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Overview
The Wisdom Library invites you on a journey through the lives and works of the world’s greatest thinkers and leaders. Compiled by scholars, this series presents excerpts from the most important and revealing writings of the most remarkable minds of all time.
THE WISDOM OF ELEANOR ROOSEVELT
“We must join in an effort to use all knowledge for the good of all human beings. When we do that we shall have nothing to fear.”
John F. Kennedy described Eleanor Roosevelt as “one of the great ladies in the history of this country.” A role model for generations of women, Mrs. Roosevelt made an indelible mark as First Lady. Although painfully shy, she never hesitated to publicly champion the poor, minorities, women and other victims of discrimination. She was among the twentieth century’s most active civil rights pioneers, compelling her husband to sign a series of Executive Orders barring discrimination in the administration of various New Deal projects, and supporting desegregation of the armed forces. Her groundbreaking column, “My Day,” ran in national newspapers for twenty-six years. During her tenure as U.S. delegate to the United Nations, she was the principal author of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. She also maintained close friendships and correspondences with notable statespeople, including her husband’s successor, Harry S. Truman, who declared her “First Lady of the World.” With revealing excerpts from her letters and published work, The Wisdom of Eleanor Roosevelt delves into the passions and concerns that drove this exceptional humanitarian. Here is a fascinating and essential tribute to a woman ahead of her time, whose actions truly conveyed her words, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780806540214 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Kensington |
| Publication date: | 07/31/2018 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 108 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
Read an Excerpt
INTRODUCTION
Few people in history have reacted to their times and at the same time influenced them more than did Anna Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962). Not only did she live during the most turbulent years of the twentieth century, but she also was often uniquely at the very pulse-taking points of its events.
Mrs. Roosevelt, heroine and humanitarian, advocate and activist, prolific writer and leader, is justly considered one of the most influential women of the twentieth century. She was chosen the most admired American by a Gallup poll in 1958. No future reckoning or reassessment of history is likely to remove that remarkable distinction from her. However, interestingly, she is not one of the most frequently quoted people of her century, in spite of her hundreds of newspaper columns and articles, four autobiographical volumes, several other published books, many speeches and interviews, and volumes of letters.
There might be as many famous quotations about Mrs. Roosevelt as there are quotations by her. The most famous might be Harry S. Truman's dedication of her as "First Lady of the World." Her friend, Adlai Stevenson, stated: "Certainly one of God's noblest, strongest creations was Eleanor Roosevelt." Another friend, the novelist Martha Gellhorn, states that "there has been no other woman of her stature in pubic life and probably there never will be again." She was also named "Woman of the Century" by the National Women's Hall of Fame. Psychologist Howard Gardner noted that both she and Martin Luther King Jr. were "leaders of non-dominant groups ... leaders of the dispossessed." In her Leadership the Eleanor Roosevelt Way, Robin Gerber adds that "Eleanor led by breaking down isolation, by bringing communities together and forging ties across racial and class lines."
When she was first lady of New York State and later first lady of the United States, there were several other leaders with even greater platforms. Her own husband, of course, was most notable among the giants with whom she often shared ideas. This was at a time when few women had spoken out about anything, let alone on key issues of their day. In the 1950s she represented her country in travels to England, France, India, Japan, and the Soviet Union. The queen of England, Winston Churchill, Gandhi, and other giants of history shared with her more than merely social conversations. She gave to them of her wisdom, and passed on to us theirs as well. She was indeed an admirable reservoir as well as an exceptionally effective channel of information, knowledge, opinion, advice, wit, and inspiration.
Mrs. Roosevelt
During her lifetime, even those close to the first lady referred to her as "Mrs. Roosevelt," rarely as "Eleanor." We here respect that practice even at the risk of being repetitious. We feel it is a small price to pay for using each opportunity we have to show respect for our distinguished subject.
Quotations
This book presents nearly five hundred excerpts from her works, indexed by many major concepts and key words. There are only a few quotations from Mrs. Roosevelt's many writings found in the most popular collections of quotations. For instance, there are only two in John Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (16th Edition). Some collections in fact do not quote her at all, but all of the more famous quotes are included here. A fine compendium of quotations edited by Alex Ayres titled The Wit and Wisdom of Eleanor Roosevelt (Meridian, 1996) demonstrates that one need not call on many of the available resources to find a surplus of brilliant passages from Mrs. Roosevelt. But, Ayres's book is not focused on our theme of wisdom.
The quotations are presented in general chronological order by year, with highlights of Mrs. Roosevelt's life and current events. Events mentioned within a given year might not be in strict chronology.
Letters
Unlike most previous collections of excerpts from the writings of Mrs. Roosevelt, this one includes numerous quotations from her published personal letters. Specifically, included are passages from her letters to her daughter, Anna (as quoted also in Mother and Daughter, by Bernard Asbell), and to her husband's successor in the White House, Harry S. Truman, as quoted also in Eleanor and Harry, by Steve Neal. Also included are excerpts from her letter to her friend David Gurewitsch as quoted also in his widow Edna P. Gurewitsch's Kindred Souls. Finally, there are excerpts from letters to her friend Lorena Hickok as quoted in Empty Without You, by Rodger Streitmatter.
Of her intimate letters, we have not included those excerpts, typically taken out of context, that seem to be of interest only to the merely curious or to only superficial journalism. Rather, we have sought out the pearls of wisdom that can travel beyond personal feelings to more universal applications or understandings.
