealing passion for word misery, second she didnt selfdefense i have or selfconscious about being single and third, it just wasnt true. Im going to digress to talk about a topic and thats bessiis personal life. During law school bessie was engage today her classmate the dashing bob butler, she broke it off in late 1933 surprising no one who knew her except perhaps poor 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 as you can see here with extensive passages from virginia wolfs feminist essay a room of ones own, importance of woman having space literally and fig figuratively and then there was larry who was married with two children. Their affair was a widespread secret. Thats what colleagues and wife and even bessie told his daughter who was writing his daughters never finished biography. The romance did not impair supervision of, the ba lawyers who praise fly for running the best departments inside or out of government. The romance, however, had other consequences for margolin and fly who was appointed chair of the federal communications commission. In 1943 a george congressman eugene cox to investigate the fcc accusing fly and the agency of, quote, gestapo tactics to control the media and other unamerican activities, coxs investigators scrutinize bessie and flys travel voucher to cover honeymoon trips and interrogated bessies house keepers and landlords. Congressman sam and Lyndon Johnson interceded. Rayburn reported told cox, and i quote, there aint going to be no sex in this investigation. Theres two damn many of us that are vulnerable on that score, enquote. [laughter] although cox obliged bessies romance kept resurfacing. Although they uncovered no evidence of disloyalty, fbi agents learned that bessie had been flys mistress. The fbi sent a memo to the white house simmering a prior investigation concluding these illicit love affairs from two decades earlier. There are at least three lessons Bessie Margolin should have learned from her romance with fly. Dont get involved with a direct report, be discreet and dont get involved with a married man. He heated the first two of these lessons when she fell in love with bob jen a, the wellrespected counsel to the interstate commerce commission. He was not her direct report although was a professional colleague who argued a dozen more times the Supreme Court then she did. She was very discreet, friends and family were stunned when bessie announced after bobs wife died that they plan to marry blues not only because bessie and bob were in their 70s and everyone figured she would never marry but because no one knew anything about the relationship which started two decades earlier. Stanley bob died in 1984 before he and bessie realized there plans for marriage. The drama of bessies personal life never impeded her work, she paid her dues traveling, reviewing timesheets in damp warehouses and traveling back roads to interview vegetable packers. And regional offices and trained regional attorney, began arguing and winning appeals in the Circuit Court and working with Solicitor Generals Office on cases headed for the Supreme Court. Bessies highquality work and her recognition. Solicitor general, the future federal judge whose papers are preserved at the library was delighted with the Supreme Court brief she wrote and her help preparing him for the successful Supreme Court argument. And in every federal circuit across the country, he promised she could argue the next fair labor standards case to go to the Supreme Court. In march 1945, as only the 25th woman ever to argue at the Supreme Court, seeking to ensure that the act protected warehouse employees of the interstate Grocery Store chain. After what must have been a lively argument Justice Robert jackson marked the occasion with a thoughtful note, the first of several he wrote to bessie over the years. I hope you were satisfied with the way the court argued your first case. In any event you have every reason to feel satisfied the way you took care of yourself under fire. I am sure there would be no dissent behind the opinion that you argued here often. And fair labor standards act exemptions must he narrowly construed. In 1945 bessie argued four more times at the Supreme Court and prevailed in 3, they followed the cases she argued, advanced the act, humanitarian purposes by extending coverage and restricting exemptions to protect wage earners to the full extent congress intended. When bessie presented her fourth and fifth Supreme Court argument Justice Jackson was not on the bench. He was in nuremberg at the us chief prosecutor for nazi war crimes appointed by president truman just two weeks after fdrs death. This new and exciting legal pursuit attracted bessie who in may 1946 went to nuremberg to help organize the American Military tribunal. A 6month tour of duty the Army Commanding officer, and drafting the rules that govern the remainder of the nazi war crimes trial, for secondtier nazis. The judges and doctors and industrialists. In may of december 1946 bessie return to the Labor Department to resume her work as assistant solicitor. She up atomized a new postwar ideal of a glamorous career girl succeeding in a mans world of law as depicted in the january 1948 issue of glamour. And a girl with a job. The glamour did not interfere, and directed preparation and review of approximately 600 Supreme Court and appellate briefs in the merits. And petitions for review. And principally briefed and personally argued 177 cases in the Supreme Court and Circuit Court, and Circuit Court cases that were argued, favorable rulings in 114. And one of which the Supreme Court later reversed. Of the 36 and reversed 7 in the governments favor. Bessie was no great or rader but she engaged the justices who respected meticulous preparation and insightful knowledge of the fair labor standards act. She was able to employ humor, with success of the Supreme Court. In this 1955 audio clip you will hear bessies bar. Bessie successfully argued battery plant workers, and it involved contact with toxic chemicals had a right to wages, showering and changing clothes. You may not hear everything he is saying, you hear justice frankfurters annoyance with congress for imposing on the court what he considered to be undue burdens of interpretation. Well many times, the question for congress and court. 