LOU HENRY HOOVER
Birth: 29 March 1874
Waterloo, Iowa
Marriage:
24 years old, to Herbert Clark Hoover (born 10 August 1874, West Branch, Iowa, died 26 October 1964, New York, New York) geologist, mining engineer and executive, on 10 February 1899 at the Monterey, California home of her parents.
During her first year at Stanford, Lou Henry was introduced to Herbert Hoover by her professor, J.C. Branner, to his assistant, a senior. They not only shared an Iowa origin but a love of geology and fishing. After graduating, Hoover went to Australia as a gold miner for a British mining company. Beginning with that position, Hoover earned increasingly larger salaries, becoming a millionaire at a young age. It was from Australian that he sent Lou Henry a telegram asking her to marry him, an offer which she accepted. With neither a Quaker nor Episcopalian minister available to perform their marriage, the Hoovers were married in a civil ceremony by Roman Catholic priest, Father Ramon Mestres, of the San Carlos Borromeo Mission. Following her graduation, in the interim, Hoover accepted the offer of the young Chinese Emperor to be Director General of the Department of Mines of the Chinese Government. Later in the day, they took the train to San Francisco. The following day, 11 February 1899, they sailed for China.
24 years old, to Herbert Clark Hoover (born 10 August 1874, West Branch, Iowa, died 26 October 1964, New York, New York) geologist, mining engineer and executive, on 10 February 1899 at the Monterey, California home of her parents.
During her first year at Stanford, Lou Henry was introduced to Herbert Hoover by her professor, J.C. Branner, to his assistant, a senior. They not only shared an Iowa origin but a love of geology and fishing. After graduating, Hoover went to Australia as a gold miner for a British mining company. Beginning with that position, Hoover earned increasingly larger salaries, becoming a millionaire at a young age. It was from Australian that he sent Lou Henry a telegram asking her to marry him, an offer which she accepted. With neither a Quaker nor Episcopalian minister available to perform their marriage, the Hoovers were married in a civil ceremony by Roman Catholic priest, Father Ramon Mestres, of the San Carlos Borromeo Mission. Following her graduation, in the interim, Hoover accepted the offer of the young Chinese Emperor to be Director General of the Department of Mines of the Chinese Government. Later in the day, they took the train to San Francisco. The following day, 11 February 1899, they sailed for China.
Campaign and Inauguration:
Despite her experience as a professional speaker to large audiences who addressed public issues, Lou Hoover assumed no such role in her husband’s 1928 and 1932 presidential campaigns. She joined him in a post-election, pre-inauguration goodwill trip to Honduras, San Salvador, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Chile, Peru, Argentina, Latin America. Immediately preceding the 1929 swearing-in ceremony of her husband as President in the U.S. Capitol Building, Lou Hoover and the outgoing First Lady Grace Coolidge were not escorted and lost their way in the labyrinth of hallways that led to the West Front, where the ceremonies were to take place; their delay inadvertently delayed the ceremony. Following the tradition since the 1913 Inauguration of Woodrow Wilson, there was no Inaugural Ball.
First Lady:
54 years old
4 March 1929 – 4 March 1933
Despite her enormous record of activism, public speaking, fundraising, and professionalism in all that she did, Lou Hoover decided to restrict the degree of her activism once she assumed what she believed to a be a public duty which required a more subdued traditionalism.
Nevertheless, she made one immediate innovation that set a precedent which her successors followed or were criticized for not doing: she continued to deliver speeches not only in auditoriums but to also give public addresses over the radio. Just over a month after becoming First Lady, her brief 19 April 1929 speech to the Daughters of the American Revolution was carried on the radio. Others soon followed: 22 June 1929 to the 4-H Clubs; 23 March 1931 as a representative of the Women’s Division of the President’s Emergency Committee for Employment; 6 May 1931 to the New York Maternity Center Association – along with former First Lady Edith Roosevelt making her first public remarks to be recorded – on the subject of infant and new-mother mortality in America; 7 November 1931, again to the 4-H Clubs; 27 November 1932 on behalf of the National Women’s Committee of the Welfare and Relief Mobilization of 1932, on the topic of “The Woman’s Place in the Present Emergency.” She took her “talkie voice” seriously enough that she had a recording system set up in the White House enabling her to replay her recordings and test the pitch, tone and pacing of her voice. With a great interest in the popular films of her era, Lou Hoover had equipment placed in the oval room of the family quarters to screen sound motion pictures for her guests, the equipment and installation donated by a Hollywood studio. She also used her own silent movie camera in her private life. On another, more tragic aspect of her era’s popular culture, the 1932 kidnapping of aviator Charles Lindbergh’s baby son, Lou Hoover kept in close touch with the child’s mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, a personal friend.
