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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's

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Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is Stuff you

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Speaker 2: Should Know, the Great Women in History edition.

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Speaker 3: That's right, one of the greatest.

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Speaker 2: Sure she's up there. Francis Perkins still gets my vote, though,

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah. Eleanor Roosevelt is amazing. It's just that

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Speaker 2: learning about her makes your head spin, like you could

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Speaker 2: do a ten part series on her.

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Speaker 1: Easy.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, at some point you just gotta, you know, do

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Speaker 3: the stuff you should know.

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Speaker 2: Thn right, and condense ten parts into forty five minutes.

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Speaker 3: That's right.

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Speaker 2: So I think I just let the cat out of

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Speaker 2: the bag, Chuck. We're talking today about Eleanor Roosevelt, and

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Speaker 2: she is the longest serving first Lady. She was called

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Speaker 2: the first Lady of the world as a matter of

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Speaker 2: fact by Harry Truman. Mayor La Guardia in New York

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Speaker 2: called her America's number one volunteer. And she was almost

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Speaker 2: universally liked, even if you couldn't stand her politics. She

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Speaker 2: was just so eloquent and graceful and kind and generous

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Speaker 2: and all the great things that you like you couldn't help,

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Speaker 2: but like her pretty much. It seems like only a

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Speaker 2: few members of her family are the ones that she

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Speaker 2: ever had a real beef with.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. And you know, family's got a family, right.

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Speaker 2: Never trust family, that's right. So let's talk about her

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Speaker 2: family to start. She was born in eighteen eighty four.

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Speaker 2: I believe her full name was Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, but

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Speaker 2: everybody calls her Eleanor, and her father was Elliott Roosevelt,

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Speaker 2: who's Teddy Roosevelt's younger brother. And so, yes, she wasn't

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Speaker 2: just married as a Roosevelt. She was born a Roosevelt too.

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Speaker 3: Isn't that surprising that she married her cousin? That is

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Speaker 3: surprising to probably a lot of people.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, fifth cousin. Not a lot of genetic issues there,

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Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean I thought she became a Roosevelt

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Speaker 2: after Emerchan she was born of Roosevelt. Buddy, there's your

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Speaker 2: trivia question for this one.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. She didn't have her parents around for long,

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Speaker 3: and while she did, it was not the best scene.

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Speaker 3: Apparently her mother was a pretty distant person, not the

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Speaker 3: greatest mom, and her dad was a pretty tough alcoholic.

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Speaker 3: But they died not too you know, they died when

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Speaker 3: she was a child. Basically, her mom Anna died in

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Speaker 3: eighteen ninety two of diphtheria, and her father, Eliot died

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Speaker 3: after he jumped out of a window because of alcoholic

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Speaker 3: trimmers basically delirium trim and so it was a pretty

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Speaker 3: rough go for her until she went to live with

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Speaker 3: her grandmother, where she had lived with her brothers Elliott Junior,

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Speaker 3: who actually he didn't live that long either, but her

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Speaker 3: brother Hall did and apparently she doted on him quite

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Speaker 3: a bit.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, what a great sister.

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Speaker 1: Like.

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Speaker 2: They're both orphans, and so she's going to take on

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Speaker 2: the role of like being his mother figure essentially and

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Speaker 2: taking good care of him. So I think that's pretty

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Speaker 2: neat and that shows a lot about who she was,

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Speaker 2: because this is starting about age ten. And when she

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Speaker 2: went and lived with her grandmother, she was educated at home,

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Speaker 2: as very very wealthy people did at the time. And

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Speaker 2: when she was fifteen, she was sent to England and

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Speaker 2: that's where she her first brush, maybe even really her

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Speaker 2: only brush with education went. She was there for like

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Speaker 2: three years before her grandmother called her back and said

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Speaker 2: that's enough, let's do some debutante stuff, come back and

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Speaker 2: get fitted for a big frilly.

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Speaker 3: Dress, that's right. And that was in nineteen oh two,

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Speaker 3: and she wasn't you know, she didn't take to even

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Speaker 3: though she was born into in wealth and kind of

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Speaker 3: into that scene obviously as a Roosevelt, she didn't feel

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Speaker 3: like she really fit in in that elite sort of

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Speaker 3: sort of scene there. So early on she started volunteering,

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Speaker 3: and she thought, well, a good way to sort of

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Speaker 3: rid myself, or at least distance myself a bit from

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Speaker 3: that life would be to kind of, you know, see

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Speaker 3: what the common folks are up to and help them out.

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Speaker 3: And she started out doing that at a pretty young age,

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Speaker 3: initially at the Rivington Street Settlement House there on the

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Speaker 3: Lower East Side, where she was a dance teacher and

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Speaker 3: she taught classes to young immigrants, and then also finally

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Speaker 3: joining the National Consumers League, which was basically an organization

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Speaker 3: that tried to improve, you know, down in the garment

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Speaker 3: district what the workers were dealing with.

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Speaker 2: Right, trying to get worker's death from one hundred percent

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Speaker 2: down to something like eighty percent.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 2: So she met her cousin, her fifth cousin, who she

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Speaker 2: married Franklin Delano Roosevelt when they were both very young.

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Speaker 2: I think they were at like a family gathering or

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Speaker 2: something like that, and he was giving her piggyback rides,

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Speaker 2: not teenage piggyback rides, like these were little kid piggyback rides.

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Speaker 2: And then they I guess, didn't keep in touch much.

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Speaker 2: But then when she was eighteen and got called back

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Speaker 2: for the whole debutante thing, they met again and they

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Speaker 2: were just like, I like you. I like you too.

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Speaker 2: Maybe we should get married, Maybe we should we're fifth cousins.

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Speaker 2: I think that's okay, let's do it. That was the conversation.

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Speaker 3: Let's a teenage piggyback.

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Speaker 2: It's a piggyback ride given by teenagers. It's much different

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Speaker 2: than like a little kid piggyback ride.

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Speaker 3: Can you explain the difference. I've never heard of this.

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Speaker 2: I think the guy giving the girl usually is how

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Speaker 2: it goes piggyback ride. The piggyback ride is hoping that

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Speaker 2: that will somehow turn into something much more than just

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Speaker 2: a piggyback ride, even if it's just someday.

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Speaker 3: Oh wow, all right, I never heard of that's.

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Speaker 2: A teenage piggyback ride.

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Speaker 3: Wow, I missed out.

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Speaker 1: I was.

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Speaker 3: I grew up a Baptist kid though, so I wasn't anoyed.

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Speaker 2: Well, I mean all of this was just completely me

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Speaker 2: making this up as I went along.

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Speaker 1: I don't think it's an actual thing.

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Speaker 3: I gotcha, all right. So they decided to get married.

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Speaker 3: That happened in nineteen oh five. They had kind of

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Speaker 3: a long, dish engagement for the time and apparently Sarah

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Speaker 3: Roosevelt Franklin's mom kind of didn't insist on that, but

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Speaker 3: she didn't love eleanor so I think it kind of

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Speaker 3: dragged out a bit. Yeah, but they did get married,

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Speaker 3: and boy was Sarah a part of their life. Like

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Speaker 3: talk about an intrusive mother in law, Sarah and her

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Speaker 3: son were very very tight. She did not want to

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Speaker 3: kind of completely give him up, so she accomplished this

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Speaker 3: by gifting them a brownstone that she had built for them,

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Speaker 3: and she had a matching brownstone built that were connected

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Speaker 3: by sliding doors, so essentially, you know, it was on

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Speaker 3: like one big place when she wanted it.

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Speaker 1: To be right.

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Speaker 2: And she kept this control not just by adoring her son,

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Speaker 2: which she genuinely did, or being adored by him, which

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Speaker 2: he genuinely did. She also kept everybody in the family

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Speaker 2: on a pretty short leash by controlling the family's finances.

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Speaker 2: She was the one who was in charge of the

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Speaker 2: family money, so she could threaten to cut you off

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Speaker 2: if you didn't do what she wanted, she could reward

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Speaker 2: you for doing what she wanted, and then she I

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Speaker 2: just can't really wrap my head around how overbearing Sarah

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Speaker 2: FDR's mom was. It's just mind boggling to me, because

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Speaker 2: not just controlling the finances and building a brownstone, it

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Speaker 2: gets worse as a matter of fact. And yet Eleanor

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Speaker 2: really wanted her approval. She loved FDR. She wanted FDR

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Speaker 2: to be happy, and at the same time, she was like,

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Speaker 2: you have to be kidding me about this. Still, she

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Speaker 2: managed to become pretty close with her mother in law.

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Speaker 2: Again all odds, yeah, for sure, Colin.

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Speaker 3: Said, that's right. So there was another pretty rough situation

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Speaker 3: not too long into their marriage. About nine years in,

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Speaker 3: Eleanor found out that her husband had been having a

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Speaker 3: fair like a year's long affair with her secretary, Lucy Mercer,

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Speaker 3: And this all came out, and you know, there were

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Speaker 3: love letters found, and they thought about getting divorced, but

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Speaker 3: you know, depending on who you read, they stayed together,

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Speaker 3: probably because he wanted to continue his career in politics

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Speaker 3: and that would not look very good. Other people say

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Speaker 3: that his mom, Sarah, had a threat to stop the

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Speaker 3: plow of money, kind of Arthur's style, so that might

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Speaker 3: be a reason too, But at any rate, they decided

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Speaker 3: to stay together to fight despite this infidelity, which I'm

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Speaker 3: sure was a huge disappointment for.

