Courage in a Dangerous World: The Political Writings of Eleanor Roosevelt / Edition 1

by Eleanor Roosevelt, Allida Black

Overview

Dozens of books have been written about Eleanor Roosevelt, but her own writings are largely confined to the Roosevelt archives in Hyde Park. Courage in a Dangerous World allows her own voice again to be heard. Noted Eleanor Roosevelt scholar Allida M. Black has gathered more than two hundred columns, articles, essays, and speeches culled from archives whose pages number in the millions, tracing her development from timorous columnist to one of liberalism's most outspoken leaders.

From "My Day" newspaper columns about Marian Anderson and excerpts from Moral Basis of Democracy and This Troubled World to speeches and articles on the Holocaust and McCarthyism, this anthology provides readers with the tools to reconstruct the politics of a woman who redefined American liberalism and democratic reform. Arranged chronologically and by topic, the volume covers the New Deal years, the White House years, World War II at home and abroad, the United Nations and human rights, the Cold War, the civil rights movement, the resurgence of feminism, and much more. In addition, the collection features excerpts from Eleanor Roosevelt's correspondence with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Adlai Stevenson, J. Edgar Hoover, John F. Kennedy, and ordinary Americans.

The volume features a collection of 30 rare photographs. A comprehensive bibliography of Eleanor Roosevelt's articles serves as a valuable resource, providing a link to the issues she held dear, many of which are still hotly debated today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231111812
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	10/06/2000
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	360
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Allida M. Black is research professor of history, and project director and editor of The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers at The George Washington University. She is the author of Casting Her Own Shadow: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Shaping of Postwar Liberalism (Columbia) and the editor of "What I Hope to Leave Behind": The Essential Essays of Eleanor Roosevelt.

Table of Contents

Preface, by by Blanche Weisen Cook
Introduction
Part I. The New Deal Years: 1933-1940
1. The State's Responsibility for Fair Working Conditions
2. I Want You to Write to Me
3. Old Age Pensions
4. Subsistence Farmsteads
5. The New Governmental Interest in the Arts: A Speech before the Twenty-Fifth Annual Convention of the American Federation of Artists
6. In Defense of Curiosity
7. The Negro and Social Change
8. Are We Overlooking the Pursuit of Happiness?
9. Married Persons Clause of the Economy Act
10. The Southern Conference on Human Welfare
11. ER to Lorena HickokHenry Grady Hotel Atlanta
12. Marian Anderson and the Daughters of the American Revolution
13. The Federal Theater Project
14. Women Politics, and Policy
15. The Works Progress Administration
16. The Moral Basis of Democracy
17. Women in Politics
18. Insuring Democracy
19. Helping Them to Help Themselves
Part II. The Threat of War: 1935-1945
1. "Because the War Idea Is Obsolete''
2. "This Troubled World''
3. Cash and Carry
4. The Invasion of Poland
5. Wartime Sacrifice
6. Should There Be A Referendum on War?
7. The Bombing of Britain
8. Pearl Harbor
9. The Nazi Camps
10. The Holocaust
11. D-Day
12. D-Day, by Continued
13. Conscientious Objectors
14. Total War
15. Equal Justice for All
16. The Atomic Bomb
Part III. The Home Front: 1939-1945
1. "Keepers of Democracy''
2. "Intolerance''
3. "Why I Still Believe in the Youth Congress''
4. "Civil Liberties—The Individual and the Community''
5. "Social Gains and Defense''
6. "Race Religion and Prejudice''
7. "Must We Hate to Fight?''
8. "Freedom: Promise or Fact''
9. "Abolish Jim Crow!''
10. "A Challenge to American Sportsmanship''
11. "Henry A. Wallace's "Democracy Reborn''
12. FDR's Death
Part IV. The United Nations and Human Rights: 1945-1953
1. "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights''
2. "The Promise of Human Rights''
3. "Statement on Draft Covenant on Human Rights''
4. "Reply to Attacks on U.S. Attitude Toward Human Rights Covenant''
5. "UN: Good U.S. Investment''
6. "The Universal Validity of Man's Right to Self-Determination''
7. "U.N. Deliberations on Draft Convention on the Political Rights of Women''
8. "Eisenhower Administration Rejects Treaty''
9. ER's Response
Part V. The Cold War Abroad: 1945-1963
1. Revisiting Yalta
2. "The Russians Are Tough''
3. The Korean War
4. Truman's Dismissal of MacArthur
5. China and the Korean War
6. "First Need: Resettlement''
7. "The Changing India''
8. "Soviet Attacks on Social Conditions in U.S.''
9. "Why Are We Cooperating with Tito?''
10. Tensions in the Middle East
11. "What Are We For?''
12. The Bay of Pigs and the Congo
13. "What Has Happened to the American Dream?''
Part VI. The Cold War at Home: 1945-1963
1. Full Employment
2. Price Controls and Postwar Production
3. "Why I Do Not Choose to Run''
4. Loyalty Oaths
5. Taft-Hartley Act
6. Correspondence Regarding the Above Column
7. House Committee on Un-American Activities
8. "Plain Talk About Wallace''
9. "Liberals in This Year of Decision''
10. Dispute with Francis Cardinal Spellman
11. Correspondence Regarding the Above Column
12. Address to Americans for Democratic Action
13. "If I Were a Republican Today''
14. Senator Joseph McCarthy
15. Alger Hiss
16. "Social Responsibility for Individual Welfare'
17. Stevenson Campaign Address
18. Segregation in the South
19. The Smith Act
20. The Civil Rights Act of 1957
21. Stevenson on the Civil Rights Bill
22. Correspondence with Lyndon Johnson Regardomg the Above Column
23. "Ike—`Nice Man Poor Leader';Nixon—`Anything to Get Elected' ''
24. "Why I Am Opposed to `Right to Work' Laws''
25. Statement on Behalf of the National Consumers League
26. Lyndon Johnson and the Civil Rights Act of 1960
27. Stevenson, Kennedy and the 1960 Democratic Convention
28. Campaigning for Kennedy
29. Presidential Commission on the Status of Women
30. "The Social Revolution''

