The Eleanor Roosevelt Program Radio Conference, June 2013 Anya Luscombe PhD

Outline Background Eleanor Roosevelt and Media The Eleanor Roosevelt Program (Radio) Themes

Eleanor Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt Franklin Roosevelt  First Lady After WWI: Delegate to United Nations Activist: racial equality, children’s rights, women’s rights, world peace

Media Women-only press conferences Pioneered use of mass media: columns, radio, TV, books Radio Started 1932 ”focus on traditional women’s issues relating to domesticity” (Loviglio 2005, p30) Pan-American Coffee Hour: more politics : program with Anna

Radio Program Radio in the 1950s NBC Radio: October August 1951 (233 programs) Roosevelt Study Center Middelburg/FDR Library > 20, 40, 60, 80, 100, 120, 140, 160, 180, 200, 220 >1, 2, 3, 8, 42, 69, 81, 122, 134, 144, 168, 208, 233

Format Hosted with Elliott Q&A Guests, e.g. John Steinbeck, Bob Hope, Tallulah Bankhead, Lester Markel, Neil Lang & Bob Neil Range of societal and political issues Women in business Hotel management

Audience - women Audience Fred Allen, producer: “You are a woman and much better at telling women.” Eleanor Roosevelt: “Women love to be told by men and they like men to feel they’ve had the chance and then work it round.” Sponsor and listener

Audience cont. August 1951 (program 233) Public affairs Foreign accents

References Programs: The Eleanor Roosevelt Program, NBC Radio Program number 1, 2, 3, 8, 20, 40, 42, 60, 69, 80, 81, 100, 122, 134, 144, 168, 208, 233 Beasley, M. (1987). Eleanor Roosevelt and the Media. A Public Quest for Self-Fulfillment. Urbana, Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Black, A. (1996). Casting Her Own Shadow. New York, Chichester: Columbia University Press. C-Span (2003). Eleanor Roosevelt and the Media, August 26, Kearney, J. (1968). Anna Eleanor Roosevelt. The evolution of a reformer. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. Loviglio, J. (2005). Radio's Intimate Public. Network Broadcasting and Mass-Mediated Democracy. Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press. Roosevelt, Eleanor (1958). On My Own. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers. Roosevelt, Elliot., & Brough, J. (1977). Mother R. Eleanor Roosevelt's Untold Story. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons. Rotherbuhler, E. & McCourt, T. (2002). Radio Redefines Itself, In Hilmes, M. & Loviglio J. (eds) Radio Reader. Essays in the Cultural History of Radio. New York, London: Routledge. pp Wamboldt, H. J. (1952). A Descriptive and Analytical Study of the Speaking Career of Anna Eleanor Roosevelt. University of Southern California. Wang, J.H. (2002). “The case of the Radio-Active Housewife” Relocating Radio in the Age of Television. In Hilmes, M. & Loviglio J. (eds) Radio Reader. Essays in the Cultural History of Radio. New York, London: Routledge. pp Photos: