Eleanor Roosevelt, 1962 O

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Eleanor Roosevelt, 1962 O THE MAKING HISTORY SERIES FUNDAMENTAL FREEDOMS Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights With a Foreword by Allida M. Black & Mary Jo Blinker, the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project A Facing History and Ourselves Publication Facing History and Ourselves is an international educational and professional development organization whose mission is to engage students of diverse backgrounds in an examination of racism, prejudice, and antisemitism in order to promote the development of a more humane and informed citizenry. By studying the historical development of the Holocaust and other examples of genocide, students make the essential connection between history and the moral choices they confront in their own lives. For more information about Facing History and Ourselves, please visit our website at www.facinghistory.org. Copyright © 2010 by Facing History and Ourselves National Foundation, Inc. All rights reserved. Facing History and Ourselves® is a trademark registered in the U.S. Patent & Trademark Offi ce. Cover art photos: Eleanor with the UDHR Poster, UN Photo. The following photos are © Bettmann/Corbis: Roosevelt, Cook and Dickerman; Visiting Infantile Paralysis Victims; Eleanor at the UN General Assembly; Eleanor with Marian Anderson; Eleanor in the Coal Mine; and Eleanor and Franklin. To order classroom copies, please fax a purchase order to 617-232-0281 or call 617-232-1595 to place a phone order. To download a PDF of this publication, please visit www.facinghistory.org/fundamentalfreedoms. ISBN-13: 978-0-9819543-2-5 Headquarters 16 Hurd Road Brookline, MA 02445 (617) 232-1595 www.facinghistory.org ABOUT FACING HISTORY AND OURSELVES Facing History and Ourselves is a nonprofit educational organization whose mission is to engage students of diverse backgrounds in an exam ination of racism, prejudice, and antisemitism in order to promote a more humane and informed citizenry. As the name Facing History and Ourselves implies, the organization helps teachers and their students make the essential connections between history and the moral choices they confront in their own lives, and offers a framework and a vocabu lary for analyzing the meaning and respon- sibility of citizenship, and the tools to recognize bigotry and indifference in their own worlds. Through a rigorous examination of the failure of democracy in Germany during the 1920s and 1930s, and the steps leading to the Holo- caust, along with other examples of hatred, collective violence, and genocide in the past century, Facing History and Ourselves provides educators with tools for teaching history and ethics, and for helping their students learn to combat prejudice with compassion, indifference with participation, myth and misinformation with knowledge. Believing that no classroom exists in isolation, Facing History and Ourselves offers programs and materials to a broad audience of students, parents, teach- ers, civic leaders, and all those who play a role in the education of young people. Through significant higher education partnerships, Facing History and Ourselves also reaches and impacts teachers before they enter their classrooms. By studying the choices that led to critical episodes in history, students learn how issues of identity and membership, ethics and judgment, have meaning today and in the future. Facing History and Ourselves’ resource books pro- vide a meticulously researched, yet flexible, structure for exam ining complex events and ideas. Educators can select appropriate read ings and draw on additional resources available online, or from our comprehensive lending library. Our foundational resource book, Facing History and Ourselves: Holocaust and Human Behavior, embodies a sequence of study that begins with iden- tity—first, individual identity, and then group and national identities, with their definitions of membership. From there, the program examines the failure of democracy in Germany, and the steps leading to the Holocaust—the most documented case of twentieth-century indiffer ence, dehumanization, hatred, racism, antisemitism, and mass murder. It goes on to explore difficult ques- tions of judgment, memory, and legacy, and the necessity for responsible par- ticipation to prevent injus tice. Facing History and Ourselves then returns to the theme of civic participation to examine stories of individuals, groups, and nations who have worked to build just and inclusive communities, and whose stories illuminate the courage, compassion, and political will that are needed to protect democracy today, and in generations to come. Other examples in which civic dilemmas test democracy, such as the Armenian Genocide and the U.S. civil rights movement, are presented to expand and deepen the con- nection between history and the choices we face today—and in the future. Facing History and Ourselves has offices or resource centers in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, as well as in-depth partnerships in Rwanda, South Africa, and Northern Ireland. Facing History and Ourselves’ outreach is global, with educators trained in more than 80 countries, and delivery of our