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Eleanor and Franklin
The trials and triumphs of Eleanor Roosevelt's life as wife and mother are carefully drawn in this sympathetic portrait
1020 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1971
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4528 people want to read
About the author
Joseph P. Lash
50 books13 followersJoseph Paul Lash (1909–1987) was secretary and confidant to Eleanor Roosevelt and the author of numerous acclaimed books.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 88 reviews
March 23, 2025
A first rate biography of Eleanor Roosevelt and to a lesser degree of her relationship with FDR. This book swept all the major history/biography awards in 1971.
The book begins with Eleanor’s birth and ends with FDR’s death in 1945. Lash later wrote a follow up book about Eleanor’s single years from 1945 to her death in 1962.
Lash was commissioned by Eleanor’s son to write this biography a few years after her death. He was also a close friend of hers and was given access to her prodigious number of letters and FDR’s letters.
There is a tinge of hero worship to be found between the pages but the level of research that went into this book, the amount of quotations and Lash’s fluid writing style are all top notch.
Here are some facts and insights that I learned in this book and I had already read some previous books about the Roosevelts.
1. At the age of four she was involved in the tragic sinking of an ocean liner. Her family survived.
2. Both of Eleanor’s parents died before she was ten years old. Her mother Anna died of diptheria and her father Elliott (Teddy’s brother) suffering from the effect of DTs and alcoholism died after jumping out a window.
3. She received a larger inheritance from her father than FDR did from his father. Both fathers had passed away at young ages and came from wealthy families.
4. Eleanor attended high school at a prestigious boarding school in England. She received the highest marks, boosted because of her tremendous discipline. All of her classes were in foreign languages and one in English lit! No STEM clases for her. She regretted later in life that she got married at such a young age and never attended college — which sadly was the norm for many highly intelligent women at the turn of the century.
4. She spent a great deal of time campaigning for FDR since he had contracted polio in 1921. He relied heavily on his confidante Louis Howe and Eleanor.
5. She had communist sympathies. Many of her friends were members, even while she occupied the White House,
7. Neither she nor Franklin got along especially well with her Uncle Teddy Roosevelt’s relatives, i.e. the Oyster Bay clan .
8. She was the architect of a planned community in West Virginia called Arthurdale. It was only successful because she was so heavily involved.
9. She knew of FDR’s romantic affairs early on and told friends she no longer loved him.
I’ve had the great honor of visiting Eleanor’s home , Valkill, near Hyde Park and the Roosevelt’s home on Campobello Island in New Brunswick. Both homes (not mansions per se) are situated on beautiful estates: Campobello along the Bay of Fundy and Valkill a few miles from the Hudson River in a vast forested landscape.
5 stars. Highly recommended. IMHO it is better than Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book on Eleanor and Franklin. The great biographer Robert Caro is said to have been a huge fan of Lash’s research style as well.
The book begins with Eleanor’s birth and ends with FDR’s death in 1945. Lash later wrote a follow up book about Eleanor’s single years from 1945 to her death in 1962.
Lash was commissioned by Eleanor’s son to write this biography a few years after her death. He was also a close friend of hers and was given access to her prodigious number of letters and FDR’s letters.
There is a tinge of hero worship to be found between the pages but the level of research that went into this book, the amount of quotations and Lash’s fluid writing style are all top notch.
Here are some facts and insights that I learned in this book and I had already read some previous books about the Roosevelts.
1. At the age of four she was involved in the tragic sinking of an ocean liner. Her family survived.
2. Both of Eleanor’s parents died before she was ten years old. Her mother Anna died of diptheria and her father Elliott (Teddy’s brother) suffering from the effect of DTs and alcoholism died after jumping out a window.
3. She received a larger inheritance from her father than FDR did from his father. Both fathers had passed away at young ages and came from wealthy families.
4. Eleanor attended high school at a prestigious boarding school in England. She received the highest marks, boosted because of her tremendous discipline. All of her classes were in foreign languages and one in English lit! No STEM clases for her. She regretted later in life that she got married at such a young age and never attended college — which sadly was the norm for many highly intelligent women at the turn of the century.
4. She spent a great deal of time campaigning for FDR since he had contracted polio in 1921. He relied heavily on his confidante Louis Howe and Eleanor.
5. She had communist sympathies. Many of her friends were members, even while she occupied the White House,
7. Neither she nor Franklin got along especially well with her Uncle Teddy Roosevelt’s relatives, i.e. the Oyster Bay clan .
8. She was the architect of a planned community in West Virginia called Arthurdale. It was only successful because she was so heavily involved.
9. She knew of FDR’s romantic affairs early on and told friends she no longer loved him.
I’ve had the great honor of visiting Eleanor’s home , Valkill, near Hyde Park and the Roosevelt’s home on Campobello Island in New Brunswick. Both homes (not mansions per se) are situated on beautiful estates: Campobello along the Bay of Fundy and Valkill a few miles from the Hudson River in a vast forested landscape.
5 stars. Highly recommended. IMHO it is better than Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book on Eleanor and Franklin. The great biographer Robert Caro is said to have been a huge fan of Lash’s research style as well.
September 7, 2021
Page 654 (my book) in 1942
An American Legion commander… suggested she [Eleanor] make her contribution to the war effort by “keeping quiet for the duration”. Asked at her press conference if she had any such plans, she shook her head and said simply, “None along that line”.
