Paul Bernstein

Letters to Eleanor: Voices of the Great Depression Paul Bernstein

Letters to Eleanor: Voices of the Great Depression examines how the flood of letters from ordinary Americans to the First Lady established a bond of hope and trust. Through this paper trail, Eleanor Roosevelt was able to help many petitioners find jobs, food, housing, and clothes. To others she offered the encouragement and support many need in the bleak Thirties. Through it all Eleanor Roosevelt exhibited a tradionalist social outlook by her support of homemakers and opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment. But as the New Deal matured, she became an ardent reformer who fought for an anti-lynching law and job opportunity for women in the federal service. Buy beneath her incessant activity to help others there was an inner Eleanor who constantly sought emotional support from female colleagues or her distant correspondents, a support she did not receive form FDR or her family.