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Speaker 2: Sure, I think that hit her hard and if FDR

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Speaker 2: had any you know, second thoughts about staying together. Three

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Speaker 2: years later, he was stricken with polio which he probably

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Speaker 2: contracted as a younger child, but caught up with them

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Speaker 2: at age thirty nine, and he was partially paralyzed and

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Speaker 2: had had to recover and he never fully recovered full

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Speaker 2: range of motion and power. And he just happened to

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Speaker 2: be married to the perfect person to help him through that.

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Speaker 2: So I think that that really kind of helped reinforce

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Speaker 2: the bonds that they had and also helped reinforce the

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Speaker 2: character of the relationship. Where he had one mom, he

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Speaker 2: got another one. He also had a wife. He also

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Speaker 2: had a very smart, savvy adviser, so he had like

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Speaker 2: everything except maybe the love of his life in Eleanor,

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Speaker 2: and he was like, this is good, I can deal

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Speaker 2: with this.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean she definitely stepped in and not only

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Speaker 3: cared for him but acted almost as a co president

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Speaker 3: like certainly more so than any other first lady that

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Speaker 3: we had ever seen. And we're going to go through,

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Speaker 3: you know, a lot of her first Lady first but

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Speaker 3: you know, when he couldn't get out there for any reason,

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Speaker 3: she was out there for him and would report back

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Speaker 3: to him. And I think everyone kind of understood and

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Speaker 3: you know, viewed her with a lot of respect. It

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Speaker 3: seems like for the most part.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think a lot of people were also like,

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Speaker 2: especially when she was first Lady, hey, overstep your bounds much,

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Speaker 2: but she just plugged on. One thing that you'll see

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Speaker 2: about her is that she was a very self conscious person.

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Speaker 2: She had kind of low self esteem in a lot

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Speaker 2: of ways, and yet she was willing to plow through it.

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Speaker 2: And she was also willing to plow through the disapproval

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Speaker 2: of her social peers, her friends sometimes the general public,

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Speaker 2: and just kind of follow her moral compass essentially, where

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Speaker 2: it led her to great effect. I mean, when you

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Speaker 2: put all of it together, she's one of the most

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Speaker 2: revered women in American history.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, she had a lot of kids. She

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Speaker 3: gave her to six kids, but in a ten year

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Speaker 3: period between nineteen oh six and nineteen sixteen with Anna Eleanor,

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Speaker 3: James Frank Junior sadly passed away. But they would get

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Speaker 3: another shot at another Frank Junior, as we'll see, because

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Speaker 3: she'd then had Elliott, then another Frank Junior, and then John.

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Speaker 3: And you know, she was a mom who wasn't like

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Speaker 3: as close to her kids as she wanted to be

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Speaker 3: or thought she wanted to be. Sarah again, was sort

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Speaker 3: of always there and always stepping in as grandmother, plus

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Speaker 3: to the point where she would say things to the

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Speaker 3: kids like I'm your real mother. She just bore you

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Speaker 3: your mom Eleanor. So you know, again, Sarah's kind of there,

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Speaker 3: throwing a wrench into things, including like not separating, but

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Speaker 3: at least creating some sort of a divide between Eleanor

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Speaker 3: and her children.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think her children kind of didn't feel

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Speaker 2: very close to her and maybe even disliked her for

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Speaker 2: their childhood years. And it wasn't until they got older

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Speaker 2: before they started to get close with their mother. And

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Speaker 2: I'm imagining that that probably coincided with Sarah's death when

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Speaker 2: she was finally out of the picture.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a pretty good bed.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: But it was during I guess, sort of the beginning

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Speaker 3: of the child bearing decade when she became a political

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Speaker 3: wife for the first time, when Franklin was elected to

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Speaker 3: New York State Senate, and that's when she really kind of,

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Speaker 3: you know, jumped in there. She got really active and

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Speaker 3: acted as you know, a host, you know, to dinners

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Speaker 3: and of course stuff like that. She would sit in

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Speaker 3: on meetings when she was allowed to. When FDR when

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Speaker 3: they had to move to DC, when she was appointed

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Speaker 3: or I guess he was appointed Woodrow Wilson's Assistant Secretary

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Speaker 3: of the Navy. That's when she found herself in the

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Speaker 3: middle of the like sort of the DC politics for

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Speaker 3: the first time, and she really took to it. It seems

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Speaker 3: like she did.

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Speaker 2: At first she was basically following like the traditional political

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Speaker 2: wife handbook, right, But then as FDR's political career kind

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Speaker 2: of rose and rose and rose, she started to become

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Speaker 2: more and more involved in a much less traditional sense,

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Speaker 2: like much more pioneering sense. For example, she helped him

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Speaker 2: write speeches, she helped him strategize, especially when he ran

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Speaker 2: for vice president in nineteen twenty and she became much

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Speaker 2: more of a collaborator than the average political wife at

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Speaker 2: the time. Like this is when it became clear to

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Speaker 2: FDR if it wasn't already that she was invaluable in

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Speaker 2: the same way that inflammable still means flammable, right, this

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Speaker 2: means that she was super valuable.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. And they kind of lived all over

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Speaker 3: depending on what his job was politically, because he was

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Speaker 3: governor of New York for a while in nineteen twenty eight,

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Speaker 3: and so you know, they certainly their home was in

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Speaker 3: New York. When in New York, I think they lived

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Speaker 3: on the Upper East Side, and she also, as we'll see,

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Speaker 3: would later have a place in like near Washington Square Park.

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Speaker 3: But they also obviously lived in DC when they need

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Speaker 3: to and Hyde Park, New York. But you know, she

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Speaker 3: liked she liked New York City.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, who doesn't, especially now the next one. God,

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Speaker 2: we're gonna just dated this episode. Huh.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.

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Speaker 2: So something I didn't know about Eleanor that is at

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Speaker 2: first tough to swallow until you stop and kind of

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Speaker 2: think about how much that means she changed her views

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Speaker 2: early on. Again, she was just kind of following the

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Speaker 2: standard handbook of her social class or social circle to

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Speaker 2: the people around her, including her mother in law. So

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Speaker 2: she from her early letter she was a prolific letter

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Speaker 2: writer throughout her life. From her early letters, like she

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Speaker 2: didn't know anything about politics. She wasn't paying attention to

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Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. She didn't care about it. She

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Speaker 2: was just doing the society thing. Apparently she adopted her

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Speaker 2: mother in law, her mother in law's anti semitism, She

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Speaker 2: didn't think very highly of her black servants, Like she

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Speaker 2: was not a great person at that point, and a

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Speaker 2: lot of it from everything I've seen, people are like

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Speaker 2: she was straight up a product of her culture, right.

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Speaker 3: Seems to be.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And so the idea that she went from anti semitism

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Speaker 2: to lobbying for America opening its stors to Jewish people

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Speaker 2: who were fleeing the Holocaust, from disparaging her black servants

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Speaker 2: to tirelessly working for civil rights for Black Americans, and

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Speaker 2: also just kind of showing disdain for the suffrage movement

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Speaker 2: becoming a champion for women's rights, It really kind of

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Speaker 2: shows like she didn't go from a neutral place to

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Speaker 2: these amazing heights. She came from the bottom and then

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Speaker 2: got to neutral and then got to those heights. And

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Speaker 2: it's pretty impressive how much she changed, and I mean

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Speaker 2: just how willing she was to change her views because

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Speaker 2: a lot of people aren't.

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Speaker 3: Oh for sure, absolutely. Is that a good time for

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Speaker 3: a break?

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Speaker 1: I think so? Sure.

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Speaker 3: All right, we're gonna come back and continue with I

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Speaker 3: bet you're never gonna guess eleanor Roosevelt learn and stuff

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Speaker 3: with Joshua John stuff. You shut up, all right, so

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Speaker 3: we're back. We talked a little bit about her early

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Speaker 3: volunteer that kind of stopped for a while when she

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Speaker 3: became a political wife, but she always had that volunteer Jones.

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Speaker 3: I guess, so once she had more opportunity, she turned

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Speaker 3: that into more volunteerism. She was a volunteer for the

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Speaker 3: Red Cross in DC during World War One. In nineteen eighteen,

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Speaker 3: when she went to Europe with her husband, she toured

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Speaker 3: war hospitals in the battlefield And it feels like all

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Speaker 3: this sort of inspired her to really kind of get

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Speaker 3: busy and put her her time where her heart was.

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Speaker 3: Because she volunteered as a translator, she spoke French as

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Speaker 3: well as English. So she was volunteered as a translator

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Speaker 3: at a lot of different events, one of which was

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Speaker 3: the International Conference of Working Women at the Paris Peace Conference.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: In addition to volunteering, she also became an activist. She

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Speaker 2: was very, very active with organizations that promoted women's right. Now,

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Speaker 2: she finally kind of got on board with the suffrage movement.