Although the title of the book is “Eleanor and Franklin” this is mostly about Eleanor. The author met Eleanor in the early 1940s when he was active in several youth movements (Eleanor with her wide-ranging interests was always intrigued by the ideas of young people).
We follow Eleanor from her troubled upbringing with her very dysfunctional parents. Her mother more or less rejected her and seemed to find her a nuisance more than anything. She adored her father who kept promising lavish outings and gifts, but these hardly ever amounted to very much. He was all empty talk and little action. Also, he was an incorrigible drunkard who had to be institutionalized by his family on a few occasions. He died when Eleanor was only ten years old, her mother had died two years prior.
The author explores these early parental relationships in some detail and the effect it had on Eleanor and her future relationships, more so with Franklin where she expected an ideal that could never be met.
Eleanor started to establish self-confidence and independence when she went to a boarding school in England that was under the tutelage of Marie Souvestre. It was here that Eleanor started to shine – and importantly Marie Souvestre gave Eleanor an interest in the wider world. This was the beginning of her passion for helping and aiding the dispossessed.
This book is a very detailed examination of Eleanor’s life and her constant growth. She started off with the normal prejudices of her class, but over the years formed strong and endurable relationships with many different types of people, who she would never have associated with in her early years, more so with Black people.
Page 219 at the end of World War I
She would never again be content with purely private satisfactions, and for the rest of her life she would look at the injustice of the world, feel pity for the human condition, and ask what she could do about it.
We come to know the individuals who influenced Eleanor – like Louis Howe who guided and encouraged her political activism. Franklin built her a home and property on the grounds of Hyde Park called Val-Kill. It was there that she was able to meet a wide array of people to exchange ideas about the progressive legislation of the New Deal years.
Page 461 Ruth Finney
“No other President has had a trusted emissary going about the land talking to poor people, finding out what is good for them and what is bad about their conditions, what is wrong and what is right about the treatment they receive.”
During her life many of Eleanor’s personal dreams were upended – like her father’s empty promises, Franklin’s affair with Lucy Mercer during World War I, and then Franklin’s life utterly changed by his polio affliction. She struggled through all of these and made her life a tremendous success story. She was a First Lady like none other – before or since . She was combative – always trying to push progressive ideas. She would respond to individual pleas for help – badgering and prompting Franklin and those in government to do something. She had an immense network of allies to do this.
Page 454
She wanted people to feel that their government cared about them, people had a right to tell her about themselves and to ask for help.
She became the inspector for Franklin, who due to his polio had limited access. She visited factories, hospitals, and schools and reported back to him on the conditions she found. As the author states she became an ombudsman (or ombudswoman!). Citizens felt free to report to her on any conditions. Her concept of justice permeated all conversations. She saw the role of government as helping people – more so the under-privileged. And she could be outspoken.
Page 685 1944 - Admiral Halsey on Eleanor’s visit to a hospital in New Caledonia in the Pacific (Halsey initially detested Eleanor)
When I say that she inspected those hospitals, I don’t mean that she shook hands with the chief medical officer, glanced into a sun parlor, and left. I mean that she went into every ward, stopped at every bed, and spoke to every patient: What was his name? How did he feel? Was there anything he needed? Could she take a message home for him? I marveled at her hardihood, both physical and mental, she walked for miles, and saw patients who were grievously and gruesomely wounded. But I marveled most at their expressions as she leaned over them. It was a sight I will never forget.
The author is a little harsh on Sara – her mother-in-law. He sees her as controlling and rigid. But she was the one who often looked after the numerous children of Franklin and Eleanor when they were involved in government affairs and travelling the country. Also, the children often felt neglected with their mother giving more time to outsiders than her family. There is not much on Lorena Hickok who was a good friend of Eleanor. The book ends with the death of Franklin in April/1945.
This is an epic work on one of the most influential and forthright women of the 20th century.
An American Legion commander… suggested she [Eleanor] make her contribution to the war effort by “keeping quiet for the duration”. Asked at her press conference if she had any such plans, she shook her head and said simply, “None along that line”.
Although the title of the book is “Eleanor and Franklin” this is mostly about Eleanor. The author met Eleanor in the early 1940s when he was active in several youth movements (Eleanor with her wide-ranging interests was always intrigued by the ideas of young people).
We follow Eleanor from her troubled upbringing with her very dysfunctional parents. Her mother more or less rejected her and seemed to find her a nuisance more than anything. She adored her father who kept promising lavish outings and gifts, but these hardly ever amounted to very much. He was all empty talk and little action. Also, he was an incorrigible drunkard who had to be institutionalized by his family on a few occasions. He died when Eleanor was only ten years old, her mother had died two years prior.
The author explores these early parental relationships in some detail and the effect it had on Eleanor and her future relationships, more so with Franklin where she expected an ideal that could never be met.
Eleanor started to establish self-confidence and independence when she went to a boarding school in England that was under the tutelage of Marie Souvestre. It was here that Eleanor started to shine – and importantly Marie Souvestre gave Eleanor an interest in the wider world. This was the beginning of her passion for helping and aiding the dispossessed.
This book is a very detailed examination of Eleanor’s life and her constant growth. She started off with the normal prejudices of her class, but over the years formed strong and endurable relationships with many different types of people, who she would never have associated with in her early years, more so with Black people.
