New Deal Assignment: Eleanor Roosevelt's First Lady

Brittanie Kirchoff

October 3, 2017

HIST 113

New Deal Assignment

Eleanor Roosevelt was an outstanding First Lady, she was the longest lasting First Lady in office and helped define and shape the role of the First Lady’s duties in office. She played many roles as the First Lady, she made public appearances with her husband Franklin D. Roosevelt, she was a leading activist in women rights and civil rights, she held many press conferences, wrote a column daily in the newspaper, and hosted radio shows at least once a week. Though her and her husband’s time in office may have been difficult, Eleanor proudly supported New Deal programs and helped create many government programs such as the National Youth Administration and the Works progress Administration

Roosevelt, as many as 300,000 pieces of mail were received by her within the first year her husband was in office. In the 1930’s when the Depression hit hard and Franklin D. Roosevelt took office, children and young adults were faced with the reality and were very aware of what was going on around them. Children knew that their parents could not afford to pay bills, buy food, clothes, bicycles or luxury items such as Christmas presents, many children and families were left starving and homeless due to the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. Children from the Great Plains to the Appalachian Mountains wrote letters asking Mrs. Roosevelt for money, bicycles, clothes, and luxury items. A thirteen year old girl wrote this in a letter, that she just wanted some used dresses that she could wear to school because she did not have any clothes to go to school in. (L.H., Gravatte AR) Many children were forced to leave school to work or simply because they could not afford to go to school or because they did not have the appropriate clothing to wear to school, leaving many children of the time period uneducated. This girl could not pay for simple necessities such as going to the doctor to get better. From this letter children clearly had an idea of how hard times were, many were just asking for items or money to get by on. Many adults were obviously too proud to ask the government for any assistance to help their families and

The New Deal provided much needed relief for many families across the nation. Eleanor Roosevelt did her best to help children throughout the entire country though she never actually replied to all of the letters that were sent to her from children she did help by creating such programs as the National Youth Administration (NYA) giving kids that were in high school and college, money and grants in return for work in the school or on farms, this also help provide job skills for in the future. Eleanor also created the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which helped provide nursey schools for working mothers, nutrition programs in school, created stores that provided clothing, food, toys, etc. to families that deserved it and recreational and educational programs for disadvantaged children. Together both President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt helped create a better nation in the time of need for many children and adults and for some future generations to