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Speaker 2: She became a part of the League of Women Voters.

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Speaker 2: And one of the things about her that you'll notice

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Speaker 2: is she'll join an organization and then you like blink

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Speaker 2: a couple times and now she's like vice president of

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Speaker 2: it or something like that. She was a really great

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Speaker 2: asset to your organization if she showed up, because that

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Speaker 2: meant she really believed in what you were doing and

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Speaker 2: she wanted to help.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Like if my read from all of this is like,

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Speaker 3: you know, certainly being a prominent political wife had something

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Speaker 3: to do with it, But it wasn't just that, because

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Speaker 3: that didn't happen to everybody's wife at the time in politics.

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Speaker 3: So she clearly just showed the stuff you know that

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Speaker 3: people you know had clear leadership qualities for sure.

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Speaker 2: Definitely. Oh, she was also asked too by the DNC

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Speaker 2: the Democratic National Convention to basically chair a committee on

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Speaker 2: women's issues to help them come up with whatever plank

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Speaker 2: in their platform they were going to have for women's suffrage.

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Speaker 2: And they were like, great, thanks Dahl and took her

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Speaker 2: ideas and shut the door and the all male committee

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Speaker 2: deliberated on it without her in the room.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. So she definitely faced stuff like that obviously at

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Speaker 3: the time, which really stinks because she had a lot

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Speaker 3: of great ideas for sure.

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Speaker 2: Another great idea too, I thought this was super cool.

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Speaker 2: She co founded a furniture factory that was a nonprofit

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Speaker 2: furniture factory. I have the impression that was a collective

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Speaker 2: chuck which we've talked about before. They called vow Kill

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Speaker 2: Industries and they made colonial furniture reproductions impewter.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's kind of nice.

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Speaker 1: Sure, what else did she do?

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Speaker 3: She joined the Women's Trade Union League. This is kind

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Speaker 3: of part of her advocating for labor. That's when that

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Speaker 3: came into the picture, you know, working conditions for women

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Speaker 3: and children at the time, of course, because kids were

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Speaker 3: working and you know capacity that they don't work now,

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Speaker 3: if at all. It's always fun to talk to kids

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Speaker 3: who have teenagers about you know, them getting jobs and stuff.

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Speaker 3: I feel like that's happening a lot here and there,

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Speaker 3: but not like when we were kids, which was basically

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Speaker 3: still child favor for sure.

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Speaker 1: It really was.

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Speaker 3: Whenever I tell like my teenage my friend's teenage kids

360
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Speaker 3: that I was like a bus boy when I was thirteen,

361
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Speaker 3: They're all just like, are you serious? Yeah, it's like, yeah,

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Speaker 3: like every one of my friends worked as well. It

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Speaker 3: was weird.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it kind of is weird in retrospect. I had

365
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Speaker 2: like a paper route when I was ten or something

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Speaker 2: like that.

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Speaker 3: Never had a paper out. I was always jealous of

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Speaker 3: this man.

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Speaker 2: The smell of a stack of newspapers at like four

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Speaker 2: in the morning.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it is.

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Speaker 2: It's a specific experience, and it can be really great

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Speaker 2: or it can be like, what am I doing with

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Speaker 2: my life?

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Speaker 3: What?

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Speaker 1: Uh?

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Speaker 3: Do you get paid per paper? Is that the deal?

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Speaker 2: I don't remember I was ten. I'm not even sure

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Speaker 2: I was directly paid. I don't remember. I don't remember

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Speaker 2: being thirty something.

381
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Speaker 3: With your dad just funneling, funneling money.

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Speaker 2: I'm like, damn, when did you start smoking cigars?

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Speaker 3: Exactly? These look like good ones too.

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Speaker 2: So all the stuff we've been talking about this is

385
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Speaker 2: just the nineteen twenties. She hadn't even become first Lady yet.

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Speaker 2: And when FDR was elected in nineteen thirty two, like

387
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Speaker 2: we said, she became a first Lady of a lot

388
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Speaker 2: of different first some of which have never been replicated since.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I mean she's definitely I think not many

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Speaker 3: people would argue that she wasn't the most active first

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Speaker 3: Lady of all time. Probably she was the first first

393
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Speaker 3: lady to hold a press conference or multiple press conferences

394
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Speaker 3: and apparently only allowed women reporters to attend her press conferences. Yeah,

395
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Speaker 3: it's kind of cool. She is the first to write

396
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Speaker 3: a daily newspaper column and a host a radio show.

397
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Speaker 3: She's the first lady to travel to an active war

398
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Speaker 3: zone and just really sort of open the door on

399
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Speaker 3: what the whole title of first Lady could be, not

400
00:22:02,359 --> 00:22:04,640
Speaker 3: necessarily had to be, because as we've seen over the years,

401
00:22:04,680 --> 00:22:08,879
Speaker 3: there's been just so say, lots of different kinds of

402
00:22:08,960 --> 00:22:11,399
Speaker 3: first ladies for sure.

403
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Speaker 2: Yeah, some more active than others, having different interests when

404
00:22:15,000 --> 00:22:18,960
Speaker 2: they were active. She just basically did it all. And

405
00:22:18,960 --> 00:22:20,879
Speaker 2: again this was the kind of thing that made her

406
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Speaker 2: a target, like what are you doing? You're a first lady,

407
00:22:23,400 --> 00:22:25,840
Speaker 2: you're not supposed to be this active. I mean, one

408
00:22:25,880 --> 00:22:27,760
Speaker 2: of the things that she did that really made her

409
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Speaker 2: a target, Chuck, was she was she became assistant director

410
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Speaker 2: of Civilian Defense in World War Two.

411
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Speaker 3: Yeah, and they later direct her even.

412
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Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, and that's a public office, right, She's the

413
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Speaker 2: first first lady ever. She's the only first lady to

414
00:22:46,359 --> 00:22:50,040
Speaker 2: have held public office while her husband was in office

415
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Speaker 2: as president. Right, And people were like, what is this? Like,

416
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Speaker 2: I don't know how I feel about this, and some

417
00:22:56,040 --> 00:22:59,200
Speaker 2: people were like this is They accused her of cronyism,

418
00:22:59,280 --> 00:23:02,359
Speaker 2: they accused her of frivolous spending. And it actually was

419
00:23:02,400 --> 00:23:05,240
Speaker 2: so bad that she stepped down after a year because

420
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Speaker 2: she didn't want to keep drawing like negative attention to

421
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Speaker 2: the work the Civilian Defense Agency was doing.

422
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Speaker 3: Totally, man, I mean, that's the worst. She's trying to

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Speaker 3: do good work. She's getting disparaged and she has to

424
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Speaker 3: quit making a difference in doing the thing she loves

425
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Speaker 3: to make that thing better.

426
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, just because her husband had political enemies,

427
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Speaker 2: you know, I mean, that's and that's just politics, I guess,

428
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Speaker 2: you know.

429
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Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, she her code name for secret service

430
00:23:34,359 --> 00:23:38,439
Speaker 3: was Rover and the you know, everyone's best guess is

431
00:23:38,480 --> 00:23:41,760
Speaker 3: because she was always all over the place she was traveling.

432
00:23:41,880 --> 00:23:44,640
Speaker 3: I think there was another nickname that she had, which

433
00:23:44,720 --> 00:23:48,760
Speaker 3: was eleanor Everywhere, because starting very early in her career,

434
00:23:49,520 --> 00:23:52,080
Speaker 3: she would hit the road. She was very famous for

435
00:23:52,520 --> 00:23:56,840
Speaker 3: driving a blue roadster saying secret Service, I'll smell you later,

436
00:23:57,400 --> 00:23:59,760
Speaker 3: and hit the road. And I think between nineteen twenty

437
00:23:59,800 --> 00:24:02,720
Speaker 3: three in nineteen forty she traveled over three hundred thousand

438
00:24:02,760 --> 00:24:07,400
Speaker 3: miles yeah, and visited in person every state except South Dakota.

439
00:24:08,600 --> 00:24:11,840
Speaker 3: Just traveling all over the place, like checking on projects

440
00:24:11,840 --> 00:24:16,280
Speaker 3: that were going on, talking to everyday Americans, just you know,

441
00:24:16,600 --> 00:24:19,840
Speaker 3: kind of hitting the beat as as someone checking on

442
00:24:19,880 --> 00:24:20,760
Speaker 3: the health of America.

443
00:24:21,400 --> 00:24:24,199
Speaker 2: Yeah, and reporting back to FDR like you couldn't keep

444
00:24:24,200 --> 00:24:27,320
Speaker 2: it a secret. No, it wasn't like a media blitzer,

445
00:24:27,480 --> 00:24:30,000
Speaker 2: like a charm charm offensive. That's what I'm thinking of,

446
00:24:30,000 --> 00:24:33,879
Speaker 2: like shit, oh yeah, definitely taking this information back to

447
00:24:34,119 --> 00:24:37,280
Speaker 2: use for strategizing, for adjusting policy, all that stuff, like

448
00:24:37,320 --> 00:24:39,920
Speaker 2: it was really important. The first year she was First

449
00:24:39,960 --> 00:24:44,440
Speaker 2: Lady alone, she traveled forty thousand miles in her Buick.