Unfortunately, Lou Hoover’s radio addresses were the extent of her use of the modern media. Following a traditional tact of First Ladies, she refused to grant any formal interviews to print or broadcast journalists during her tenure, though she would answer to impromptu questions that reporters might be able to pose to her. Despite her long life in the public eye, she had a growing mistrust of the media, especially as the Great Depression worsened and she read accounts involving the President which she felt had been distorted and thus failed to serve the public with truth
Under the Woodrow Wilson Administration, FDR was appointed Assistant Navy Secretary (1913-1920). Eleanor Roosevelt fulfilled the social obligations then incumbent upon officials’ spouses, including the making and hosting of social calls among each other on specified days at specified times. She also joined some spouses in accepting the invitation of First Lady Ellen Wilson to tour the so-called alley dwellings of deplorable housing conditions of the capital city’s largely African-American underclass, the intention of which, to demolish the dangerous and unsanitary living spaces, was achieved by a congressional bill. Efforts to relocate the displaced individuals into permanent housing were usurped by US entry into World War I
First Lady:
48 years old
4 March 1933 - 12 April 1945
No presidential wife served as First Lady for a period longer than did Eleanor Roosevelt – twelve years, one month, one week and one day. No First Lady served through two nationally traumatic events such as did Eleanor Roosevelt, presiding at the White House during the Great Depression and World War II. Unique to her tenure was the fact that the President was physically limited by his then-hidden condition of polio. Thus apart from finding a way to integrate her own professional interests and experiences into the public role of First Lady and assume the traditional management of the mansion’s functioning as a political-social arena, Eleanor Roosevelt worked closely with the President and his staff as an unofficial Administration representative and on policy-related issues. Despite this being an outgrowth of her own progressive reform work, it was now conducted within a public realm, making both her, personally, and the Administration, generally, vulnerable to political attack and criticism, the charge being that she was neither elected nor appointed to carry out such tasks as it related to the American people. Generally, Eleanor Roosevelt ignored the frequent criticism to help achieve her goals or those Administration objectives with which she concurred.
Unlike her three immediate predecessors (Florence Harding, Grace Coolidge, Lou Hoover), Eleanor Roosevelt did not enter into the role of First Lady with specific plans to continue previous support for a constituency (Harding and animal rights and WWI veterans, Coolidge and the hearing-impaired, Hoover and the Girl Scouts). All she knew for certain was that she would be active in word and deed, especially in light of the devastation the Great Depression was continuing to have on the lives of millions of Americans.. Her extraordinary history of experience and work in progressive advocacy policy, the media, education, and women’s issues, however, greatly informed her as she found her direction, established her agenda and relied on professional contacts. In terms of her life experiences and her evolving vision as First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt was unprecedented in comparison to others who had or would assume the role.
Despite her experience as a professional speaker to large audiences who addressed public issues, Lou Hoover assumed no such role in her husband’s 1928 and 1932 presidential campaigns. She joined him in a post-election, pre-inauguration goodwill trip to Honduras, San Salvador, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Chile, Peru, Argentina, Latin America. Immediately preceding the 1929 swearing-in ceremony of her husband as President in the U.S. Capitol Building, Lou Hoover and the outgoing First Lady Grace Coolidge were not escorted and lost their way in the labyrinth of hallways that led to the West Front, where the ceremonies were to take place; their delay inadvertently delayed the ceremony. Following the tradition since the 1913 Inauguration of Woodrow Wilson, there was no Inaugural Ball.
