Eleanor Roosevelt doesn’t ever do anything that is going to hurt her husband. She tries things out on him. She gets permission to do things.
BLANCHE WIESEN COOKShe writes that the happiest day, the happiest single day of her life was the day that she made the first team at field hockey. And I have to say, as a biographer, that’s the most important fact.
More Blanche Wiesen Cook Quotes
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Also, she spoke perfect French. She grew up speaking French. She’s now at a french-speaking school where, you know, girls are coming from all over the world. Not everybody speaks French.
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They’re partners in a big house where there are two separate courts, and they both know they have two separate courts. But these are courts that are allied in purpose, united in vision.
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And I think Eleanor Roosevelt always responded to pain by doing more, by doing something, by being active. And I think she just couldn’t bear to look at her childhood grief. And she didn’t.
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In 1935, Eleanor Roosevelt goes on the air; she writes columns; she broadcast three, four times to say the US must join the World Court.
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The amazing thing, I think, historically, is that he says, “Go do it. If you can make this happen, I’ll follow you.”
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And the correspondence between them that we have, I mean, she says, “I cannot believe you’re not going to say one word.” And she writes to Walter White, “I’ve asked FDR to say one word. Perhaps he will.” But he doesn’t. And these become very bitter disagreements.
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Like traditional upper class families, there are nannies and servants, and the children, you know, come in to say good-night before they go to bed.
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Politics is not an isolated, individualist adventure. Women really need to emerge as a power to be the countervailing power to the men.
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I think FDR was very dashing and charming and debonair, and probably reminded her of her father. A great bon-vivant. He loved to party.
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I think Eleanor Roosevelt’s so popular at Allenswood because it’s the first time she is, number one, free. But it’s the first time somebody really recognizes her own leadership abilities and her own scholarly abilities.
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A lot of people say that Eleanor Roosevelt wasn’t a good mother. And there are two pieces to that story. One is, when they were very young, she was not a good mother. She was an unhappy mother.
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There was a surprising amount of freedom. Eleanor Roosevelt talks about how the happiest moments of her days were when she would take a book out of the library, which wasn’t censored.
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Eleanor Roosevelt’s very helpful to a lot of children who cannot speak French, who do not write well. And Marie Souvestre is fierce. She tears up students’ papers that are not, you know, perfect.
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And in her [Eleanor Roosevelt] letters, she writes the most, you know, fanciful letters: when we are together, and when we are reunited, and you know,
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I think that Eleanor Roosevelt really learned about the limits of power and influence from Arthurdale. She could not make some things happen. And she particularly learned that she could not, just because she was nominally in charge.
BLANCHE WIESEN COOK