450
00:24:45,160 --> 00:24:48,960
Speaker 2: And she also little known fact was the first person

451
00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:52,440
Speaker 2: to popularize those mudflaps with Yosemite Sam on them.

452
00:24:52,440 --> 00:24:55,840
Speaker 3: That's back off, back off. Yeah, I think she created

453
00:24:55,880 --> 00:24:56,560
Speaker 3: Yosemite Sam.

454
00:24:56,640 --> 00:25:00,280
Speaker 2: In fact, probably I hadn't read that, but you're probably right.

455
00:25:00,800 --> 00:25:02,720
Speaker 3: It was also in one of these road trips that

456
00:25:02,800 --> 00:25:08,240
Speaker 3: she well, we can't say with absolute one percent certainty,

457
00:25:08,280 --> 00:25:11,880
Speaker 3: but it's pretty well known that she had a love

458
00:25:11,920 --> 00:25:14,760
Speaker 3: affair with a woman. It was a road trip in

459
00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:18,680
Speaker 3: nineteen thirty three to New England and Quebec, shortly after

460
00:25:18,800 --> 00:25:21,919
Speaker 3: FDR was inaugurated the first time. And there was an

461
00:25:21,960 --> 00:25:26,439
Speaker 3: AP journalist named Lorena Hiccock or Hicck, who was a

462
00:25:26,560 --> 00:25:29,479
Speaker 3: very you know, just sort of a woman doing her

463
00:25:29,480 --> 00:25:32,960
Speaker 3: own thing at the time. She would like chomp on cigars,

464
00:25:33,040 --> 00:25:35,679
Speaker 3: and she was kind of kind of tough talking, and

465
00:25:36,160 --> 00:25:39,840
Speaker 3: she wore bright scarves and loved like big dinners and

466
00:25:39,960 --> 00:25:42,719
Speaker 3: rich foods. And it was a very kind of well known,

467
00:25:42,840 --> 00:25:47,040
Speaker 3: high paid AP reporter. And they met when hick was

468
00:25:47,080 --> 00:25:51,160
Speaker 3: covering FDR's gubernatorial campaign in nineteen twenty eight, and then

469
00:25:51,240 --> 00:25:53,919
Speaker 3: she was assigned to cover Eleanor and it sounds like

470
00:25:53,960 --> 00:25:56,200
Speaker 3: she covered Eleanor for sure.

471
00:25:57,280 --> 00:26:01,080
Speaker 2: They went everywhere together as a matter of fact, and

472
00:26:01,960 --> 00:26:07,040
Speaker 2: historians at first were like no, no, and then they're

473
00:26:07,200 --> 00:26:10,000
Speaker 2: now kind of like, well maybe, and most of them

474
00:26:10,040 --> 00:26:14,680
Speaker 2: are like, yes, they probably did become lovers. And that's

475
00:26:14,960 --> 00:26:17,760
Speaker 2: just kind of supported by some of the stuff that

476
00:26:17,800 --> 00:26:20,359
Speaker 2: they wrote to one another in letters. And again, like

477
00:26:20,400 --> 00:26:25,239
Speaker 2: you said, they were never caught in flagorante delecado, and

478
00:26:25,400 --> 00:26:28,439
Speaker 2: you know, Danny DeVito didn't snap a picture with one

479
00:26:28,440 --> 00:26:31,280
Speaker 2: of those big flash bulbs or anything like that. But

480
00:26:32,600 --> 00:26:35,240
Speaker 2: you know, if you interpret some of the stuff like

481
00:26:35,400 --> 00:26:39,640
Speaker 2: any sensible person, it definitely does seem like their letters

482
00:26:39,680 --> 00:26:43,360
Speaker 2: do suggest that, yes, they definitely had a romantic relationship.

483
00:26:43,560 --> 00:26:48,600
Speaker 3: Yeah. And you know, I mean, should we read a selection.

484
00:26:49,040 --> 00:26:49,760
Speaker 1: I think that that.

485
00:26:50,280 --> 00:26:53,040
Speaker 2: Yes, I think that will help everybody make up their

486
00:26:53,080 --> 00:26:53,520
Speaker 2: own mind.

487
00:26:53,560 --> 00:26:55,000
Speaker 3: Yeah. It's not salacious or anything.

488
00:26:55,000 --> 00:26:56,879
Speaker 2: It's like, no, no, no, they were having an affair.

489
00:26:57,119 --> 00:26:59,920
Speaker 3: Good for them, except for you know, the cheating part.

490
00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:05,240
Speaker 3: But you know FDR did the same thing, so we're

491
00:27:05,280 --> 00:27:06,959
Speaker 3: not going to hold her to a different standard than

492
00:27:06,960 --> 00:27:07,639
Speaker 3: her husband.

493
00:27:07,440 --> 00:27:11,320
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, well, put, I was gonna say, even Stephen.

494
00:27:12,880 --> 00:27:15,800
Speaker 3: Here's the selection from Hick to Eleanor. I've been trying

495
00:27:15,800 --> 00:27:18,040
Speaker 3: today to bring back your face and the feeling of

496
00:27:18,080 --> 00:27:21,240
Speaker 3: that soft spot just northeast of the corner of your

497
00:27:21,240 --> 00:27:24,320
Speaker 3: mouth against my lips. So, I mean, come on, they

498
00:27:24,320 --> 00:27:26,639
Speaker 3: were having an affair right exactly.

499
00:27:27,760 --> 00:27:30,920
Speaker 2: Even if they discovered or Hick discovered that that soft

500
00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:34,359
Speaker 2: spot on the northeast corner, well they were both eating

501
00:27:34,520 --> 00:27:38,080
Speaker 2: a shared piece of spaghetti, that still suggests that they

502
00:27:38,160 --> 00:27:39,680
Speaker 2: had a romantic relationship.

503
00:27:39,720 --> 00:27:40,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, we know it was going on the

504
00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:42,200
Speaker 3: lady in the tramp right.

505
00:27:42,480 --> 00:27:47,280
Speaker 2: Right, So none of this matters, if anything, to me,

506
00:27:47,440 --> 00:27:49,840
Speaker 2: This says like, oh, she's kind of open minded because

507
00:27:49,880 --> 00:27:52,520
Speaker 2: she does not seem to have been a straight up lesbian.

508
00:27:52,560 --> 00:27:57,200
Speaker 2: She is, we'll see, considered to have probably had an

509
00:27:57,200 --> 00:28:00,760
Speaker 2: affair with a very close male companion too at some point.

510
00:28:00,840 --> 00:28:03,680
Speaker 2: So I think she was just like, I'm into you,

511
00:28:03,760 --> 00:28:07,240
Speaker 2: I love you, I don't care who you are. Let's

512
00:28:07,280 --> 00:28:07,760
Speaker 2: get it on.

513
00:28:08,400 --> 00:28:13,359
Speaker 3: Yeah, like Marvin Kay said, Yeah, I mean, you know

514
00:28:14,160 --> 00:28:17,840
Speaker 3: her husband had an affair kind of what seven eight

515
00:28:17,920 --> 00:28:21,280
Speaker 3: years after they got married, for at least four years,

516
00:28:21,280 --> 00:28:23,600
Speaker 3: and the only reason it stopped is because he got caught.

517
00:28:24,400 --> 00:28:26,280
Speaker 1: So it seem his mother told him to study.

518
00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:28,639
Speaker 3: Yes, my im told him to stop. So it seems

519
00:28:28,640 --> 00:28:30,200
Speaker 3: like it may have been one of those marriages where

520
00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:32,800
Speaker 3: they had a lot of love for each other but

521
00:28:32,960 --> 00:28:37,280
Speaker 3: probably stayed together because of his role and all the

522
00:28:37,280 --> 00:28:39,560
Speaker 3: good that she was able to do. So, you know,

523
00:28:39,600 --> 00:28:41,560
Speaker 3: it was at a time where people just didn't get

524
00:28:41,600 --> 00:28:44,400
Speaker 3: divorced over that stuff. They had affairs, you know.

525
00:28:44,680 --> 00:28:48,560
Speaker 2: Right, right, So back to those road trips, right, Remember

526
00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:53,400
Speaker 2: she's like doing recon as well as having trysts with Hick.

527
00:28:53,600 --> 00:28:54,400
Speaker 3: Yeah.

528
00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:58,480
Speaker 2: One of the places that she went was through Scott's Run,

529
00:28:58,600 --> 00:29:00,720
Speaker 2: West Virginia on one of these trips, I think it

530
00:29:00,760 --> 00:29:03,360
Speaker 2: was actually that New England trip, which it's news to

531
00:29:03,400 --> 00:29:06,680
Speaker 2: me that West Virginia's New England, but hey, who's to judge.

