She writes an article which becomes an article she writes in different ways over and over and over again: Women need to organize. They need to create their own bosses. They need to have support networks and gangs so that they are a force.
BLANCHE WIESEN COOKThe Letters of Elliott Roosevelt. And it really was an act of redemption, really one of her first acts of redemption as she entered the White House.
More Blanche Wiesen Cook Quotes
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She was an unhappy wife. She had never known what it was to be a good mother. She didn’t have a good mother of her own. And so there’s a kind of parenting that doesn’t happen.
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She was going to redeem her father’s honor. And publishing his letters, reconnecting with her childhood really fortified her to go on into the difficult White House years.
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So she [Eleanor Roosevelt] is an amazing First Lady. What other First Lady in U.S. history has ever written a book to criticize her husband’s policies?
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I think her Grandmother Hall gave her a great sense of family love, and reassurance. Her grandmother did love her, like her father, unconditionally. And despite the order and the discipline – and home at certain hours and out at certain hours and reading at certain hours,
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And that’s where she allowed herself to express herself really fully, and sometimes whimsically, very often romantically. And it really starts with her letters to her father, who is lifelong her primary love.
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The Letters of Elliott Roosevelt. And it really was an act of redemption, really one of her first acts of redemption as she entered the White House.
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Eleanor Roosevelt loved to write. She was a wonderful child writer. I mean, she wrote beautiful essays and stories as a child. And Marie Souvestre really appreciated Eleanor Roosevelt’s talents and encouraged her talents.
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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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One of the things for me, as a biographer, that is so significant is for Eleanor Roosevelt.
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She really is a completely different First Lady. Eleanor Roosevelt was not going to suffer and withdraw in the White House. And I think he’s a very different President. He does not want his wife to suffer and withdraw in the White House. And they really are partners.
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I think that Hick was in love with Eleanor, and Eleanor was in love with Hick. I think it’s very important to look at the letters that are in my book, because unlike some of the recent published letters.
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But it’s also the beginning of another level of liberation for her]Eleanor Roosevelt], because when she returns to New York, she gets very involved in a new level of politics.
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In one way, it is this sense of order and also love that, I think, really saved Eleanor Roosevelt’s life. And in her own writing.
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And during the campaign of 1936, she writes that she and her brother would always rather be out doing things when they’re sick, rather than take to their beds.
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I have both the personal and the political. And their relationship is about ardor. It’s about fun. And it’s also about politics.
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Women who love women, who choose women to nurture and support and to create a living environment in which to work creatively and independently, are lesbians.
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One, she’s really talented, an organizational woman. She knows how to do things. She begins to compare her life to her grandmother’s life. And it’s very clear to her that being a devoted wife and a devoted mother is not enough.
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She meets Esther Lape and Elizabeth Read, and becomes very involved in the women’s movement, and then in the peace movement. And ironically, the years of her greatest despair become also the years of her great liberation.
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She 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.
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He loved to sing. He loved to have fun. And he wrote beautiful letters, just as her father did, which – alas and alack – Eleanor Roosevelt destroyed. But she refers to his beautiful letters. And she was charmed by him.
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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 mean, if you pause over what it means at the age of 76 that Eleanor Roosevelt wrote, the happiest single day of her life was the day she made the first team at field hockey. Field hockey is a team sport. Field hockey is a knockabout.
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I think Eleanor Roosevelt always had a most incredible comfort writing letters. I mean, she was in the habit of writing letters. And that’s where she allowed her fantasies to flourish. That’s where she allowed her emotions to really evolve.
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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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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.
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Her mother died at the age of 29, essentially turning her face to the wall and deciding to die. And so we can only imagine the agony she felt. And Eleanor Roosevelt really wanted to make her mother happier, and – and to make her live, you know, make her want to live.
BLANCHE WIESEN COOK