resources through a website accessed worldwide with online content delivery, a program for international fellows, and a set of NGO part- nerships. By convening conferences of scholars, theologians, educators, and journalists, Facing History and Ourselves’ materials are kept timely, rel- evant, and responsive to salient issues of global citizenship in the twenty-first century. For more than 30 years, Facing History and Ourselves has challenged stu- dents and educators to connect the complexities of the past to the moral and ethical issues of today. They explore democratic values and consider what it means to exercise one’s rights and responsibilities in the service of a more humane and compassionate world. They become aware that “little things are big”—that seemingly minor decisions can have a major impact, and change the course of history. For more about Facing History and Ourselves, visit our website at www.facinghistory.org. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Primary Writer: Dan Eshet From its inception, Fundamental Freedoms: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Uni- versal Declaration of Human Rights has been a collaborative effort. Facing History and Ourselves extends gratitude to all who contributed to the devel- opment of this publication. We would like to thank Jill Garling and Thomas Wilson for their generous support of the Making History Series. It is a great pleasure to thank Allida M. Black, project director at the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project and professor of history and international affairs at George Washington University, as well as her staff. Allida’s affectionate writings about Eleanor shaped our views of “ER” as an independent political activist and as one of the most progressive and influential thinkers of her generation. Sam Gilbert, our long-time edi- tor, spent many hours improving the style of this text. We thank him for his passionate work on this project. We would also like to thank Daniel Cohen, a dear friend and professor of history at Rice University, who read the text several times and whose advice and thoughtful discussions, shaped not only the text of this book, but also the way we thought about and approached the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Carol Hillman, chair of the Honoring Eleanor Roosevelt Project at Val-Kill, also made valuable contributions to the discussions of Eleanor’s role in the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Special thanks to Mary Ann Glendon, who advised at critical stages during development, especially around issues of cultural differences as they played out in the UDHR drafting process. We thank the staff of the Frank- lin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library for their patience, advice, and coopera- tion throughout the research process. We also want to thank Sharon Linden- burger who reviewed the manuscript in its later drafts and enhanced its style. We also want to thank the design and editorial teams at Brown Publishing Network for their solid judgment and devotion in producing this resource. While writing this book, Facing History and Ourselves has been fortunate to benefit from the perspective, insight, and passion of many of its staff mem- bers. We owe credit for the inspiration to read about Eleanor Roosevelt to Margot Stern Strom. This book bears the marks of her passionate interest in Eleanor’s life, actions, and ideas. We owe many kinds of thanks to Adam Strom for his broad perspective and deep understanding of human rights, and for his careful reading of every word written. His knowledge of civil rights history kept our research honest and our writing balanced and fair. We also deeply thank Dan Eshet, primary writer of the text, for his dedication to this project. He collected ideas from a wide range of scholars and many fields and then crafted them into a comprehensive narrative of which we are proud. We are indebted also to Marty Sleeper, a veteran educator, for his insights and deep understanding of the challenges America faced during the 1930s and 1940s. Marc Skvirsky dutifully read all the drafts of this book; thanks to his suggestions, the book is deeper and broader in its scope than it would have been otherwise. Many thanks to Elisabeth Fieldstone Kanner, whose experience as a teacher and curriculum writer helped make this publication more accessible and easy to use in classroom settings. Nicole Breaux supervised the first half of the project’s life, while Eva Radding managed its final stages. Jen Gray brought the text to life through her photo research and permissions work. Ilana Klar- man edited parts of the text. We would like to thank Catherine O’Keefe and Maria Hill, our publishing colleagues, who managed the design and printing of this book. Dimitry Anselme, Mary Johnson, Adrianne Billingham Bock, Milton Reynolds, Steve Becton, and Phredd MatthewsWall contributed con- structive criticism and commentary during the writing of this book, and their suggestions influenced many aspects of the development of the text. A special acknowledgment is due to our grant writer, Jan Stanwood, for her dedicated work to fund this project.
Recommended publications
  • THE TRANSFORMATION of ELEANOR ROOSEVELT Nell."
    JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY AND HISTORY OF EDUCATION THE TRANSFORMATION OF ELEANOR ROOSEVELT Donna Lee Younker University of Central Oklahoma, Emeritus Ifwe women ever feel that something serious is threatening our homes and our children's lives, then we may awaken to the political and economic power that is ours. Not to work to elect a woman, but to work for a cause. Eleanor Roosevelt, 1935 Saturday Evening Post (August 11, 1935).* Foreword tears and loss.2 Joseph P. Lash, who over a friendship Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born before women lasting twenty-two years had almost a filial devotion to were allowed to vote. For Eleanor Roosevelt feminism her, writes that her intense and crucial girlhood was and world peace were inexorably intertwined. This lived not only in the Victorian age, but another world.3 paper is a psychobiography, tracing her transformation Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., describes the social milieu from a private to a public person. It carefully chronicles in which she grew up as "the old New York of Edith her development from a giggling debutante to a Wharton where rigid etiquette concealed private hells powerful political leader. The focus of this paper has and neuroses lurked under the crinoline.4 been placed on her first emergence in the years after Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born on October 11, World War I as a leader for the Nineteenth Amendment 1884. Her mother, Anna Hall Roosevelt, died when she to the Constitution and of the movement for the League was eight years old. Her father, Elliott Roosevelt, the of Nations.
    [Show full text]
  • Choose Your Words Describing the Japanese Experience During WWII
    Choose your Words Describing the Japanese Experience During WWII Dee Anne Squire, Wasatch Range Writing Project Summary: Students will use discussion, critical thinking, viewing, research, and writing to study the topic of the Japanese Relocation during WWII. This lesson will focus on the words used to describe this event and the way those words influence opinions about the event. Objectives: • Students will be able to identify the impact of World War II on the Japanese in America. • Students will write arguments to support their claims based on valid reasoning and evidence. • Students will be able to interpret words and phrases within video clips and historical contexts. They will discuss the connotative and denotative meanings of words and how those word choices shaped the opinion of Americans about the Japanese immigrants in America. • Students will use point of view to shape the content and style of their writing. Context: Grades 7-12, with the depth of the discussion changing based on age and ability Materials: • Word strips on cardstock placed around the classroom • Internet access • Capability to show YouTube videos Time Span: Two to three 50-minute class periods depending on your choice of activities. Some time at home for students to do research is a possibility. Procedures: Day 1 1. Post the following words on cardstock strips throughout the room: Relocation, Evacuation, Forced Removal, Internees, Prisoners, Non-Aliens, Citizens, Concentration Camps, Assembly Centers, Pioneer Communities, Relocation Center, and Internment Camp. 2. Organize students into groups of three or four and have each group gather a few words from the walls.
    [Show full text]
  • The Four Freedoms
    ACTIVITY 1.9 WWhathat IIss FFreedom?reedom? ACTIVITY 1.9 PLAN Suggested Pacing: 2 50-minute Learning Targets class periods • Analyze the use of rhetorical features in an argumentative text. LEARNING STRATEGIES: SOAPSTone, Socratic • Compare how a common theme is expressed in different texts. Seminar TEACH • Present, clarify, and challenge ideas in order to propel conversations. 1 Read the Preview and the Setting Preview a Purpose for Reading sections with In this activity, you will read a speech delivered by President Franklin D. Roosevelt My Notes your students. Help them understand and two parts of the Constitution of the United States to root your thinking in the that they will be reading seminal foundational documents of the nation. texts of the United States to compare Setting a Purpose for Reading definitions offreedom . These texts are primary sources. Remind • Underline words and phrases that define freedom. students that primary sources are • Highlight words and phrases that describe the concepts of America and American. valuable, and context is important in • Put a star next to particularly moving rhetoric. understanding them. • Circle unknown words and phrases. Try to determine the meaning of the words 2 FIRST READ: Based on the by using context clues, word parts, or a dictionary. complexity of the passage and your knowledge of your students, you ABOUT THE AUTHOR may choose to conduct the first President Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered this State of the Union speech reading in a variety of ways: on January 6, 1941. The speech outlines four key human rights. It acted as a reminder to the nation of the reasons for supporting Great Britain in its fight • independent reading against Germany.
