Week 8 Post - Non-fiction booktalk blog

Freedman, R. (1993). Eleanor Roosevelt: A life if discovery. New York: Clarion Books.

Note: Parenthetical in-text citations below are for the presenter only. They will not be included in actual talk.

The subject of today’s booktalk is Russell Freedman’s biography about Eleanor Roosevelt titled simply Eleanor Roosevelt. Characteristically modest and self-effacing, Eleanor Roosevelt said about her decade as First Lady: “I never wanted to be a president’s wife and I don’t want it now…..Now I shall have to work out my own salvation” (Freedman, 1993, p. 97).         Fortunately for all of us she worked it out. For the history buffs in our literature class who love background information about the periods we are studying for historical context that recounting will be a treat:  Born in 1884, Eleanor Roosevelt lived through and participated in all the great events of the first 60 years of the 20^th Century.  

The daughter of New York blue-bloods or upper class parents, Eleanor was painfully shy as a child, easily frightened and very self-conscious of her plain appearance.  At 8 Eleanor’s mother died and at 10 her father.  Of those events, she recollected, “The bottom dropped out of my own particular world and I faced myself, my surroundings, my world, honestly for the first time. I really grew up that year.” (Freedman, 1997, p. 63)

She was raised by her maternal grandmother who fulfilling her promise to her daughter sent granddaughter Eleanor at 15 to a finishing school in England. There Eleanor blossomed acquiring the confidence and thoughtful decisiveness that were to serve her beautifully throughout her life. Returning from England at 18 for her coming out or debut into New York Society, Eleanor was reintroduced to her cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt who not only became her husband but was elected to four terms as U.S. President.  

Eleanor Roosevelt was remarkable because she rose to every challenge. What makes the book Eleanor Roosevelt remarkable is that it is unflinchingly honest about her: When her husband began an affair with her secretary, she demanded he stop it and simply refused to ever again engage in conjugal relations with him. When her husband became Governor of New York State she supported him and when he contracted polio and was crippled she was there for him. Her response to his illness was to serve him and ultimately both him and us when he is elected U.S. President. Eleanor Roosevelt put it this way: “If anyone were to ask me what I want out of life I would say – the opportunity for doing something useful, for in no other way, I am convinced, can true happiness be attained. “  (Freedman, 1997, p. 77)

Eleanor Roosevelt was a completely modern woman before it was acceptable to be one. She became involved in politics, wrote for newspapers and lectured, travelled for her husband in all his terms as president. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt finally passed away at the beginning of his fourth term she continued to be active in the United Nations especially in its campaigns for international peace many of which she helped start. Eleanor Roosevelt served in some official capacity under Truman, Eisenhower and finally John F. Kennedy. At the end of her life she said in perfect summation: “Life has got to be lived – that is all there is to it.” (Freedman, 1997, p. 147)