What People are Saying About This

Blanche Wiesen Cook

From the Author of Eleanor Roosevelt

[Eleanor Roosevelt's] profound legacy fully reconsidered might yet help make the 21st century a happier and less brutish time. This is a book we urgently need for our current and coming journeys.

R.C. Cottrell

An exceptionally important collection of the writings of America's most renowned First Lady... Highly recommended.

Blanche Weison Cook

[Eleanor Roosevelt's] profound legacy fully reconsidered might yet help make the 21st century a happier and less bruthish time. This is a book we urgently need for our current and coming journeys.
— Author of Eleanor Roosevelt

E.J. Dionne, Jr.

A service to history and to contemporary politics.
— Author ofWhy Americans Hate Politics

R. C. Cottrell

An exceptionally important collection of the writings of America's most renowned First Lady... Highly recommended.

Editorial Reviews

The intelligent writings of Roosevelt are both a tonic and a balm in this time of rampant doublespeak. Allida Black... has worked through the immense treasure trove of Eleanor Roosevelt's writings to make these jewels of common sense, candor, and generosity of spirit accessible to all readers.

Booklist

[Eleanor Roosevelt´s] profound legacy fully reconsidered might yet help make the 21st century a happier and less brutish time. This is a book we urgently need for our current and coming journeys.

Blanche Wiesen Cook

An extraordinary collection of her letters, speeches, columns, and essays. . . . This volume should become a standard work for the new century.

Chicago Sun-Times

An exceptionally important collection of the writings of America´s most renowned First Lady. . . . Highly recommended.

R. C. Cottrell

With the written word, Eleanor Roosevelt learned to speak loudly and cast her own political shadow. This collection of columns, essays, speeches, and letters documents her political transformation from self-effacing first lady to outspoken defender of democracy and human rights. Arranged chronologically from the New Deal to the Cold War, this title is important because most of Roosevelt's writings--except her Autobiography (Da Capo, 1992)--are out of print. Black, editor of What I Hope To Leave Behind: The Essential Essays of Eleanor Roosevelt (LJ 11/15/95), has struck archival gold. "In Defense of Curiosity" proves that Eleanor put a deft spin on gender politics in the 1930s: "when people say woman's place is in the home, I say...it certainly is, but if she really cares about her home, that caring will take her far and wide." She had the audacity to support the American Youth Congress--disillusioned young adults with Communist sympathies--and denounce Joseph McCarthy. Racism, generation gaps, and education also drove her to write with both compassion and a sterling clarity that transcended her husband's politics. Recommended for all public and academic libraries. (Photos not seen.)--Heather McCormack, "Library Journal"

Library Journal

A collection of over 200 columns, articles, essays, speeches, and excerpts from books by Roosevelt, arranged chronologically from 1933 to 1963 to illustrate her evolution from a timorous columnist to one of liberalism's most outspoken leaders. They deal with the New Deal years, the White House years, World War II, the United Nations and human rights, the Cold War, the civil rights movement, the resurgence of feminism, and other issues. A comprehensive bibliography of her articles is appended. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Booknews

An extraordinary collection of her letters, speeches, columns, and essays.... This volume should become a standard work for the new century.

Chicago Sun-Times

The intelligent writings of Roosevelt are both a tonic and a balm in this time of rampant doublespeak. Allida Black... has worked through the immense treasure trove of Eleanor Roosevelt's writings to make these jewels of common sense, candor, and generosity of spirit accessible to all readers.

Booklist