    [Show full text]
  • C H a P T E R 24 the Great Depression and the New Deal
    NASH.7654.CP24.p790-825.vpdf 9/23/05 3:26 PM Page 790 CHAPTER 24 The Great Depression and the New Deal The WPA (Works Progress Administration) hired artists from 1935 to 1943 to create murals for public buildings. The assumption was not only that “artists need to eat too,” as Harry Hop- kins announced, but also that art was an important part of culture and should be supported by the federal government. Here Moses Soyer, a Philadelphia artist, depicts WPA artists creating a mural. Do you think it is appropriate for the government to subsidize artists? (Moses Soyer, Artists on WPA, 1935. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC/Art Resource, New York) American Stories Coming of Age and Riding the Rails During the Depression Flickering in a Seattle movie theater in the depths of the Great Depression, the Holly- wood production Wild Boys of the Road captivated 13-year-old Robert Symmonds.The film, released in 1933, told the story of boys hitching rides on trains and tramping 790 NASH.7654.CP24.p790-825.vpdf 9/23/05 3:26 PM Page 791 CHAPTER OUTLINE around the country. It was supposed to warn teenagers of the dangers of rail riding, The Great Depression but for some it had the opposite effect. Robert, a boy from a middle-class home, al- The Depression Begins ready had a fascination with hobos. He had watched his mother give sand- Hoover and the Great Depression wiches to the transient men who sometimes knocked on the back door. He had taken to hanging around the “Hooverville” shantytown south of Economic Decline the King Street railroad station, where he would sit next to the fires and A Global Depression listen to the rail riders’ stories.
    [Show full text]
  • Mason Williams
    City of Ambition: Franklin Roosevelt, Fiorello La Guardia, and the Making of New Deal New York Mason Williams Submitted in partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2012 © 2012 Mason Williams All Rights Reserved Abstract City of Ambition: Franklin Roosevelt, Fiorello La Guardia, and the Making of New Deal New York Mason Williams This dissertation offers a new account of New York City’s politics and government in the 1930s and 1940s. Focusing on the development of the functions and capacities of the municipal state, it examines three sets of interrelated political changes: the triumph of “municipal reform” over the institutions and practices of the Tammany Hall political machine and its outer-borough counterparts; the incorporation of hundreds of thousands of new voters into the electorate and into urban political life more broadly; and the development of an ambitious and capacious public sector—what Joshua Freeman has recently described as a “social democratic polity.” It places these developments within the context of the national New Deal, showing how national officials, responding to the limitations of the American central state, utilized the planning and operational capacities of local governments to meet their own imperatives; and how national initiatives fed back into subnational politics, redrawing the bounds of what was possible in local government as well as altering the strength and orientation of local political organizations. The dissertation thus seeks not only to provide a more robust account of this crucial passage in the political history of America’s largest city, but also to shed new light on the history of the national New Deal—in particular, its relation to the urban social reform movements of the Progressive Era, the long-term effects of short-lived programs such as work relief and price control, and the roles of federalism and localism in New Deal statecraft.
    [Show full text]
  • The Evolution of the Image of the First Lady
    The Evolution of the Image of the First Lady Reagan N. Griggs Dr. Rauhaus University of North Georgia The role of the First Lady of the United States of America has often been seen as symbolic, figurative, and trivial. Often in comparison to her husband, she is seen as a minimal part of the world stage and ultimately of the history books. Through this research, I seek to debunk the theory that the First Lady is just an allegorical figure of our country, specifically through the analysis of the twenty- first century first ladies. I wish to pursue the evolution of the image of the First Lady and her relevance to political change and public policies. Because a woman has yet to be president of the United States, the First Lady is arguably the only female political figure to live in the White House thus far. The evolution of the First Lady is relevant to gender studies due to its pertinence to answering the age old question of women’s place in politics. Every first lady has in one way or another, exerted some type of influence on the position and on the man to whom she was married to. The occupants of the White House share a unique partnership, with some of the first ladies choosing to influence the president quietly or concentrating on the hostess role. While other first ladies are seen as independent spokeswomen for their own causes of choice, as openly influencing the president, as well as making their views publicly known (Carlin, 2004, p. 281-282).