Page 219 at the end of World War I
She would never again be content with purely private satisfactions, and for the rest of her life she would look at the injustice of the world, feel pity for the human condition, and ask what she could do about it.
We come to know the individuals who influenced Eleanor – like Louis Howe who guided and encouraged her political activism. Franklin built her a home and property on the grounds of Hyde Park called Val-Kill. It was there that she was able to meet a wide array of people to exchange ideas about the progressive legislation of the New Deal years.
Page 461 Ruth Finney
“No other President has had a trusted emissary going about the land talking to poor people, finding out what is good for them and what is bad about their conditions, what is wrong and what is right about the treatment they receive.”
During her life many of Eleanor’s personal dreams were upended – like her father’s empty promises, Franklin’s affair with Lucy Mercer during World War I, and then Franklin’s life utterly changed by his polio affliction. She struggled through all of these and made her life a tremendous success story. She was a First Lady like none other – before or since . She was combative – always trying to push progressive ideas. She would respond to individual pleas for help – badgering and prompting Franklin and those in government to do something. She had an immense network of allies to do this.
Page 454
She wanted people to feel that their government cared about them, people had a right to tell her about themselves and to ask for help.
She became the inspector for Franklin, who due to his polio had limited access. She visited factories, hospitals, and schools and reported back to him on the conditions she found. As the author states she became an ombudsman (or ombudswoman!). Citizens felt free to report to her on any conditions. Her concept of justice permeated all conversations. She saw the role of government as helping people – more so the under-privileged. And she could be outspoken.
Page 685 1944 - Admiral Halsey on Eleanor’s visit to a hospital in New Caledonia in the Pacific (Halsey initially detested Eleanor)
When I say that she inspected those hospitals, I don’t mean that she shook hands with the chief medical officer, glanced into a sun parlor, and left. I mean that she went into every ward, stopped at every bed, and spoke to every patient: What was his name? How did he feel? Was there anything he needed? Could she take a message home for him? I marveled at her hardihood, both physical and mental, she walked for miles, and saw patients who were grievously and gruesomely wounded. But I marveled most at their expressions as she leaned over them. It was a sight I will never forget.
The author is a little harsh on Sara – her mother-in-law. He sees her as controlling and rigid. But she was the one who often looked after the numerous children of Franklin and Eleanor when they were involved in government affairs and travelling the country. Also, the children often felt neglected with their mother giving more time to outsiders than her family. There is not much on Lorena Hickok who was a good friend of Eleanor. The book ends with the death of Franklin in April/1945.
This is an epic work on one of the most influential and forthright women of the 20th century.
March 13, 2019
Eleanor and Franklin chronicles the evolution of Eleanor Roosevelt from an insecure girl and young woman into a woman who would impact the lives of many, many people. When visiting US installations during WWII, more than once she heard soldiers cry out "Hey, there's Eleanor!" She radiated warmth and compassion with a down-to-earth style that made people feel like she belonged to them in some way. In many ways she did belong to them. She lived her life in service of others because she truly cared about the condition of human beings and wanted to make their lives better.
Very few people if any will argue that Eleanor Roosevelt was a remarkable person. However, it is easy to think that remarkable people are born that way. That plucked down in history at any time, they would have lived a similar life of accomplishment. This might be true, but I think often the difficulties in life are what bring out the best qualities in people. Mr. Lash takes the time to show us the circumstances in Eleanor's life that shaped and formed her into the remarkable woman she was.
Lash takes considerable time explaining the dynamics of Eleanor's childhood. Her father Elliot was the brother of president Theodore Roosevelt. Her mother Anne Hall was decended from the prestigious Ludlow and Livingston families. They were the darlings of society when Society was small and intimate. Anne along with her sisters were celebrated beauties and Elliot had a vibrant and out-going personality. Eleanor, a serious child, was not a beauty and was made aware of this by her mother and her aunts. She worshipped her father who was fun-loving and the light of her life. But her childhood was short-lived. Her father was an alcoholic and unstable emotionally. It eventually became necessary for Anne to leave him and take Eleanor and her brother Hall. As difficult as this was, it was compounded when both of her parents died leaving Eleanor and Hall in the custody of Anne's mother. Here she grew up in the shadow of aunts and uncles who had their own problems.
When Eleanor married Franklin, she was an insecure young woman eager to please. Although Franklin loved Eleanor, she always longed for a depth of intimacy that he was unable to meet. Her mother-in-law Sara Delano Roosevelt was very domineering, and although she was always very nice to Eleanor, she was determined to have her way and direct the course of her only son's life if at all possible. She would be a constant presence in their lives, always in the background criticizing and trying to direct until the day she died. Eleanor gradually broke free of this, but it wasn't until they were in the White House that she really started blossoming.
Eleanor and Franklin covers Eleanor's childhood, her life as a young wife and mother, her role as Franklin emerged as a leader in politics, and their life together at the White House. Lash uses Eleanor's correspondence and published writings to show how she dealt with becoming a public personality, raising her children with her mother-in-law constantly in the background, Franklin's infidelity, and finally the difficult years in the White House where she made the "office" of First Lady something it had never been before.
