I'm a cultural historian (degrees in English and American Studies). I taught at the university level for 25 years (Emerson College, principally) and worked 20+ years as an acquisitions editor, in book publishing, at Harvard, at Cambridge University Press, and for a small company I founded, Berkshire House. I was politically sympathetic to Mrs. Roosevelt’s POV before the “My Day” book project came to me, but, coincidentally, her long run as a syndicated columnist interested me also because my first job, fresh out of college, was as a cub reporter for Associated Press. I learned, in a hurry, how to deliver a story on deadline, with all the facts double checked.
I wrote...
My Day: The Best Of Eleanor Roosevelt's Acclaimed Newspaper Columns, 1936-1962
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) was intimately involved in the political life of her husband, President Franklin D. Roosevelt. She led women's organizations and youth movements and fought for consumer welfare, civil rights, and improved housing. Under her leadership the United Nations approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, acknowledged as a paramount achievement of the 20th century. Mrs. Roosevelt was named “Woman of the Century” by the National Women's Hall of Fame. Her hugely popular syndicated column “My Day” (1936 to 1962) had millions of readers worldwide. This collection displays her singular wit, elegance, compassion, and insight on everything from perspectives on the New Deal and World War II, to her painstaking diplomacy at the United Nations, to the joys of gardening at her beloved Hyde Park home.
There are several biographies of Eleanor Roosevelt, but few match this 3-vol. effort for its comprehensiveness and its sensitivity to the inner life of Eleanor (who led an exceedingly public life). All of Mrs. Roosevelt’s accomplishments are covered—with excellent context—and the bonus here is coverage of her private struggles as a shy, “orphaned” child, then as a beloved wife (to a disloyal husband), her failures as a mother, and her apparently quasi-lesbian attraction to another woman, as well as an unusual attachment to her doctor. Not a simple story!
One of the New York Times's 100 Notable Books of 2016 One of NPR's 10 Best Books of 2016
"Heartachingly relevant...the Eleanor Roosevelt who inhabits these meticulously crafted pages transcends both first-lady history and the marriage around which Roosevelt scholarship has traditionally pivoted." -- The Wall Street Journal
The final volume in the definitive biography of America's greatest first lady.
"Monumental and inspirational...Cook skillfully narrates the epic history of the war years... [a] grand biography." -- The New York Times Book Review
Historians, politicians, critics, and readers everywhere have praised Blanche Wiesen Cook's biography of Eleanor Roosevelt as the essential…
Goodwin is one of our preeminent historians. A great narrator and a researcher par excellence. The details really matter. No other president served the country for four terms; no other president served during both a near-total economic collapse and a devastating global war; and no other president had such an activist, engaged wife. Although the Roosevelts’ marriage was deeply troubled (FDR’s attraction to other women…), they decided to stay together no matter what because they were, in the end, not just a married couple but a political team. Zooming in on the war years (which were FDR’s final years), we see here the creative tension between a president and a first lady, two towers of power, sometimes at odds, but always putting the best interests of the nation first in their thinking.
A chronicle of the US and its leaders during the period when modern America was created. It narrates the interrelationships between the inner workings of the Roosevelt White House and the destiny of the US, painting a portrait that fills in a historical gap in the story of America under Roosevelt.
We take Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, and the Minimum Wage for granted; we also take for granted the presence of women in cabinet positions and as heads of regulatory agencies (especially since the Obama and Biden administrations). But in the 1930s, when The Depression began (and lasted for nearly a decade), none of this was present or common. A whole raft of ideas we call “The New Deal” and ascribe, rightly, to FDR’s astute leadership had, in fact, a moving force behind them, and that force was Frances Perkins, a workers’ rights advocate who served as US Secretary of Labor, 1933-1945. The first woman to serve in a presidential cabinet. Thus, a strong parallel to Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady. And, therefore, a good book for broader context on the life and work of Mrs. Roosevelt.
“Kirstin Downey’s lively, substantive and—dare I say—inspiring new biography of Perkins . . . not only illuminates Perkins’ career but also deepens the known contradictions of Roosevelt’s character.” —Maureen Corrigan, NPR Fresh Air
One of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s closest friends and the first female secretary of labor, Perkins capitalized on the president’s political savvy and popularity to enact most of the Depression-era programs that are today considered essential parts of the country’s social safety network.
Because it focuses on the most important decade in Mrs. Roosevelt's life—covering the war years and her initial years of work as a US representative at the United Nations. Photos!! Reading about history is one thing. Seeing images of the people and technology that made history happen is something else. Large format, b&w, with good running text that uses countless anecdotes to tell the story of a century that truly transformed the world, from a time of kerosene lamps, horses and buggies, to men on the Moon. Eleanor Roosevelt’s life (1884-1962) parallels this illustrated history series (1870-1970) almost exactly. Excellent companions for my book.
The late Howard Zinn is a historian-hero to many readers and a historian who drove the truck off the road (the left side of the road…) to others. A controversial best-selling book, widely adopted as a high school or college level textbook. Zinn, certainly a leftist, and something of a Marxist, writes about America from the bottom up, not the top down. This is not a history of what great men did; rather, it’s about the energies (for better or worse) that drive citizen action to create, or force, social, cultural and economic change. Mrs. Roosevelt might have been uncomfortable with Zinn’s tone (she came, of course, from the patrician class herself), but her sympathies definitely lay with the working class, and with any underrepresented minority having trouble securing its legitimate rights. She would have welcomed Zinn to her Hyde Park home, and, over tea and biscuits, they would have argued all night, emerging in the morning as fast friends.
"A wonderful, splendid book—a book that should be read by every American, student or otherwise, who wants to understand his country, its true history, and its hope for the future." –Howard Fast
Historian Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States chronicles American history from the bottom up, throwing out the official narrative taught in schools—with its emphasis on great men in high places—to focus on the street, the home, and the workplace.
Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, itis the only volume to tell America's story from the…
I am adopted. For most of my life, I didn’t identify as adopted. I shoved that away because of the shame I felt about being adopted and not truly fitting into my family. But then two things happened: I had my own biological children, the only two people I know to date to whom I am biologically related, and then shortly after my second daughter was born, my older sister, also an adoptee, died of a drug overdose. These sequential births and death put my life on a new trajectory, and I started writing, out of grief, the history of adoption and motherhood in America.
I grew up thinking that being adopted didn’t matter. I was wrong. This book is my journey uncovering the significance and true history of adoption practices in America. Now, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over women’s reproductive rights places an even greater emphasis on adoption. As a mother, historian, and adoptee, I am uniquely qualified to uncover the policies and practices of adoption.
The history of adoption, reframed through the voices of adoptees like me, and mothers who have been forced to relinquish their babies, blows apart old narratives…
Who Is a Worthy Mother?: An Intimate History of Adoption
Nearly every person in the United States is affected by adoption. Adoption practices are woven into the fabric of American society and reflect how our nation values human beings, particularly mothers. In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over women's reproductive rights places an even greater emphasis on adoption. As a mother, historian, and adoptee, Rebecca C. Wellington is uniquely qualified to uncover the policies and practices of adoption. Wellington's timely-and deeply researched-account amplifies previously marginalized voices and exposes the social and racial biases embedded in the United States' adoption industry.…