500 people they have to get to agreement on and and it is not something that is easy to make clear. In this 1960 clip. You will hear how comfortable bessie was with justices probing her questions, probing her positions and dissecting her argument. You will hear her just plain having fun with the way Justice Charles whitaker worded questions. An opportunity to straighten out, i would like to show them. Let me ask this question. Do you stand on your actions, chief justice . What do you mean . I stand i dont fall on either. Bessie won that case, 8 1, with Justice Whitaker providing loan dissent. And enjoyed a cordial relationship outside the courtroom. And it was described this way, bessie pleases me more often than i, in the early 90 1960s, she pursued a federal judgeship as a particularly audacious pursuit given there were only two women federal judges in the country. With enthusiastic support from congress, the Supreme Court and the Labor Department bessies name was considered by lbj. It is not clear what if any role bessies affair played in the decision, but she faced other hurdles, one male white house staffer criticized her fashion forward appearances as flamboyant and another opined that her age, 58, would preclude her from consideration. 7 older than she was. The Silver Lining from bessie not getting the judgeship is she remained at the Labor Department, promoted in 1963 to associate solicitor for trial litigation and appeal, bessie developed a strategy and argued the first appeal under the equal pay act and age discrimination and employment act. By the time she retired in 1972, bessie oversaw filing of 300 equal pay lawsuits in 40 states ultimately recovering 4 million for 18,000 employees and earning the title of the nations number one fighter for equal pay for women. This is harder than a power point. One such battle, perhaps Bessie Margolins most significant appellate victory which one commentator likened to a second brown versus board of education. Was able to convince the third Circuit Court of appeals to overrule a trial court and establish a precedent that remains in existence until today that work need only be substantially equal toward equal pay under the act. The company sought review from the Supreme Court. You will hear next at the retirement dinner in 1972 judge silverman describing what happened next. The third circuit, was terrorized with the decision which steadily sweeping scope, i distinctly saw a footnote between lines, give you anything you note, please dont send it down again. Counsel for the other side. Bessie and i discussed, you can see the light, she had a sweeping decision in the third circuit, here was an opportunity to take equal pay cases to the Supreme Court and that suggested we should not oppose it. And there is nowhere in the world to get the decision. There are other speakers to get to that point. Figure way to deal with the problem. I never argued a case in the Supreme Court. Bessie did not want anyone else to argue with the Supreme Court if she couldnt. At the retirement dinner chief Justice Earl Warren retired as guest speaker. Crediting bessie with putting the flash on the bare bones of the fair standards act, barebones that would have been inadequate without the implementation Bessie Margolin forged in the courtrooms of the land. It is hard to top what the chief justice said about Bessie Margolin, so i will offer this one concluding comments. Fair labor lawyer, the title of Bessie Margolins biography, refers to the new deal legislation she shepherded through the courts but also refers to the fairness of her career, the obstacles she faced as a woman, the opportunities that influential supporters afforded her, the use of her feminine charms and nonconformist personal life. For me the title represents the challenge i have imposed on myself to restore Bessie Margolins place in history and do justice to her remarkable story. I hope i have succeeded and thank you for your attention. [applause] in the time remaining i would be happy to answer a few questions if you will step up to the mic. Could use a little more about the orphan home and what sustained it for so many years and still sustained it. The orphanage did close in 1946 which was a byproduct of new deal legislation am a Social Security act made it possible for parents surviving parents to have some form of welfare income. And the orphanage transformed into a social service agency, celebrated its 160th anniversary and continues to serve children throughout the deep south. The orphanage was founded in 1856 at the impetus of the yellow fever epidemic, the worst in the nations history. It is sustained throughout the years and supported by jews throughout the deep south much as it was when bessie lived there from 1913 to 1925. Her siblings also did well. In the book i am writing now, how many overachievers were remarkably produced by the institution that was money much more like an elite religious boarding school than any mckenzie in notion of an orphanage. Her older sister dora came back to the orphanage after she received her nursing degree, employed as a nurse with many people im interviewing today, remember her as the nurse who cared for them. Her brother went to tulane, got a degree in business, in early 1930s attended dartmouth. [inaudible question] he died in 1996 at the age of 87. After she retired she got to fulfill at least in part two of her dreams which were to teach law and be a judge. She taught a course in labor law at George Washington university and also for ten years served as an arbitrator in labor cases. Came close to those aspirations. Are we good on time . Thank you for your attention. [inaudible conversations]
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