She was criticized as much as she was loved. She often felt that it was her duty to tell Franklin things that others around him would not say, in a way to be his conscience. Many thought she was butting in where she didn't belong. By the time Franklin was president, they no longer had the traditional marriage. She said to intimate friends that she was no longer in love with him, but she served him in love. It was a role that many women couldn't have tolerated. There were other women in his life that gave him space to relax and laugh. Eleanor couldn't give him that, but she gave what she could, a view to the world that he didn't have. She was an advocate for women, African-Americans, youth, soldiers, anyone who asked. There were times when she was taken advantage of. She knew this, but had to help if she could.
The book is dense. It is filled with details but is very readable. Expect to give it some time. It is a must read if you want to understand Eleanor Roosevelt, but also gives you a different perspective of FDR's presidency. Eleanor and Franklin ends with Franklin's death in the spring of 1945. Mr. Lash has written a sequel Eleanor: The Years Alone. I haven't read it yet, but you can be sure I will.
Very few people if any will argue that Eleanor Roosevelt was a remarkable person. However, it is easy to think that remarkable people are born that way. That plucked down in history at any time, they would have lived a similar life of accomplishment. This might be true, but I think often the difficulties in life are what bring out the best qualities in people. Mr. Lash takes the time to show us the circumstances in Eleanor's life that shaped and formed her into the remarkable woman she was.
Lash takes considerable time explaining the dynamics of Eleanor's childhood. Her father Elliot was the brother of president Theodore Roosevelt. Her mother Anne Hall was decended from the prestigious Ludlow and Livingston families. They were the darlings of society when Society was small and intimate. Anne along with her sisters were celebrated beauties and Elliot had a vibrant and out-going personality. Eleanor, a serious child, was not a beauty and was made aware of this by her mother and her aunts. She worshipped her father who was fun-loving and the light of her life. But her childhood was short-lived. Her father was an alcoholic and unstable emotionally. It eventually became necessary for Anne to leave him and take Eleanor and her brother Hall. As difficult as this was, it was compounded when both of her parents died leaving Eleanor and Hall in the custody of Anne's mother. Here she grew up in the shadow of aunts and uncles who had their own problems.
When Eleanor married Franklin, she was an insecure young woman eager to please. Although Franklin loved Eleanor, she always longed for a depth of intimacy that he was unable to meet. Her mother-in-law Sara Delano Roosevelt was very domineering, and although she was always very nice to Eleanor, she was determined to have her way and direct the course of her only son's life if at all possible. She would be a constant presence in their lives, always in the background criticizing and trying to direct until the day she died. Eleanor gradually broke free of this, but it wasn't until they were in the White House that she really started blossoming.
Eleanor and Franklin covers Eleanor's childhood, her life as a young wife and mother, her role as Franklin emerged as a leader in politics, and their life together at the White House. Lash uses Eleanor's correspondence and published writings to show how she dealt with becoming a public personality, raising her children with her mother-in-law constantly in the background, Franklin's infidelity, and finally the difficult years in the White House where she made the "office" of First Lady something it had never been before.
She was criticized as much as she was loved. She often felt that it was her duty to tell Franklin things that others around him would not say, in a way to be his conscience. Many thought she was butting in where she didn't belong. By the time Franklin was president, they no longer had the traditional marriage. She said to intimate friends that she was no longer in love with him, but she served him in love. It was a role that many women couldn't have tolerated. There were other women in his life that gave him space to relax and laugh. Eleanor couldn't give him that, but she gave what she could, a view to the world that he didn't have. She was an advocate for women, African-Americans, youth, soldiers, anyone who asked. There were times when she was taken advantage of. She knew this, but had to help if she could.
The book is dense. It is filled with details but is very readable. Expect to give it some time. It is a must read if you want to understand Eleanor Roosevelt, but also gives you a different perspective of FDR's presidency. Eleanor and Franklin ends with Franklin's death in the spring of 1945. Mr. Lash has written a sequel Eleanor: The Years Alone. I haven't read it yet, but you can be sure I will.
February 21, 2021
1,020 pages of meticulous research.
October 15, 2015
I've been on a Roosevelt family kick, since watching the PBS series about the Roosevelts last month. The accompanying book was a good overview, but just got me interested in learning more details about Eleanor. This book more than quenched my desire: a bit too long - I wanted details, I got details! - but a very thorough accounting of Eleanor's years before and during her marriage to FDR. I was exhausted just reading about her many, many activities, and while it seemed like she had a very full life on her own, she was also the "eyes and ears" of her disabled husband. I don't think I've ever read about a more selfless person...it seems that just about anything she ever did was to help someone else, or to help groups of people - blacks, women, children, soldiers, the jobless and homeless...the list goes on and on. She eventually became aware of her power - although she attributed it all to Franklin - but the good she did in her life was unprecedented, and completely changed the role of First Lady in the U.S. Highly recommended.
August 21, 2016
https://bestpresidentialbios.com/2016...
“Eleanor and Franklin” by Joseph P. Lash was published in 1971 and earned the Pulitzer Prize for Biography. Lash was a radical political activist but grew disillusioned with communism and later became a journalist and author. His 23-year friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt (and proprietary access to her personal papers in 1966) formed the basis for this authorized biography. Lash died in 1987 at the age of 77.
The book’s title notwithstanding, this is not a dual biography of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt. FDR fails to appear until more than 100 pages have elapsed. Even then, Franklin’s appearances seem more often designed to highlight Eleanor’s virtues than roundly describe his life or political career. To some extent it is a book focused on the relationship between Eleanor and Franklin.
But what “Eleanor and Franklin” really proves to be is an insightful, detailed and often dense review of the life of a remarkable woman who transformed herself from an insecure, orphaned young girl into the compelling champion of a wide array of humanitarian causes. Despite its length (723 pages) this book only covers Eleanor’s life up to FDR’s death. The last 17 years of her life are chronicled in Lash’s follow-up volume “Eleanor: The Years Alone“.
Lash is not bashful about revealing Franklin’s and Eleanor’s numerous faults, but given his friendship with the former First Lady it is not surprising this is generally a sympathetic treatment of Eleanor. Equally unsurprising is that the book proves quite discreet; despite his proximity to the Eleanor and Franklin, Lash is reluctant to publicly ponder their private lives or most personal foibles.
While the author is a capable writer, his prize-winning tome is more a detailed history than an engaging narrative or character analysis. The book’s matter-of-fact style leaves it far less engrossing than the subject matter deserves and some readers will find it difficult to persevere to the end.
In addition, Lash furnishes almost no historical context so readers not already familiar with world (and domestic) events will likely miss the significance of many events or moments. But it’s deepest flaw is its cursory treatment of FDR who is less a partner in the relationship under scrutiny and more the foil.
The book’s strengths are numerous and notable. Most importantly, it peels back the public-facing layers of Eleanor’s complex life and highlights her selfless advocacy of people and causes that merited the attention of someone with her influence and devotion. It also demonstrates the accommodations Franklin and Eleanor made for each other in order to sustain their unique partnership during his political career.
Lash also does an excellent job describing the multifaceted (and often tense) relationship between Eleanor and FDR’s mother, Sara. And his review of the First Lady’s fact-finding trip to the South Pacific during World War II is both fascinating and revealing.
Overall, Joseph Lash’s “Eleanor and Franklin” provides an interesting and often insightful perspective into the life of Eleanor Roosevelt and her partnership with Franklin. Because FDR appears only in a supporting role (and, even then, largely as the antagonist) this book is not capable of serving in any way as a biography of the 32nd president. But even as review of Eleanor’s life this is a good book which could have been great.
Overall rating: 3½ stars
“Eleanor and Franklin” by Joseph P. Lash was published in 1971 and earned the Pulitzer Prize for Biography. Lash was a radical political activist but grew disillusioned with communism and later became a journalist and author. His 23-year friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt (and proprietary access to her personal papers in 1966) formed the basis for this authorized biography. Lash died in 1987 at the age of 77.
The book’s title notwithstanding, this is not a dual biography of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt. FDR fails to appear until more than 100 pages have elapsed. Even then, Franklin’s appearances seem more often designed to highlight Eleanor’s virtues than roundly describe his life or political career. To some extent it is a book focused on the relationship between Eleanor and Franklin.
But what “Eleanor and Franklin” really proves to be is an insightful, detailed and often dense review of the life of a remarkable woman who transformed herself from an insecure, orphaned young girl into the compelling champion of a wide array of humanitarian causes. Despite its length (723 pages) this book only covers Eleanor’s life up to FDR’s death. The last 17 years of her life are chronicled in Lash’s follow-up volume “Eleanor: The Years Alone“.
Lash is not bashful about revealing Franklin’s and Eleanor’s numerous faults, but given his friendship with the former First Lady it is not surprising this is generally a sympathetic treatment of Eleanor. Equally unsurprising is that the book proves quite discreet; despite his proximity to the Eleanor and Franklin, Lash is reluctant to publicly ponder their private lives or most personal foibles.
While the author is a capable writer, his prize-winning tome is more a detailed history than an engaging narrative or character analysis. The book’s matter-of-fact style leaves it far less engrossing than the subject matter deserves and some readers will find it difficult to persevere to the end.
In addition, Lash furnishes almost no historical context so readers not already familiar with world (and domestic) events will likely miss the significance of many events or moments. But it’s deepest flaw is its cursory treatment of FDR who is less a partner in the relationship under scrutiny and more the foil.
The book’s strengths are numerous and notable. Most importantly, it peels back the public-facing layers of Eleanor’s complex life and highlights her selfless advocacy of people and causes that merited the attention of someone with her influence and devotion. It also demonstrates the accommodations Franklin and Eleanor made for each other in order to sustain their unique partnership during his political career.
Lash also does an excellent job describing the multifaceted (and often tense) relationship between Eleanor and FDR’s mother, Sara. And his review of the First Lady’s fact-finding trip to the South Pacific during World War II is both fascinating and revealing.
Overall, Joseph Lash’s “Eleanor and Franklin” provides an interesting and often insightful perspective into the life of Eleanor Roosevelt and her partnership with Franklin. Because FDR appears only in a supporting role (and, even then, largely as the antagonist) this book is not capable of serving in any way as a biography of the 32nd president. But even as review of Eleanor’s life this is a good book which could have been great.
Overall rating: 3½ stars
August 23, 2019
Much with a lot of American history, I was a little vague about the details of FDR and Eleanor (apart from Leslie Knope loving Eleanor on Parks and Rec). So it was an enlightening read for me to learn more about this very modern couple and the challenges they faced leading up to and during FDR's presidential terms.
I found the book really interesting and I only wish that there was more of the various correspondence that was referred to in the book so that there was more information about these fascinating relationships that were going on.