Mrs. Roosevelt stressed to President Truman that she "would not use a private letter in a public way at any time" (May 5, 1945, Eleanor and Harry). We respectfully propose that our intention here is to share her wisdom with the world, not invade privacy in any way.
Writing Style
As Mrs. Roosevelt admitted to President Truman, her handwriting was "anything but legible" (May 5, 1945, Eleanor and Harry). That might account for some of the difficulties in transcribing the letters. But it is her style that might distract the reader even after transcription.
Readers of the letters of Mrs. Roosevelt often mention that her informal writing style presents problems. Among the distinctive habits of the writer is her frequent use of the ampersand (&), especially between sentences, creating run-on sentences. The sentences of an entire letter might all be linked with ampersands. Rather than be distracting, these linked sentences can remind the reader of the very active mind behind even the most casual of comments. While probably not to be advocated in writing courses, her style reminds us that she was continually making associations between one idea and another, even when the two seem to us at first unrelated.
The editor's temptation is to "correct" the writing style. However, we have here been faithful to the published editions of these letters, with a minimum of editing where the slips are obvious (e.g., changing effect for affect, insure for ensure). Nearly all of the letters quoted here are informal, and were obviously never intended to be published.
Time Capsules
Many excerpts from the writings of Eleanor Roosevelt stand on their own without knowing more specifically where or when they were said. However, knowing to whom Mrs. Roosevelt is speaking often helps the reader appreciate passages from letters, for example. In fact, when seen in the context of their times and places, many of her comments can be more appreciated. Her statement, for instance, that "Mr. (Richard M.) Nixon never has anything but hindsight," can be appreciated more fully when we see that she said that in 1960, before John F. Kennedy defeated Nixon to win the presidency later that year.
At the beginning of each set of quotations for each decade, we present dates and highlights from the life of Mrs. Roosevelt and related or significant contemporary events are presented. Some of these facts are based on materials provided by the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, and other authoritative sources. (Cf. "Eleanor Roosevelt: Time Line," My Day, edited by David Emblidge.) Our chronology of her many writings is as in Courage in a Dangerous World: The Political Writings of Eleanor Roosevelt, edited by Allida M. Black. Concerning the ordering of historical events, we considered the definitive biographer of our subject to be Joseph Lash, as seen in his Eleanor and Franklin, 1971.
Other such concise outlines of a celebrity life typically include titles of books written by the subject. Ours also seeks to list some of what influenced our subject by noting what she read. Specifically, we note in our time lines several of over fifty introductions or forewords to books that Mrs. Roosevelt wrote.
While in these time capsules historical facts are mentioned in their correct years, the events noted within each year might not be in strict chronological order. Moreover, the writings of Mrs. Roosevelt are typically noted here as "written" in the year the work was published, whereas her actual writing may have been done in previous years. At least five articles and two book introductions by Mrs. Roosevelt were published the year after her death.
"My Day"
The newspaper columns of Eleanor Roosevelt were titled "My Day," which began in 1936 and continued faithfully to the year of her death, 1962. The columns appeared in the New York Post (1957–1962), as well as in many major newspapers, including the New York Herald Tribune, the Milwaukee Journal, the Kansas City Star, and the Atlanta Constitution. These are quoted here more often than any other source. However, excerpts alone would not capture the style and spirit of these essays. Therefore, to help the reader appreciate how Mrs. Roosevelt developed her ideas, twenty-seven complete columns, from 1939–1962, are appended here to the quotations.
The United Nations and Human Rights
On reading the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Braille, Helen Keller stated: "My soul stood erect, exultant, envisioning a new world where the light of justice for every individual will be unclouded."
While Mrs. Roosevelt was not the sole author of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, she is acknowledged to have been its principal driving force. In fact, all of the key notions of the declaration might be found as thematic to her lifelong convictions expressed, albeit often informally, in her books, articles, letters, speeches, and interviews. She wrote several articles and the introductions to two books that commented on the declaration.
On December 10, 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the full text of which appears at the end of the book, as it does in several of the books that have been written about Mrs. Roosevelt.
Following that historic act, the Assembly called upon all member countries to publicize the text of the Declaration and "to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories."
The European spelling of certain words in the charter (color as colour,honor as honour, etc.) were changed here to standard American spellings.
Index
The listing of topics and key concepts found in the quotations is given at the end of this collection. Following a certain theme throughout the excerpts, the reader might notice a certain evolution of her thoughts, obviously influenced by the times and experience.
Wisdom
Mrs. Roosevelt often called on wisdom as the most important element in a decision-making process. A typical passage is seen in a letter to President Harry S. Truman in which she asks the president to join several other notable people in signing a position statement. She stated that she was hoping that he might sign it "if you think it is a wise move at this time. If there are any changes which you think wise, we would of course want you to make them. If you don't think it wise, you must, of course, also let me know" (January 13, 1956, Eleanor and Harry).
Years before, one morning shortly after the end of World War II, Mrs. Roosevelt wrote to President Truman after he had called her the night before. Her comment to him is surely thematic to all the advice she gave not only to heads of state during her life, but to us as well as we call on her insights: "You will have pressures from every side. I am sure your own wisdom and experience and faith in God will guide you aright" (August 15, 1945, Eleanor and Harry).
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Wisdom of Eleanor Roosevelt"
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Copyright © 2003 Donald Wigal.
Excerpted by permission of KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP..
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Table of Contents
Introduction,
Acknowledgments,
Sources,
1884–1939,
1940–1949,
1950–1959,
1960–1962,
"My Day",
Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
Eleanor Roosevelt's Obituary,
A Reader's Guide,