532
00:29:07,120 --> 00:29:11,480
Speaker 2: And she came across the basically these coal miners. The

533
00:29:11,520 --> 00:29:13,840
Speaker 2: whole town of Scott's Run, West Virginia was coal miners,

534
00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:16,600
Speaker 2: and they were all out of work. This is the Depression.

535
00:29:17,040 --> 00:29:19,520
Speaker 2: And she was so moved by just how impoverished and

536
00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:22,440
Speaker 2: how hard their life was that she came up with

537
00:29:22,480 --> 00:29:25,560
Speaker 2: this idea to basically have the federal government foot the

538
00:29:25,560 --> 00:29:31,360
Speaker 2: bill for building towns that were out of the box great,

539
00:29:31,680 --> 00:29:35,240
Speaker 2: and you would move imps, impoverished coal miners into them

540
00:29:35,560 --> 00:29:37,920
Speaker 2: and basically give them a head start at a really

541
00:29:38,040 --> 00:29:40,680
Speaker 2: great good life that they could take over and make

542
00:29:40,720 --> 00:29:44,320
Speaker 2: for themselves in a close knit community that they built together.

543
00:29:44,760 --> 00:29:47,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was supposed to be like a hundred of

544
00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:51,400
Speaker 3: these planned communities all across the United States, but the

545
00:29:51,440 --> 00:29:54,640
Speaker 3: first one was that one in West Virginia, arthur Dale,

546
00:29:55,280 --> 00:29:58,800
Speaker 3: about twenty five miles south of Scott's Run. It was

547
00:29:58,800 --> 00:30:02,320
Speaker 3: called Eleanor's Little Villa times. But she was really active

548
00:30:02,320 --> 00:30:05,440
Speaker 3: in this building of the first one, Like every home

549
00:30:05,480 --> 00:30:07,720
Speaker 3: had to have which was a big luxury at the time,

550
00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:11,760
Speaker 3: like modern appliances and electricity, especially in rural West Virginia

551
00:30:11,760 --> 00:30:14,240
Speaker 3: at the time. Yeah, and the rent was based on

552
00:30:14,320 --> 00:30:17,040
Speaker 3: what people could afford, which was about twenty bucks a month.

553
00:30:17,800 --> 00:30:21,440
Speaker 3: And like people made fun of these projects sometimes that

554
00:30:21,520 --> 00:30:25,080
Speaker 3: she was involved in this one in particular, but you know,

555
00:30:25,200 --> 00:30:28,920
Speaker 3: it worked out pretty well. Like arthur Dale became a

556
00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:32,959
Speaker 3: very kind of thriving community and there are still people

557
00:30:33,000 --> 00:30:35,160
Speaker 3: like from that first community that live there today.

558
00:30:36,400 --> 00:30:37,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.

559
00:30:37,080 --> 00:30:40,239
Speaker 2: And the US government was like, Okay, we're not going

560
00:30:40,320 --> 00:30:43,480
Speaker 2: to oversee arthur Dale anymore in nineteen forty seven, but

561
00:30:43,680 --> 00:30:47,360
Speaker 2: Eleanor kept visiting until nineteen sixty. I think was her

562
00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:50,080
Speaker 2: last visit two years before her death, and all told,

563
00:30:50,120 --> 00:30:53,400
Speaker 2: she visited arthur Dale thirty three different times, long after

564
00:30:53,480 --> 00:30:57,160
Speaker 2: she was no longer First Lady. From nineteen thirty five

565
00:30:57,200 --> 00:31:00,320
Speaker 2: to nineteen forty four, she attended every single high school

566
00:31:00,360 --> 00:31:03,680
Speaker 2: graduation of arthur Dale's well high school.

567
00:31:04,360 --> 00:31:08,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think FDR went to one and is

568
00:31:08,120 --> 00:31:11,120
Speaker 3: still the only president to actually give actually give a

569
00:31:11,120 --> 00:31:13,080
Speaker 3: commencement speech at a high school graduation.

570
00:31:13,560 --> 00:31:14,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty cool.

571
00:31:14,880 --> 00:31:19,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, she helped those graduates like find jobs, like she

572
00:31:19,880 --> 00:31:22,680
Speaker 2: really took an interest. She apparently used to buy Christmas

573
00:31:22,720 --> 00:31:24,880
Speaker 2: presents and bring them to the kids at arthur Dale

574
00:31:25,040 --> 00:31:27,400
Speaker 2: like it was a she was really involved in this.

575
00:31:27,560 --> 00:31:29,479
Speaker 2: It wasn't like a good idea. She helped to get

576
00:31:29,560 --> 00:31:31,200
Speaker 2: going and then forgot about it and moved on to

577
00:31:31,280 --> 00:31:32,920
Speaker 2: something else, Like she really cared.

578
00:31:33,160 --> 00:31:33,840
Speaker 3: Yeah for sure.

579
00:31:34,440 --> 00:31:36,600
Speaker 2: Uh what do you say about a break?

580
00:31:37,040 --> 00:31:37,400
Speaker 1: All right?

581
00:31:37,760 --> 00:31:39,720
Speaker 3: I mean we never need them, We just have to

582
00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:41,120
Speaker 3: do it. But we're going to do it now because

583
00:31:41,120 --> 00:31:41,720
Speaker 3: we're supposed to.

584
00:31:42,200 --> 00:31:42,880
Speaker 1: They make us.

585
00:31:42,960 --> 00:31:57,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, well we're going to do that then with

586
00:31:58,160 --> 00:32:01,920
Speaker 2: Josh job stuff.

587
00:32:01,800 --> 00:32:19,280
Speaker 1: Should okay, Chuck, we're back.

588
00:32:19,920 --> 00:32:22,280
Speaker 2: And one of the things that you may know about

589
00:32:22,360 --> 00:32:26,080
Speaker 2: Eleanor Roosevelt if you're you know, somewhat familiar with her.

590
00:32:26,120 --> 00:32:33,520
Speaker 2: In her life's work, she became virulantly anti racist. She

591
00:32:33,840 --> 00:32:38,880
Speaker 2: was a champion of the civil rights movement long before

592
00:32:38,960 --> 00:32:42,400
Speaker 2: there was a civil rights movement, decades before it. She

593
00:32:42,600 --> 00:32:48,440
Speaker 2: helped kind of get civil rights recognized, I think among

594
00:32:48,680 --> 00:32:51,400
Speaker 2: white America and in a lot of quarters.

595
00:32:51,440 --> 00:32:52,200
Speaker 1: That meant that.

596
00:32:52,120 --> 00:32:55,680
Speaker 2: People started to hate her, especially in the South. And

597
00:32:55,720 --> 00:32:57,640
Speaker 2: like I said before, like she didn't let that slow

598
00:32:57,640 --> 00:32:59,280
Speaker 2: her down. She just kind of kept at it.

599
00:32:59,720 --> 00:33:04,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, she joined THEACP in nineteen thirty four. She was

600
00:33:04,400 --> 00:33:09,200
Speaker 3: very much a lobbyist for anti lynching legislation. She was

601
00:33:09,280 --> 00:33:13,480
Speaker 3: a very early proponent kind of sounding the horn against segregation.

602
00:33:15,080 --> 00:33:17,920
Speaker 3: She quit in nineteen thirty nine and the Daughters of

603
00:33:17,920 --> 00:33:21,640
Speaker 3: the American Revolution because they said, We're not going to

604
00:33:21,760 --> 00:33:25,280
Speaker 3: let this black performer or Marian Anderson perform at Constitution

605
00:33:25,360 --> 00:33:28,360
Speaker 3: Hall in Washington, DC. So she was like, all right,

606
00:33:28,440 --> 00:33:31,760
Speaker 3: so longsuckers, I'm out of here. And then later helped

607
00:33:31,840 --> 00:33:34,560
Speaker 3: organize a concert for her on the steps of the

608
00:33:34,720 --> 00:33:35,800
Speaker 3: Lincoln Memorial.

609
00:33:36,880 --> 00:33:39,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a free public concert on Easter Sunday

610
00:33:39,680 --> 00:33:43,680
Speaker 2: of nineteen thirty nine and seventy five thousand people showed up.

611
00:33:43,760 --> 00:33:46,800
Speaker 2: It's considered one of the key moments in the early

612
00:33:46,960 --> 00:33:48,400
Speaker 2: civil rights struggle.

613
00:33:48,800 --> 00:33:49,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.

614
00:33:50,920 --> 00:33:54,120
Speaker 2: She also this is such a great anecdote about her.

615
00:33:54,200 --> 00:33:58,160
Speaker 2: She attended a meeting, this Southern Conference for Human Welfare

616
00:33:58,600 --> 00:34:02,480
Speaker 2: in Birmingham, Alabama, with Mary McLeod Batun, who was a

617
00:34:02,560 --> 00:34:06,400
Speaker 2: famous black educator, And because this was in Birmingham, they

618
00:34:06,520 --> 00:34:09,680
Speaker 2: weren't allowed to sit together. It was like local law

619
00:34:10,120 --> 00:34:12,160
Speaker 2: that black people had to sit on one side of

620
00:34:12,160 --> 00:34:14,319
Speaker 2: the main aisle, white people had to sit on the

621
00:34:14,320 --> 00:34:16,520
Speaker 2: other side of the main aisle. This does not sit

622
00:34:16,719 --> 00:34:18,520
Speaker 2: very well with missus Roosevelt.