    [Show full text]
  • Eleanor Roosevelt's Servant Leadership
    Tabors: A Voice for the "Least of These:" Eleanor Roosevelt's Servant Le Servant Leadership: Theory & Practice Volume 5, Issue 1, 13-24 Spring 2018 A Voice for the “Least of These:” Eleanor Roosevelt’s Servant Leadership Christy Tabors, Hardin-Simmons University Abstract Greenleaf (2002/1977), the source of the term “servant leadership,” acknowledges a lack of nurturing or caring leaders in all types of modern organizations. Leaders and potential future leaders in today’s society need servant leader role-models they can study in order to develop their own servant leadership. In this paper, the author explores Eleanor Roosevelt’s life using Spears’ (2010) ten characteristics of servant leadership as an analytical lens and determines that Roosevelt functioned as a servant leader throughout her lifetime. The author argues that Eleanor Roosevelt’s servant leadership functions as a timeless model for leaders in modern society. Currently, a lack of literature exploring the direct link between Eleanor Roosevelt and servant leadership exists. The author hopes to fill in this gap and encourage others to contribute to this area of study further. Overall, this paper aims at providing practical information for leaders, particularly educational leaders, to utilize in their development of servant leadership, in addition to arguing why Eleanor Roosevelt serves as a model to study further in the field of servant leadership. Keywords: Servant Leadership, Leadership, Educational Leadership, Eleanor Roosevelt © 2018 D. Abbott Turner College of Business. SLTP. 5(1), 13-24 Published by CSU ePress, 2017 1 Servant Leadership: Theory & Practice, Vol. 5 [2017], Iss. 1, Art. 2 14 TABORS Eleanor Roosevelt, often remembered as Franklin D.
    [Show full text]
  • Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE
    Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE. NEW YORK "This is the house in which my husband was born and brought up.... He alwl!Ys felt that this was his home, and he loved the house and the view, the woods, special trees .... " -Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin D. Roosevelt. 32d President of the United States was born in this home on January 30. 1882. He was the only child of James and Sara Roosevelt. Franklin Roosevelt spent much of his life here. Here Franklin-the toddler. the little boy. the young man-was shaped and grew to maturity. Here he brought his bride. Eleanor. in 1905. and here they raised their five children. From here he began his political career that stretched from the New York State Senate to the White House. Roose- velt was a State senator. 1911-13. Assistant Sec- retary of the Navy under Woodrow Wilson. 1913- 20. and unsuccessful vice-presidential candidate in 1920. Then. in 1921. he contracted infantile paralysis. During his struggle to conquer the disease he spent much time here. He refused to become an invalid and reentered politics. He was elected Governor of New York in 1928 and 1930 and President of the United States in 1932. As Governor and President. he came here as often as he could for respite from the turmoil of public life. On April 15. 1945. 3 days after his death in Warm Springs. Ga.. President Roosevelt was buried in the family rose garden. Seventeen years later. on November 10. 1962. Mrs. Roosevelt was buried beside the President.
    [Show full text]
  • F. D. Roosevelt, Norman Rockwell & the Four Freedoms (1943)
    F. D. Roosevelt, Norman Rockwell & the Four Freedoms (1943) Excerpt from Roosevelt’s January 16, 1941 speech before the U.S. Congress: “In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want -- which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants -- everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear -- which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor-- anywhere in the world. That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb. To that new order we oppose the greater conception -- the moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear. Since the beginning of our American history, we have been engaged in change -- in a perpetual peaceful revolution -- a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly adjusting itself to changing conditions -- without the concentration camp or the quick-lime in the ditch.