First Lady:
54 years old
4 March 1929 – 4 March 1933
Despite her enormous record of activism, public speaking, fundraising, and professionalism in all that she did, Lou Hoover decided to restrict the degree of her activism once she assumed what she believed to a be a public duty which required a more subdued traditionalism.
Nevertheless, she made one immediate innovation that set a precedent which her successors followed or were criticized for not doing: she continued to deliver speeches not only in auditoriums but to also give public addresses over the radio. Just over a month after becoming First Lady, her brief 19 April 1929 speech to the Daughters of the American Revolution was carried on the radio. Others soon followed: 22 June 1929 to the 4-H Clubs; 23 March 1931 as a representative of the Women’s Division of the President’s Emergency Committee for Employment; 6 May 1931 to the New York Maternity Center Association – along with former First Lady Edith Roosevelt making her first public remarks to be recorded – on the subject of infant and new-mother mortality in America; 7 November 1931, again to the 4-H Clubs; 27 November 1932 on behalf of the National Women’s Committee of the Welfare and Relief Mobilization of 1932, on the topic of “The Woman’s Place in the Present Emergency.” She took her “talkie voice” seriously enough that she had a recording system set up in the White House enabling her to replay her recordings and test the pitch, tone and pacing of her voice. With a great interest in the popular films of her era, Lou Hoover had equipment placed in the oval room of the family quarters to screen sound motion pictures for her guests, the equipment and installation donated by a Hollywood studio. She also used her own silent movie camera in her private life. On another, more tragic aspect of her era’s popular culture, the 1932 kidnapping of aviator Charles Lindbergh’s baby son, Lou Hoover kept in close touch with the child’s mother, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, a personal friend.
Unfortunately, Lou Hoover’s radio addresses were the extent of her use of the modern media. Following a traditional tact of First Ladies, she refused to grant any formal interviews to print or broadcast journalists during her tenure, though she would answer to impromptu questions that reporters might be able to pose to her. Despite her long life in the public eye, she had a growing mistrust of the media, especially as the Great Depression worsened and she read accounts involving the President which she felt had been distorted and thus failed to serve the public with truth
ANNA ELEANOR ROOSEVELT ROOSEVELT
Birth: 11 October 1884
New York City, New York
New York City, New York
Marriage and Husband:20 years old on 17 March 1905,
adjoining homes of her maternal aunts, New York City, New York, to
Franklin Delano Roosevelt [“FDR”], 22 years old, Harvard University
undergraduate student (born 30 January 1882, Hyde Park, New York; died
12 April, 1945, Warm Springs, Georgia)
*President Theodore Roosevelt attended his orphaned niece down the aisle during her wedding ceremony, having previously been scheduled to be in New York City to participate in the city’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade
The genealogical relationship between Eleanor Roosevelt and FDR is fifth cousin, once removed. They share a mutual ancestor in Claes Martenszen van Rosenvelt (the translation of which means son of Marten of the rose field), who immigrated to America from Holland to the then-named New Amsterdam colony [New York] in approximately 1649. His son Nicholas Roosevelt (1658-1742) is the last common ancestor of FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt. FDR’s great-great-great grandfather (Jacobus Roosevelt, son of Nicholas) and Eleanor Roosevelt’s great-great-great-great grandfather (Johannes Roosevelt, son of Nicholas) were brothers.
*President Theodore Roosevelt attended his orphaned niece down the aisle during her wedding ceremony, having previously been scheduled to be in New York City to participate in the city’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade
The genealogical relationship between Eleanor Roosevelt and FDR is fifth cousin, once removed. They share a mutual ancestor in Claes Martenszen van Rosenvelt (the translation of which means son of Marten of the rose field), who immigrated to America from Holland to the then-named New Amsterdam colony [New York] in approximately 1649. His son Nicholas Roosevelt (1658-1742) is the last common ancestor of FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt. FDR’s great-great-great grandfather (Jacobus Roosevelt, son of Nicholas) and Eleanor Roosevelt’s great-great-great-great grandfather (Johannes Roosevelt, son of Nicholas) were brothers.