623
00:34:18,800 --> 00:34:22,480
Speaker 3: No, so she as very much like like she probably

624
00:34:22,480 --> 00:34:24,880
Speaker 3: could have insisted she sit on the other side, but

625
00:34:24,960 --> 00:34:27,640
Speaker 3: I think it made even more of a statement that

626
00:34:27,719 --> 00:34:29,399
Speaker 3: she said, you know what, then put my chair right

627
00:34:29,440 --> 00:34:30,799
Speaker 3: in the middle of the aisle and that's where I'm

628
00:34:30,800 --> 00:34:31,200
Speaker 3: going to sit.

629
00:34:31,560 --> 00:34:31,840
Speaker 1: Yeah.

630
00:34:31,880 --> 00:34:35,000
Speaker 2: Pretty cool. Oh and then one other thing that she

631
00:34:35,080 --> 00:34:38,000
Speaker 2: did in World War Two, too, Chuck, was that she

632
00:34:38,200 --> 00:34:41,759
Speaker 2: visited a Japanese American internment camp. Remember I think we

633
00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:43,960
Speaker 2: did an episode on that alone.

634
00:34:44,640 --> 00:34:45,799
Speaker 3: Yeah, and a long time ago.

635
00:34:46,200 --> 00:34:49,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, And she came out of this internment camp and

636
00:34:49,239 --> 00:34:51,640
Speaker 2: was like, we should not be doing this. We need

637
00:34:51,640 --> 00:34:57,120
Speaker 2: to shut these down, which is ironic or heurageous something,

638
00:34:57,280 --> 00:35:01,560
Speaker 2: because the internment camps existed by executive order that her

639
00:35:01,640 --> 00:35:02,560
Speaker 2: husband had issued.

640
00:35:02,680 --> 00:35:03,799
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know.

641
00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:06,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we did shut him down, And some people

642
00:35:06,560 --> 00:35:09,800
Speaker 2: credit her lobbying for it for helping get that started

643
00:35:09,840 --> 00:35:10,680
Speaker 2: sooner than later.

644
00:35:11,040 --> 00:35:13,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, she was like, but you know what, he cheated

645
00:35:13,040 --> 00:35:15,160
Speaker 3: on me early on in our marriage, so I don't

646
00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:17,799
Speaker 3: owe him anything, right, I don't have to do anything,

647
00:35:17,920 --> 00:35:21,919
Speaker 3: he said me. Right. She was a prolific writer, you said,

648
00:35:22,480 --> 00:35:26,359
Speaker 3: A prolific letter writer, but kind of just write a writer.

649
00:35:27,080 --> 00:35:30,120
Speaker 3: She was writing a newspaper column beginning in nineteen thirty

650
00:35:30,120 --> 00:35:32,960
Speaker 3: five called My Day, and she did that five days

651
00:35:32,960 --> 00:35:36,920
Speaker 3: a week. In nineteen forty one, she did a monthly

652
00:35:37,000 --> 00:35:40,880
Speaker 3: advice column for Ladies Home Journal called If You Ask Me.

653
00:35:41,200 --> 00:35:44,000
Speaker 3: And then she also just wrote all kinds of op eds.

654
00:35:44,680 --> 00:35:48,760
Speaker 3: And she wrote memoirs, She wrote an autobiography, she wrote

655
00:35:48,800 --> 00:35:52,480
Speaker 3: nonfiction books. Like she just wrote and wrote and wrote.

656
00:35:52,520 --> 00:35:54,200
Speaker 3: It was one of her great passions and she was

657
00:35:54,239 --> 00:35:55,560
Speaker 3: good at Yeah.

658
00:35:55,640 --> 00:35:58,560
Speaker 2: She also wrote a treatment for what eventually became the

659
00:35:58,600 --> 00:36:02,480
Speaker 2: script for Pulp Fiction that Tarantino made in nineteen ninety four.

660
00:36:02,600 --> 00:36:04,480
Speaker 3: It's fantastic, isn't that something? Yeah?

661
00:36:04,560 --> 00:36:05,640
Speaker 1: Yeah.

662
00:36:05,680 --> 00:36:09,480
Speaker 2: She was also not shy of going on to TV

663
00:36:09,680 --> 00:36:11,680
Speaker 2: appearing on the radio. I think, like you said, she

664
00:36:11,760 --> 00:36:16,040
Speaker 2: hosted radio programs with one with her one of her daughters,

665
00:36:16,040 --> 00:36:16,799
Speaker 2: one with a son.

666
00:36:17,040 --> 00:36:17,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, so cute.

667
00:36:18,239 --> 00:36:21,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is super cute, especially considering that they weren't

668
00:36:21,400 --> 00:36:23,879
Speaker 2: close when those the kids were younger. I think that's

669
00:36:23,880 --> 00:36:27,480
Speaker 2: just heartwarming. She had a couple of shows on NBC.

670
00:36:27,560 --> 00:36:31,799
Speaker 2: These are like public information or public what's the word

671
00:36:31,800 --> 00:36:35,239
Speaker 2: I'm looking for, for.

672
00:36:35,239 --> 00:36:36,880
Speaker 3: The good of the public, that kind of Yeah.

673
00:36:36,760 --> 00:36:37,520
Speaker 1: We'll just call it that.

674
00:36:37,719 --> 00:36:40,920
Speaker 2: Yes, she had a couple of those shows on NBC.

675
00:36:41,040 --> 00:36:43,160
Speaker 2: She had another one I think it was on PBS

676
00:36:44,000 --> 00:36:47,680
Speaker 2: Prospects of Mankind, where she interviewed like activists, intellectuals. She

677
00:36:47,760 --> 00:36:52,000
Speaker 2: basically shone a light on these, you know, things that

678
00:36:52,080 --> 00:36:54,080
Speaker 2: were going on in the US and around the world

679
00:36:54,080 --> 00:36:57,239
Speaker 2: that people weren't really paying attention to. And again, just

680
00:36:57,320 --> 00:37:00,120
Speaker 2: remind yourself when she's doing all this stuff, she she

681
00:37:00,239 --> 00:37:04,520
Speaker 2: is pretty self conscious. She didn't consider herself photogenic, she

682
00:37:04,760 --> 00:37:07,879
Speaker 2: didn't like her own voice, and yet she'll go on

683
00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:11,560
Speaker 2: any media op that you can offer her with a

684
00:37:11,600 --> 00:37:17,760
Speaker 2: big enough audience to basically tell people about the stuff

685
00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:21,200
Speaker 2: that she feels passionate about. That's really that's dedication.

686
00:37:21,719 --> 00:37:23,960
Speaker 3: Boy, could you imagine if she was around during the

687
00:37:24,360 --> 00:37:27,560
Speaker 3: podcast era, she would have been on everything for sure.

688
00:37:29,040 --> 00:37:33,640
Speaker 2: Look Out who's number one right now? Look out Kelsey Brothers,

689
00:37:33,800 --> 00:37:34,800
Speaker 2: eleanor Roosevelt.

690
00:37:34,960 --> 00:37:40,960
Speaker 3: Here the Travis kelcey. Okay, good for those guys. Sure,

691
00:37:41,160 --> 00:37:42,680
Speaker 3: I don't even know. I don't. I used to look

692
00:37:42,719 --> 00:37:46,560
Speaker 3: at the podcast rankings a lot early on, and then

693
00:37:46,600 --> 00:37:49,479
Speaker 3: I stopped at a certain point, many many many years ago,

694
00:37:49,719 --> 00:37:51,680
Speaker 3: and I don't think I've looked one time since then.

695
00:37:51,719 --> 00:37:54,480
Speaker 3: So I have no idea who's out there in crushing it.

696
00:37:55,680 --> 00:37:57,600
Speaker 2: I used to look at them so much, Chuck, that

697
00:37:57,840 --> 00:38:01,080
Speaker 2: I would go change countries for the iTunes things and

698
00:38:01,160 --> 00:38:03,920
Speaker 2: see where we were in other countries as well.

699
00:38:04,080 --> 00:38:07,839
Speaker 3: Ay, Australia has always been our guys. We were number

700
00:38:07,880 --> 00:38:09,960
Speaker 3: one in Australia for a while.

701
00:38:10,400 --> 00:38:11,840
Speaker 1: And Canada has always loved us.

702
00:38:11,960 --> 00:38:14,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's why we toured Australia in Canada.

703
00:38:15,080 --> 00:38:16,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, step it up. Rest of the world.

704
00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:18,520
Speaker 3: We don't go to where people don't like us. Why

705
00:38:18,520 --> 00:38:19,080
Speaker 3: would you do that?

706
00:38:20,680 --> 00:38:22,640
Speaker 1: Why would everybody come just to boo.

