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. At this time came a dramatic restructuring younger brother of President Theodore Roosevelt, died of her family life in both her relationships with her when Eleanor was ten. husband, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and emancipation In her Autobiography, Eleanor Roosevelt describes from the tyranny of her mother-in-law, Sara Delano her birth as "a gift from heaven"5 to Elliott. Eleanor Roosevelt. remembered her father as: Omission of Mrs. Roosevelt's later interests, The one great love of my life as a child ... and like particularly her work with the NAACP, her friendships many children, I have lived a dream life with him, . with Mrs. Mary McCleod Bethune and Walter White, . He was the center of my word. 6 are omitted. Each interest is worthy of a separate book, In Hunting Big Game in the Eighties, a memoir of as she was to be.come in the words of the journalist, her father written as an adult, Mrs. Roosevelt never Raymond Clapper, ''the most influential woman in the revealed intimate family details about his battle with world." This is a profile ofa woman who "did not want alcoholism. Family life was private, there is no mention to be a name on a letterhead, an ornamental woman, of Lucy Mercer in her writings. without a job of her own to do. She wanted to be fully As Joe Lash was Eleanor's closest confidante, his involved with work, with people."1 advice was that the story of her life should begin with Mrs. Roosevelt's official biographer, Blanche Elliott Roosevelt. It was her father who acquainted Weisen Cook with the assistance of the Roosevelt Eleanor, his "Little Nell" with grief. It is revealing that Foundation at Hyde Park, has already completed two she signed her courtship letters to Franklin, "Little volumes tracing her life from birth (1884) to 1933. For Nell." convenience, this distinguished historiographer, Elliott Roosevelt was born the third son of Theodore referred to her subject by the initials, "E.R" Having Roosevelt, Sr., the father of a president, and Martha lived much of the same life span as Mrs. Roosevelt, this Bullock, who had antebellum roots in Savannah, writer never heard a more casual reference than "My Georgia. Elliott was born, the youngest of four wife, Eleanor." And I agree with Jacques Barzun that children, at Oyster Bay, New York, in 1866. He was to refer to mere initials to save space is humiliating to called "Ellie" or "Nell." the subject and degrading to the reader. Eleanor adored her father, but in actuality she never Little Nell: Childhood and Adolescence knew when this handsome, volatile sportsman would Despite her privileged position in society, Eleanor abandon her, emotionally or even literally, forgetting Roosevelt's childhood has been described as a time of "Little Nell" in an alcoholic stupor. At age six Cook 183 YOUNKER: THE TRANSFORMATION OF ELEANOR ROOSEVELT records, "Nell" stood outside the Knickerbocker Club painted by Mr. Peter Marie, a noted artist taken by her holding several of his dogs on their leashes. "Finally beauty, while Robert Browning read aloud to this when an unconscious Elliott was carried out, a kind imposing lady. doorman escorted her home."8 Yet when Anna's firstborn, Eleanor, was delivered Yet it was Elliott, her father, who gave his daughter on Saturday, October 11, 1883, the mother depressed ideals that she tried to live up to all her life by by a difficult confinement, expressed disappointment presenting her with a picture of what he wanted her to that she was not a boy. Partially due to the death threat become--noble, brave, studious, religious, loving and that her advent into the world had represented to her good. Eleanor reminisced to Joe Lash; "He lives in my mother, Eleanor "in a sense came into the world guilty dreams.''9 and had to reinstate herself."13 On January 20, 1893, Elliott wrote to Little Nell In a recent publication, The Roosevelt Women, promising that again there would be days on sleds Betty Boyd Caroli records: "One of Eleanor's repeated ''through the great snow clad forests over the white indictments of her inordinately beautiful mother, hills under the blue skies."10 Even in his last delirious concerns the embarrassment she expressed at having an breakdown, Elliott wrote regularly to his daughter unattractive daughter. To ridicule the girl, she called urging her to grow in love and discipline, which her Granny."14 became Mrs. Roosevelt's primary principles throughout Eleanor's own later portrayal of her childhood life. reveals it being full of fears--of the dark, of dogs, of Eleanor, she never called herself Anna Eleanor, swimming and water, of horses, of snakes, and other except in official documents and signing checks, was children. These fears were overcome later, but the born into the world of Mrs. Astor's 400, a solidified solemnity she showed even at age two hindered her social stratum. Matters involving politics were not of development as an adult. Eleanor herself recalls, "I was concern to gentle ladies. Godey 's Ladies Book, the a shy, solemn child."15 Merriment, small talk, peaceful widely read arbiter of feminine taste, made it a policy to uncluttered times, and just enjoying the presence of avoid references to political activity and agitating others were not attributes she acquired. This may have influences. 11 prevented the full realization of her marriage. Indeed, Anna Hall, Eleanor's mother, an unregenerate when Franklin was dying in 1945, Eleanor never elitist, was ranked as a stunning beauty possessing perceived his eminent death and continued to press unmistakable bearing. The proud set of her head on projects on his attention. One might say that Eleanor straight shoulders was the distinctive look of the Hall was holy, in the true religious sense of the term, doing women. She was descended from the Livingston family. good for others without requiring a reward, but lighter One Livingston ancestor, Phillip Livingston, signed the moments are required for a balanced personality. This Declaration of Independence. Anna Hall's formal author believes that Eleanor demanded too much of education was sketchy except for a stern Puritanical herself and others. Eleanor, herself, felt that she had religious training, instilled by her father, who was not developed ajoie de vivre. preoccupied with theology, training in manners, and For years Anna Hall Roosevelt resolutely covered up speaking French from birth. The 400 decreed that a her husband's progressive deterioration, as he sank girl's debut was more important than her education, in deeper into depression and alcoholism, with an air of this circle to which one "did" or "did not" belong. Her threadbare gaiety. Their home, Tivoli, was on a tract of husband, a life-partner, was to be chosen during this land granted to the Livingston family in 1686. The social season. Elliott Roosevelt, on his return from birth ofa first born son, Elliott Jr., in the autumn of hunting game in India, became engaged to Anna Hall 1899, deepened Elliott Sr.'s premonition "something on August 8, 1883. dreadful was awaiting us."16 The New York Times on December 2, 1885 featured This feeling augmented drastically as his alcoholic the Roosevelt-Hall wedding on page three, calling it and drug dependent behavior became irascible and "one of the most brilliant weddings of the season." For cruel. His brother Theodore called this behavior "little her part, Anna had but a small inheritance entering the less than criminal."17 On August 18, 1891, The New impending marriage with doubt for she was concerned York Herald announced, "Elliott Roosevelt Demented with his morose and erratic moods. 12 by Excesses: Commissioners in Lunacy Appointed."18 On her honeymoon trip to Europe, Anna was The family's break up had come soon after the birth of 184 JOURNAL OF PHIWSOPHY AND HISTORY OF EDUCATION a second son, Hall called "Brodie." In June 1891, countryside, a short distance from London. Bilingual Theodore Roosevelt established a separate trust for since birth because her first nurse was French,22 Anna and her three children.

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