Under the Woodrow Wilson Administration, FDR was appointed Assistant Navy Secretary (1913-1920). Eleanor Roosevelt fulfilled the social obligations then incumbent upon officials’ spouses, including the making and hosting of social calls among each other on specified days at specified times. She also joined some spouses in accepting the invitation of First Lady Ellen Wilson to tour the so-called alley dwellings of deplorable housing conditions of the capital city’s largely African-American underclass, the intention of which, to demolish the dangerous and unsanitary living spaces, was achieved by a congressional bill. Efforts to relocate the displaced individuals into permanent housing were usurped by US entry into World War I
Presidential Campaign and Inauguration:
Having known personally the constrictions placed on her aunt Edith Roosevelt, when she became First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt had a tremendous ambivalence throughout the course of FDR’s first presidential campaign. She believed he was the ideal leader to guide the nation through the Great Depression, but feared the loss of her own independent life. Nevertheless, in 1931, in anticipation of the campaign, she organized the women’s division of “Friends For Roosevelt,” the exploratory committee that would launch his candidacy, and also wrote and edited much of the literature about him. As far as public campaigning, however, Eleanor Roosevelt was more visible on behalf of Herbert Lehman, the Democrat hoping to succeed her husband as New York Governor. She continued her role as intermediary between Farley and Howe, and reviewed the publicity of the National Democratic Committee’s Women’s Division, which were printed on colored-paper "rainbow fliers" – which were intended to appeal to women’s femininity. She attended the 1932 convention which nominated FDR, and also become the fourth woman in history to successfully vote for her husband’s election as president.
Having known personally the constrictions placed on her aunt Edith Roosevelt, when she became First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt had a tremendous ambivalence throughout the course of FDR’s first presidential campaign. She believed he was the ideal leader to guide the nation through the Great Depression, but feared the loss of her own independent life. Nevertheless, in 1931, in anticipation of the campaign, she organized the women’s division of “Friends For Roosevelt,” the exploratory committee that would launch his candidacy, and also wrote and edited much of the literature about him. As far as public campaigning, however, Eleanor Roosevelt was more visible on behalf of Herbert Lehman, the Democrat hoping to succeed her husband as New York Governor. She continued her role as intermediary between Farley and Howe, and reviewed the publicity of the National Democratic Committee’s Women’s Division, which were printed on colored-paper "rainbow fliers" – which were intended to appeal to women’s femininity. She attended the 1932 convention which nominated FDR, and also become the fourth woman in history to successfully vote for her husband’s election as president.
48 years old
4 March 1933 - 12 April 1945
No presidential wife served as First Lady for a period longer than did Eleanor Roosevelt – twelve years, one month, one week and one day. No First Lady served through two nationally traumatic events such as did Eleanor Roosevelt, presiding at the White House during the Great Depression and World War II. Unique to her tenure was the fact that the President was physically limited by his then-hidden condition of polio. Thus apart from finding a way to integrate her own professional interests and experiences into the public role of First Lady and assume the traditional management of the mansion’s functioning as a political-social arena, Eleanor Roosevelt worked closely with the President and his staff as an unofficial Administration representative and on policy-related issues. Despite this being an outgrowth of her own progressive reform work, it was now conducted within a public realm, making both her, personally, and the Administration, generally, vulnerable to political attack and criticism, the charge being that she was neither elected nor appointed to carry out such tasks as it related to the American people. Generally, Eleanor Roosevelt ignored the frequent criticism to help achieve her goals or those Administration objectives with which she concurred.
Unlike her three immediate predecessors (Florence Harding, Grace Coolidge, Lou Hoover), Eleanor Roosevelt did not enter into the role of First Lady with specific plans to continue previous support for a constituency (Harding and animal rights and WWI veterans, Coolidge and the hearing-impaired, Hoover and the Girl Scouts). All she knew for certain was that she would be active in word and deed, especially in light of the devastation the Great Depression was continuing to have on the lives of millions of Americans.. Her extraordinary history of experience and work in progressive advocacy policy, the media, education, and women’s issues, however, greatly informed her as she found her direction, established her agenda and relied on professional contacts. In terms of her life experiences and her evolving vision as First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt was unprecedented in comparison to others who had or would assume the role.
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