707
00:38:24,040 --> 00:38:27,320
Speaker 3: So while she was doing all this you know, volunteerism

708
00:38:27,360 --> 00:38:30,520
Speaker 3: and like lending her time to every body under the sun,

709
00:38:31,600 --> 00:38:35,439
Speaker 3: she also made some very good friends with women who

710
00:38:36,520 --> 00:38:39,640
Speaker 3: were probably in the gay community, would be my guest,

711
00:38:40,040 --> 00:38:42,680
Speaker 3: and I think this is where her sort of her

712
00:38:42,719 --> 00:38:46,520
Speaker 3: advocacy for gender rights and stuff like that would come

713
00:38:46,520 --> 00:38:49,279
Speaker 3: into play, is just her exposure to these people. So

714
00:38:50,040 --> 00:38:53,120
Speaker 3: through the League of Women Voters, she met a co founder,

715
00:38:53,160 --> 00:38:57,719
Speaker 3: a woman named Esther Everett late and her partner Elizabeth

716
00:38:57,719 --> 00:39:01,160
Speaker 3: Fisher Reid, who would be her financial adviser later on.

717
00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:04,440
Speaker 3: But they were like a great trio and they were

718
00:39:04,480 --> 00:39:09,880
Speaker 3: really really close, really good friends. Eventually they would rent

719
00:39:10,520 --> 00:39:13,080
Speaker 3: that when I said she lived near Washington Square Park,

720
00:39:13,120 --> 00:39:16,880
Speaker 3: they would rent apartments right on top of one another,

721
00:39:17,440 --> 00:39:20,320
Speaker 3: and you know a lot of other women. She became

722
00:39:20,360 --> 00:39:23,080
Speaker 3: partners with Mary and Dickerman and Nancy Cook, and that's

723
00:39:23,080 --> 00:39:26,480
Speaker 3: who she founded that vow Kill Industries with the furniture business.

724
00:39:27,120 --> 00:39:29,799
Speaker 2: She became friends with them and they were partners. Yeah,

725
00:39:29,880 --> 00:39:32,799
Speaker 2: oh yeah, I guess she became partners with them too. Yeah,

726
00:39:32,920 --> 00:39:35,880
Speaker 2: she became partners with those partners.

727
00:39:35,680 --> 00:39:39,360
Speaker 3: That's right. And I think like after like one of

728
00:39:39,400 --> 00:39:42,759
Speaker 3: the cottages that val Kill built that she I think

729
00:39:42,760 --> 00:39:44,799
Speaker 3: she ended up even moving into one of those as

730
00:39:44,800 --> 00:39:45,400
Speaker 3: a residence.

731
00:39:46,080 --> 00:39:50,040
Speaker 2: Eventually she did, but first Maryan Dickerman and Nancy Cook did.

732
00:39:50,360 --> 00:39:53,200
Speaker 2: I think they lived there for like three decades too. Yeah,

733
00:39:53,239 --> 00:39:55,040
Speaker 2: and then finally she was like, I need.

734
00:39:54,840 --> 00:39:58,920
Speaker 3: The place, beat it right, yeah, scram so.

735
00:39:59,040 --> 00:40:01,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, these, I mean, it's just a plain fact that.

736
00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:06,040
Speaker 2: Another expression of how open her mind was is that

737
00:40:06,080 --> 00:40:09,759
Speaker 2: a lot of her friends were gay women. Again, this

738
00:40:09,880 --> 00:40:14,360
Speaker 2: is the thirties, forties families at most the early sixties

739
00:40:15,280 --> 00:40:18,600
Speaker 2: people did not talk about this kind of stuff, and

740
00:40:19,680 --> 00:40:22,239
Speaker 2: I'm sure a lot of people avoided gay people and

741
00:40:22,360 --> 00:40:25,240
Speaker 2: she just was it was Again, I think she judged

742
00:40:25,280 --> 00:40:27,440
Speaker 2: people on generally a case by case basis.

743
00:40:27,600 --> 00:40:30,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. You know you mentioned early on she

744
00:40:30,239 --> 00:40:34,040
Speaker 3: probably had other affairs. I know that her bodyguard, Earl Miller,

745
00:40:34,200 --> 00:40:37,239
Speaker 3: is someone that they everyone is a historians kind of

746
00:40:37,280 --> 00:40:40,719
Speaker 3: suspect that she had an affair with, including her son.

747
00:40:40,800 --> 00:40:44,239
Speaker 3: One of her sons. Was pretty much like, yeah, I

748
00:40:44,320 --> 00:40:46,960
Speaker 3: think Earl Miller had an affair with her. They were

749
00:40:47,000 --> 00:40:48,520
Speaker 3: super tight, and I think he was the one that

750
00:40:48,600 --> 00:40:51,359
Speaker 3: gave her the I don't think we mentioned insisted that

751
00:40:51,400 --> 00:40:54,239
Speaker 3: she carry a pistol with her on these car road

752
00:40:54,239 --> 00:40:56,360
Speaker 3: trips since she issued secret service.

753
00:40:57,080 --> 00:40:58,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, and she used.

754
00:40:58,360 --> 00:41:00,600
Speaker 2: It's a great effect too, Like if you were doing

755
00:41:00,640 --> 00:41:04,000
Speaker 2: what she wanted you to, you know, like passing an

756
00:41:04,000 --> 00:41:06,960
Speaker 2: anti lynching law, she would just pull her gun out

757
00:41:07,000 --> 00:41:09,200
Speaker 2: and just set it on the desk, just let it

758
00:41:09,239 --> 00:41:11,120
Speaker 2: sit there and make its own statement.

759
00:41:11,440 --> 00:41:14,240
Speaker 3: Well, she was not popular with racist because she received

760
00:41:14,239 --> 00:41:17,399
Speaker 3: death threats a lot because of her promotion of racial

761
00:41:17,400 --> 00:41:21,440
Speaker 3: equality in the nineteen fifties. Apparently the Klan had a

762
00:41:21,520 --> 00:41:24,720
Speaker 3: twenty five thousand dollars bounty on her head for sure.

763
00:41:25,960 --> 00:41:29,239
Speaker 2: One other thing too about Earl Miller is that he

764
00:41:29,520 --> 00:41:32,279
Speaker 2: was actually credited as the one who gave her her

765
00:41:32,400 --> 00:41:36,960
Speaker 2: self esteem and her courage to face the media and

766
00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:39,960
Speaker 2: just basically be a public figure despite how you know,

767
00:41:40,719 --> 00:41:42,200
Speaker 2: debilitating her fear of that.

768
00:41:42,160 --> 00:41:43,839
Speaker 3: Stuff was Yeah, pretty cool.

769
00:41:44,160 --> 00:41:50,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, So FDR passed away, let's see, seventeen years before

770
00:41:50,320 --> 00:41:54,160
Speaker 2: she did. He died in nineteen forty five. This is

771
00:41:54,200 --> 00:41:59,040
Speaker 2: when she moved to Valkill call Cottage. Yeah, and she

772
00:41:59,640 --> 00:42:02,759
Speaker 2: was like, I'm done with politics. And everybody's like, no,

773
00:42:02,840 --> 00:42:05,000
Speaker 2: come back being politics. She said, no, I'm done. I'm

774
00:42:05,040 --> 00:42:07,480
Speaker 2: just going to go be a private citizen. And it

775
00:42:07,560 --> 00:42:10,880
Speaker 2: turns out that President Harry Truman, a few months after

776
00:42:11,360 --> 00:42:14,319
Speaker 2: FDR died and Eleanor said she was just becoming a

777
00:42:14,360 --> 00:42:17,080
Speaker 2: civilian again, said no, I need you to go to

778
00:42:17,120 --> 00:42:20,839
Speaker 2: the UN. They're doing some pretty neat stuff there. Go

779
00:42:20,880 --> 00:42:24,200
Speaker 2: see what's going on and just become part of the

780
00:42:24,280 --> 00:42:27,160
Speaker 2: American delegation to the United Nations.

781
00:42:27,320 --> 00:42:30,439
Speaker 3: Yeah. So she answered the call, and from nineteen forty

782
00:42:30,440 --> 00:42:32,560
Speaker 3: five to nineteen fifty two she held that position at

783
00:42:32,560 --> 00:42:37,000
Speaker 3: the UN. All of her colleagues were men, obviously at

784
00:42:37,000 --> 00:42:40,920
Speaker 3: the time, and they were dismissive of her, and they said,

785
00:42:41,040 --> 00:42:43,600
Speaker 3: you know, let's put her on Committee three, like they

786
00:42:43,600 --> 00:42:48,319
Speaker 3: don't do much, it's like humanitarian issues. But how wrong

787
00:42:48,360 --> 00:42:50,840
Speaker 3: they were, because Committee three turned out to be pretty

788
00:42:50,840 --> 00:42:57,640
Speaker 3: important and somewhat controversial when they were tasked with determining

789
00:42:57,680 --> 00:43:01,520
Speaker 3: whether post war refugees had to go back home they

790
00:43:01,560 --> 00:43:04,680
Speaker 3: had to be like made to be go back home,

791
00:43:04,760 --> 00:43:07,239
Speaker 3: And she said no, She was like, I'm going to

792
00:43:07,280 --> 00:43:09,440
Speaker 3: take this up with the General Assembly, and she convinced

793
00:43:09,480 --> 00:43:12,239
Speaker 3: them to vote against forced repatriation.