    [Show full text]
  • Excerpt from Elizabeth Borgwardt, the Nuremberg Idea: “Thinking Humanity” in History, Law & Politics, Under Contract with Alfred A
    Excerpt from Elizabeth Borgwardt, The Nuremberg Idea: “Thinking Humanity” in History, Law & Politics, under contract with Alfred A. Knopf. DRAFT of 10/24/16; please do not cite or quote without author’s permission Human Rights Workshop, Schell Center for International Human Rights, Yale Law School November 3, 2016, 12:10 to 1:45 pm, Faculty Lounge Author’s Note: Thank you in advance for any attention you may be able to offer to this chapter in progress, which is approximately 44 double-spaced pages of text. If time is short I recommend starting with the final section, pp. 30-42. I look forward to learning from your reactions and suggestions. Chapter Abstract: This history aims to show how the 1945-49 series of trials in the Nuremberg Palace of Justice distilled the modern idea of “crimes against humanity,” and in the process established the groundwork for the modern international human rights regime. Over the course of the World War II era, a 19th century version of crimes against humanity, which might be rendered more precisely in German as Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit (crimes against “humane-ness”), competed with and was ultimately co-opted by a mid-20th- century conception, translated as Verbrechen gegen die Menschheit (crimes against “human- kind”). Crimes against humaneness – which Hannah Arendt dismissed as “crimes against kindness” – were in effect transgressions against traditional ideas of knightly chivalry, that is, transgressions against the humanity of the perpetrators. Crimes against humankind – the Menschheit version -- by contrast, focused equally on the humanity of victims. Such extreme atrocities most notably denied and attacked the humanity of individual victims (by denying their human rights, or in Arendt’s iconic phrasing, their “right to have rights”).
    [Show full text]
  • Margaret C. Rung Professor of History Director, History Program and Center for New Deal Studies Roosevelt University
    Margaret C. Rung Professor of History Director, History Program and Center for New Deal Studies Roosevelt University 430 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago, Illinois 60605 (w) 312-341-3724, Rm 834 e-mail: [email protected] Education: Ph.D., The Johns Hopkins University (History) M.A., The Johns Hopkins University (History) B.A., Oberlin College (Phi Beta Kappa) Professional Positions: Professor of History, Roosevelt University Chair, Department of History and Philosophy, 2013-2017 Director of the Center for New Deal Studies, Roosevelt University 2002- Associate Dean, College of Arts & Sciences, Roosevelt University, 2001-2005 Program Coordinator, History, 1999-2000, 2001-2005 Visiting Fulbright Lecturer, University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia, 2000-2001 Assistant Professor of History, Mount Allison University, 1993-1994 Research/Professional Experience: Research & Editorial Assistant, The Dwight David Eisenhower Papers Project, Baltimore, Maryland, 1987-1993 Research Historian, History Associates, Inc., Rockville, Maryland, 1985-1990 *Significant projects: Rung, "Celebrating One Hundred Years: A History of Florida National Bank." Recipient of Golden Image Award, Florida Public Relations Association, April 1988. *Research assistance on: Richard G. Hewlett, Jessie Ball DuPont. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1992; Rodney P. Carlisle, Where the Fleet Begins: A History of the David Taylor Naval Research Center, 1898-1998. Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1998; Dian O.Belanger, Managing American Wildlife: A History of the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 1988. Archival Assistant, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Washington, D.C., 1985 Publications: With Erik Gellman, “The Great Depression” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of American History, ed. Jon Butler. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.
    [Show full text]
  • Final General Management Plan/Environmental Impact Statement, Mary Mcleod Bethune Council House National Historic Site
    Final General Management Plan Environmental Impact Statement Mary McLeod Bethune Council House National Historic Site Washington, D.C. Final General Management Plan / Environmental Impact Statement _____________________________________________________________________________ Mary McLeod Bethune Council House National Historic Site Washington, District of Columbia The National Park Service is preparing a general management plan to clearly define a direction for resource preservation and visitor use at the Mary McLeod Bethune Council House National Historic Site for the next 10 to 15 years. A general management plan takes a long-range view and provides a framework for proactive decision making about visitor use, managing the natural and cultural resources at the site, developing the site, and addressing future opportunities and problems. This is the first NPS comprehensive management plan prepared f or the national historic site. As required, this general management plan presents to the public a range of alternatives for managing the site, including a preferred alternative; the management plan also analyzes and presents the resource and socioeconomic impacts or consequences of implementing each of those alternatives the “Environmental Consequences” section of this document. All alternatives propose new interpretive exhibits. Alternative 1, a “no-action” alternative, presents what would happen under a continuation of current management trends and provides a basis for comparing the other alternatives. Al t e r n a t i v e 2 , the preferred alternative, expands interpretation of the house and the life of Bethune, and the archives. It recommends the purchase and rehabilitation of an adjacent row house to provide space for orientation, restrooms, and offices. Moving visitor orientation to an adjacent building would provide additional visitor services while slightly decreasing the impacts of visitors on the historic structure.
    [Show full text]