I found the book really interesting and I only wish that there was more of the various correspondence that was referred to in the book so that there was more information about these fascinating relationships that were going on.
July 6, 2016
This was an odd reading experience. Normally I finish books quickly, which isn't at all a boast. I have often envied those who engage with books languidly, savouring the experience. I, on the other hand, have long sessions, breaking books and getting indigestion. It was impossible to do that with this book: it was dense. Really, really dense with tiny font and squished paragraphs that gave me images of Lash sitting on an overfilled suitcase trying to zip it while also pleading with his publishers that it really does adhere to the weight limit. There is a lot to admire in this density and I sincerely do appreciate the depth of research here. I mean, that bibliography and end note section, come on. When I reengaged with it I could always fall back into the writing style and narrative flow. But I do think I am about as interested in Eleanor's White House menu as she was, and I was on a countdown to Pearl Harbor, and it's not really about Franklin, it's more aptly Eleanor: the Franklin Years. The author loves ER and the book is written in that tone, so if you are happy with that and can slog through some of the minutiae it provides genuine insight into her and one of the great political power couples.
January 20, 2016
The title notwithstanding this is a biography of Eleanor Roosevelt, almost of two Eleanor Roosevelts. The first ER was a daughter of wealth and leisure, her life being a succession of parties, trips, sporting events, dances and receptions, punctuated only by a notable three-year finishing education in England. I found this part, virtually half the book, both boring and depressing, given the vacuity of the favored lives recounted therein. Then, after her marriage to the ambitious Franklin, Eleanor begins to become her own person, a change inspired she claimed by her discovery of his infidelity. This process accelerates as their children become independent and as they enter the White House, Eleanor becoming the effective conscience of the administration and an influential activist in her own right. This trajectory is traced until the death of her husband, the last eighteen years of her life not being described at all.
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October 4, 2023This book was copyrighted in 1971 and my paperback version was printed in 1973. I am sure I acquired this book because it was a bestseller and was well-known to me and I thought it would be a worthwhile read, which it was. It took me six weeks to read this 930 page dense print book, but I reflected afterward that if I was going to spend that much time with someone, Eleanor Roosevelt was a worthwhile candidate! Her life spanned the Victorian era, the suffrage movement and early feminism (hers), so it was a remarkable journey. It ended with FDR's death in 1945, so it didn't cover the 20 years she lived after that. The story about her life with FDR was told primarily from her perspective since the author used her letters and papers as the primary source material for the story plus interviews with people who knew her who were still living. She destroyed FDR's letters written to her. And so much of the communication during her time was via letters, so there was a wealth of material. Once again I am astounded that the reading public 50 years ago would read such long, dense books, since I do not think it would happen today. I recycled this old paperback.
June 8, 2020
The author of this book was a friend of Eleanor’s. He had met her in the thirties when he was involved as a young radical. The author remained active in politics and became a good friend of Eleanor. As a result, one would expect the biography to be less than objective. The author was sympathetic to the subject but fair and balanced.
Eleanor was orphaned at an early age and was raised by her maternal grandmothers. She had a special relationship with her father and took his death hard. She did not have a very happy childhood. She was shy, had poor self image and not a pretty child. That’s what makes her life so interesting. How she overcome her early childhood drawbacks to become the woman she was to become makes a remarkable story. How she overcame her own insecurities, a domineering mother-in-law, FDR’s infidelity and his polio are a testament to her character. How she developed into a political asset to FDR and a champion of minorities and the poor is inspiring.
The book is a very interesting book.
Eleanor was orphaned at an early age and was raised by her maternal grandmothers. She had a special relationship with her father and took his death hard. She did not have a very happy childhood. She was shy, had poor self image and not a pretty child. That’s what makes her life so interesting. How she overcome her early childhood drawbacks to become the woman she was to become makes a remarkable story. How she overcame her own insecurities, a domineering mother-in-law, FDR’s infidelity and his polio are a testament to her character. How she developed into a political asset to FDR and a champion of minorities and the poor is inspiring.
The book is a very interesting book.
November 13, 2023
Eleanor and Franklin functions as much as a biography of the First Lady as it does of the First Couple. Written by Joseph P. Lash, a man who intimately knew both the thirty-second president and his wife, this book offers wonderful insights into the character and decisions of one of the most twentieth century's most interesting couples.
Lash begins with a look at the Roosevelt clan as they set down roots in New York state. Theodore Roosevelt's side of the family would come to be known as the Oyster Bay Roosevelts, while Franklin would come from the Hyde Park branch. The latter would on the whole remain inclined toward the Democratic Party both during Teddy and Franklin's presidencies, while the former (especially in the form of the outspoken TR daughter Alice Roosevelt Longworth) would largely remain outspoken Republicans.
Eleanor's father Elliott (who was the brother of Teddy Roosevelt) had, whether he realized or not, a huge impact on Eleanor's future mindset. He struggled with alcohol abuse and was a frequent source of frustration for Eleanor, who idolized him and deeply loved him despite his flaws. Elliott would die after a failed suicide attempt at the age of 34. Eleanor's relationship with her mom Anna was strained, and their relationship would remain on a hot-cold basis even when Eleanor was married to Franklin.