794
00:43:13,320 --> 00:43:17,640
Speaker 2: Yeah. Those male colleagues who forced her onto Committee three

795
00:43:18,160 --> 00:43:20,040
Speaker 2: because they thought it wasn't going to amount too much.

796
00:43:20,480 --> 00:43:23,359
Speaker 2: They kept the Committee for Planning the Future for men

797
00:43:23,400 --> 00:43:26,320
Speaker 2: wearing hats everywhere for themselves.

798
00:43:26,360 --> 00:43:29,759
Speaker 1: That's right, Like this this has got legs. Yeah, even more.

799
00:43:29,840 --> 00:43:34,000
Speaker 2: To the point, aside from getting repatriation off the table,

800
00:43:34,360 --> 00:43:39,480
Speaker 2: she helped author the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Yeah,

801
00:43:39,520 --> 00:43:42,319
Speaker 2: one of the most important documents, even though toothless, but

802
00:43:42,400 --> 00:43:44,919
Speaker 2: still one of the most important documents humanity has ever

803
00:43:45,000 --> 00:43:47,320
Speaker 2: come together and created, which is pretty great.

804
00:43:47,840 --> 00:43:49,719
Speaker 3: Yeah, And you know, you said toothless. That was the

805
00:43:49,719 --> 00:43:51,440
Speaker 3: one things that really upset her was that they did

806
00:43:51,480 --> 00:43:54,640
Speaker 3: this great thing, and then she was upset that there

807
00:43:54,719 --> 00:43:57,239
Speaker 3: was there were no teeth, and that they didn't do

808
00:43:57,280 --> 00:43:59,920
Speaker 3: anything to really make sure it was enforced.

809
00:44:00,200 --> 00:44:02,640
Speaker 2: Right, And I'm not sure what they could do. I

810
00:44:02,680 --> 00:44:09,280
Speaker 2: think now the International Criminal Court is capable of doing stuff,

811
00:44:09,320 --> 00:44:13,000
Speaker 2: but I think even their STEMI toothless, depending on how

812
00:44:13,040 --> 00:44:14,799
Speaker 2: big and tough the country is, you.

813
00:44:14,760 --> 00:44:16,160
Speaker 3: Know, Yeah, good point.

814
00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:20,319
Speaker 2: So, Yes, she passed away in nineteen sixty two. She

815
00:44:20,480 --> 00:44:23,040
Speaker 2: was in the hospital. She was not feeling very well,

816
00:44:23,080 --> 00:44:24,840
Speaker 2: and she checked herself out and said, I want to

817
00:44:24,880 --> 00:44:28,279
Speaker 2: dine at home, and she went and died in I

818
00:44:28,320 --> 00:44:30,120
Speaker 2: think Greenwich village, is that correct?

819
00:44:31,440 --> 00:44:34,800
Speaker 3: Upper East side by that point, same thing. She was

820
00:44:34,840 --> 00:44:37,960
Speaker 3: seventy eight, she had you know, it was heart failure,

821
00:44:38,200 --> 00:44:41,799
Speaker 3: it was tuberculosis, it was a plastic innemia. She was

822
00:44:41,800 --> 00:44:44,480
Speaker 3: in rough shape at that point. But you know she

823
00:44:44,600 --> 00:44:47,759
Speaker 3: got to dining her home like she wished, and she

824
00:44:47,920 --> 00:44:51,520
Speaker 3: left a legacy behind that. I mean, good luck who

825
00:44:51,560 --> 00:44:53,680
Speaker 3: came right after her, like good luck filling those shoes

826
00:44:53,760 --> 00:44:54,600
Speaker 3: as a first lady.

827
00:44:55,160 --> 00:44:59,360
Speaker 2: Mamie Truman, Yeah, I know, Mamie Eisenhower.

828
00:45:00,480 --> 00:45:02,800
Speaker 3: Maybe as an hour I think some maymi.

829
00:45:03,480 --> 00:45:04,960
Speaker 1: Yeah.

830
00:45:05,400 --> 00:45:08,479
Speaker 2: One other thing, chuck that she was the first at

831
00:45:08,520 --> 00:45:12,040
Speaker 2: and technically she made FDR the first. She lobbied for

832
00:45:12,160 --> 00:45:17,160
Speaker 2: him to include a woman in his cabinet, specifically our

833
00:45:17,200 --> 00:45:21,640
Speaker 2: beloved Francis Perkins, who was made Secretary of Labor under FDR,

834
00:45:21,719 --> 00:45:23,719
Speaker 2: the first woman cabinet member ever.

835
00:45:24,000 --> 00:45:26,680
Speaker 3: That's right, and we talked about that in our Francis

836
00:45:26,719 --> 00:45:29,640
Speaker 3: Perkins episode and I highly recommend that, And that was

837
00:45:29,640 --> 00:45:33,200
Speaker 3: a good one. That's Josh's I think favorite modern woman.

838
00:45:34,280 --> 00:45:36,360
Speaker 2: Well, I mean you mean's my favorite modern woman, but

839
00:45:36,400 --> 00:45:41,120
Speaker 2: you I get your point. Yeah, and Mary Tyler Moore

840
00:45:41,120 --> 00:45:41,759
Speaker 2: don't forget her.

841
00:45:41,920 --> 00:45:43,759
Speaker 3: Oh sure, we need to do an episode on her.

842
00:45:43,800 --> 00:45:44,880
Speaker 3: And let's do one on you me too.

843
00:45:45,120 --> 00:45:47,520
Speaker 2: Not all right, I'm sure you We would love that.

844
00:45:48,040 --> 00:45:51,120
Speaker 2: We'll sit down an interviewer for twenty thirty hours.

845
00:45:50,800 --> 00:45:51,680
Speaker 3: And so that'd be fun.

846
00:45:52,120 --> 00:45:53,879
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, while we.

847
00:45:53,880 --> 00:45:56,839
Speaker 2: Go interview you me for twenty to thirty hours, I

848
00:45:56,880 --> 00:45:59,640
Speaker 2: think we should insert listener mail here first.

849
00:46:02,880 --> 00:46:05,600
Speaker 3: That's right. This is from Alex. Hey, guys, this is

850
00:46:05,640 --> 00:46:09,320
Speaker 3: from a Selects episode about the fairness doctrine. During the episode,

851
00:46:09,360 --> 00:46:13,399
Speaker 3: you mentioned that the owner of WJIMTV built a TV

852
00:46:13,480 --> 00:46:16,720
Speaker 3: studio with a pool in case he needed to convert

853
00:46:16,760 --> 00:46:19,080
Speaker 3: it to a motel as a fallback business. And guys,

854
00:46:19,120 --> 00:46:21,719
Speaker 3: that building is still a TV studio under the call

855
00:46:21,800 --> 00:46:25,480
Speaker 3: signs WNS, a local CBS affiliate, and they kept that pool.

856
00:46:26,320 --> 00:46:30,760
Speaker 3: He sent a video in fact, of meteorologists Katie Nikolau

857
00:46:30,880 --> 00:46:34,360
Speaker 3: giving a weather report from the pool. I guess semi recently,

858
00:46:34,400 --> 00:46:36,719
Speaker 3: and he said, I passed this TV station countless times,

859
00:46:36,760 --> 00:46:38,920
Speaker 3: always wonder why it looks so swanky, and now it

860
00:46:38,960 --> 00:46:40,640
Speaker 3: makes total sense that I know it was built like

861
00:46:40,680 --> 00:46:43,840
Speaker 3: a nineteen fifties motel. Thanks for the show, guys. Always

862
00:46:43,840 --> 00:46:46,040
Speaker 3: fun when an episode hits close to home.

863
00:46:46,400 --> 00:46:47,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, who is that?

864
00:46:47,640 --> 00:46:48,320
Speaker 3: That's Alex?

865
00:46:48,760 --> 00:46:50,239
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Alex, that was a great one.

866
00:46:50,280 --> 00:46:52,840
Speaker 2: I've always been fascinated by that TV station with the

867
00:46:52,880 --> 00:46:56,239
Speaker 2: pool too, So yep, thanks for calling it out. If

868
00:46:56,280 --> 00:46:58,440
Speaker 2: you want to be like Alex and say, hey, I

869
00:46:58,520 --> 00:47:00,400
Speaker 2: know just what you guys are talking about because I

870
00:47:00,520 --> 00:47:03,680
Speaker 2: live by this thing, let me tell you about it. Well,

871
00:47:03,719 --> 00:47:06,480
Speaker 2: you can tell us about it via email. Send it

872
00:47:06,520 --> 00:47:12,720
Speaker 2: off to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.

873
00:47:12,840 --> 00:47:15,719
Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For

874
00:47:15,840 --> 00:47:20,000
Speaker 3: more podcasts myheart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

875
00:47:20,120 --> 00:47:21,960
Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.