Lash takes time to examine Eleanor's growth during her time at Allenswood, a school on the outskirts of London she attended during her later teenage years. Eleanor gains an appreciation of culture and an intellectual side under the tutelage of Mlle. Souvestre at the overseas finishing school. The book even includes a sampling of her report cards in subjects like Latin, French, and English literature from these years in England.
Eleanor's bond with Franklin, who was from the Delano branch of the Roosevelt family, began in earnest with her introduction into New York society upon her return stateside.
While Franklin's psyche and upbringing do not receive the same level of scrutiny as Eleanor's, the book does lay out how he became interested in public service. When he left the elite prep school Groton Franklin "was attuned to the rector's admonitions that Groton boys should go into politics and public service. But service to whom, politics for what ends? To uphold the established order, as the rector preached, or to change it in favor of the victim, as Mlle. Souvestre believed? Roosevelt's answer in the great crisis of the thirties would be too conserve the system through the institution of change, a course that reflected the teachings of the rector tempered by those of Mlle. Souvestre as transmitted through Eleanor Roosevelt." This theme of FDR frequently shunning his own bourgeois upbringing to-largely at the urging of his wife-focus instead on the needs of the unemployed and needy was constantly returned to during discussions of the Great Depression.
FDR's failure to make it into Porcellian, one of Harvard's most exclusive social clubs, was also held up as an early cause of his feeling of alienation from the very upper class he was born into. To hear Lash tell it, "After he became president, his Republican relatives ascribed his attacks on Wall Street and his hostility to bankers like Morgan and Whitney to his resentment about not making Porcellian."
The courtship between Franklin and Eleanor ended with their March 17th, 1905, wedding.
The book takes a lot of time from the political to delve into the personal and marital. Eleanor's discovery in 1918 that Franklin had been carrying on an affair with Lucy Mercer was shown as an inflection point in their marriage. (It is also insinuated Franklin later carried on at least one other extramarital affair). It seems Eleanor never completely got over the Lucy Mercer betrayal and, from 1918 onward, the book implies that she remained with Franklin more as a marriage of convenience to advance social causes than out of any sort of infatuation.
Eleanor would frequently stay at Val Kill, a cottage on the family's country estate, when she and Franklin went to Hyde Park for respite. Eleanor and several friends would even set up a handcrafted furniture mini-factory onsite at Val Kill during the 1920s. Still, there are plenty of examples of affection and caring attitudes displayed between Franklin and Eleanor during even the most trying times of their marriage.
Franklin was stricken with infantile paralysis in 1921, and this battle with polio would remain a constant throughout the rest of his lifetime. While Eleanor aided him in the ways his handicap required, she was constantly refusing to let him use this disability as a crutch to shirk his numerous other responsibilities.
In a manner almost unprecedented at the time, Eleanor organized groups of women to lobby (unsuccessfully) for entry into the League of Nations and World Court. Eleanor's intrawar efforts to push institutions like the World Court and League of Nations made her an object of suspicion among isolationists.
As the wife of the Secretary of the Navy, the 1920 vice-presidential nominee under James Cox, and (from 1928 until his election as president) New York governor, Eleanor used her husband's growing profile to push for causes dear to her. Lash drives home how important initiatives to secure a lasting peace were to Eleanor both during and after the first and second world wars.
Her approach toward American acceptance of these institutions was summed up when Eleanor stated "Many of us have fixed ideas of what we think our country and the various countries of the world should do, but if we rigidly adhere, each to our own point of view, we will progress not at all. We should talk together with open minds and grasp anything which is a step forward; not hold out for our particular ultimate panacea. Keep it in our minds, of course, but remember that all big changes in human history have been arrived art slowly and through many compromises."
While this desire to push for change while also recognizing the boundaries public figures had to work within would be more of a hallmark of Franklin than his wife, her own penchant for realpolitik was often overlooked by the right wing ideologues of her day.
The book is sprawling with its nearly one thousand pages of in-depth analysis of FDR and Eleanor's public and private lives. There were a few individuals, however, who stood out above the revolving door of officials. Louis Howe was shown to be an invaluable political aide to FDR as well as a friend and ally of Eleanor during her husband's years in public service.
Two of the president's key point men on the New Deal had polar opposite perceptions of Eleanor. As head of the WPA and CWA, Harry Hopkins was a key architect of New Deal policies during FDR's presidency. He and Eleanor by and large had a strong working relationship. Harold Ickes, on the other hand, seemed to resent Eleanor's meddling. As head of the PWA, he was one of a number of officials who viewed Eleanor as unrealistic and too idealistic in the ideas she pushed for.
One such idea was Arthurdale, an experimental farming community in West Virginia which Eleanor took an interest in promoting.
During the height of the Depression Eleanor sought to have a sort of cooperative community built for out of work coal miners and their families, with the federal government bearing the upfront cost. The eventual cost overruns and impracticality of the project ended with its failure, and Eleanor was the butt of jokes and ridicule for her seeming lack of connection to how the real world functioned. While Lash presents his friend Eleanor as a deeply compassionate person who wanted to alleviate as much suffering as possible during a terrible economic downturn, he does not completely paper over her faults either.
And yet her idealism, to read his presentation of it, was on balance her main strength.
While often smeared as a secret fellow traveler in the opposition press, Eleanor was a fierce critic of Communism. Some of the collectivist New Deal policies advocated by her and Franklin were, as the book presents them, far from backdoor efforts to institute Communism. They were instead done to prevent the turn toward totalitarianism taken in places like Russia, Germany, and Italy. By being responsive to Depression era needs and therefore restoring faith in the capitalist system and democratic form of government, so the thinking went, fertile ground would be eliminated for both the far left and far right.
The First Lady's dealings with the Youth Congress drove home this conundrum. While Eleanor felt the group had its heart in the right place in trying to help unemployed youth, both she and her husband became increasingly concerned it was infiltrated by students sympathetic toward Moscow. Their hesitancy to support the war effort against Germany until Hitler's attack on Russia only caused further suspicions as to their true allegiance. Eleanor eventually cut ties with the Youth Congress, telling them she supported their goals to gain work for the unemployed but could in no way endorse a group run by those sympathetic to Communism.
The balancing of Eleanor's social advocacy as First Lady with the political realities Franklin faced was repeatedly returned to in the book. Franklin would often require the votes of southern Democratic senators to get his agenda passed during the Great Depression, and this required him playing it coy on civil rights for black Americans. Eleanor, on the other hand, often infuriated the southern press with her (in hindsight, quite tame) efforts to push for equality between the races.
These portions were interesting, as FDR seemed to privately encourage her to push for what she believed in and steered clear of reprimanding her for the public stands she took on racial issues. But he would then play the political realist in dealings with Congress, doing what he could when it came to making New Deal benefits as fairly distributed as possible while stopping short of calling for the sorts of things NAACP leaders like Walter White were pressuring him to do. The same held true with immigration quotas for targeted groups during World War Two, as Eleanor's pressure on him appeared to steer the president into positions he either did not previously hold or wanted to be seen being pushed into but privately favored all along. Eleanor and Franklin is rife with this sort of supple analysis.
Eleanor's support for the armed forces was clear during her trip to the Pacific during the Second World War. She visited the wounded during this trip and even won over a skeptical military brass because of her genuine commitment to being there for the troops. While she frequently emphasized the fairer and more just world the allies were fighting for, she also showed the heart she had for those who had given so much on the battlefield.
There is so much in Eleanor and Franklin that is grist for discussion and analysis. This book was deserving of the Pulitzer Prize and is one of the greatest works on a president's relationship with his wife ever written. From her press conferences that broke precedent not only with Lou Hoover but every First Lady before her to her fierce advocacy for the unemployed and forgotten during the Great Depression, Eleanor Roosevelt truly reshaped how Americans viewed their public responsibilities.
Joseph Lash's portrait of the times, particularly his personal telling of how policies dealing with the Great Depression and Second World War were crafted, make for top notch nonfiction.
This book is lengthy but worth reading. It details the lives of two patriotic American pushing for a more just and better world during an incredibly difficult period, and the quality of writing only strengthens the compelling time in history it portrays.
-Andrew Canfield Denver, Colorado
Lash begins with a look at the Roosevelt clan as they set down roots in New York state. Theodore Roosevelt's side of the family would come to be known as the Oyster Bay Roosevelts, while Franklin would come from the Hyde Park branch. The latter would on the whole remain inclined toward the Democratic Party both during Teddy and Franklin's presidencies, while the former (especially in the form of the outspoken TR daughter Alice Roosevelt Longworth) would largely remain outspoken Republicans.
Eleanor's father Elliott (who was the brother of Teddy Roosevelt) had, whether he realized or not, a huge impact on Eleanor's future mindset. He struggled with alcohol abuse and was a frequent source of frustration for Eleanor, who idolized him and deeply loved him despite his flaws. Elliott would die after a failed suicide attempt at the age of 34. Eleanor's relationship with her mom Anna was strained, and their relationship would remain on a hot-cold basis even when Eleanor was married to Franklin.
Lash takes time to examine Eleanor's growth during her time at Allenswood, a school on the outskirts of London she attended during her later teenage years. Eleanor gains an appreciation of culture and an intellectual side under the tutelage of Mlle. Souvestre at the overseas finishing school. The book even includes a sampling of her report cards in subjects like Latin, French, and English literature from these years in England.
Eleanor's bond with Franklin, who was from the Delano branch of the Roosevelt family, began in earnest with her introduction into New York society upon her return stateside.
While Franklin's psyche and upbringing do not receive the same level of scrutiny as Eleanor's, the book does lay out how he became interested in public service. When he left the elite prep school Groton Franklin "was attuned to the rector's admonitions that Groton boys should go into politics and public service. But service to whom, politics for what ends? To uphold the established order, as the rector preached, or to change it in favor of the victim, as Mlle. Souvestre believed? Roosevelt's answer in the great crisis of the thirties would be too conserve the system through the institution of change, a course that reflected the teachings of the rector tempered by those of Mlle. Souvestre as transmitted through Eleanor Roosevelt." This theme of FDR frequently shunning his own bourgeois upbringing to-largely at the urging of his wife-focus instead on the needs of the unemployed and needy was constantly returned to during discussions of the Great Depression.
FDR's failure to make it into Porcellian, one of Harvard's most exclusive social clubs, was also held up as an early cause of his feeling of alienation from the very upper class he was born into. To hear Lash tell it, "After he became president, his Republican relatives ascribed his attacks on Wall Street and his hostility to bankers like Morgan and Whitney to his resentment about not making Porcellian."
The courtship between Franklin and Eleanor ended with their March 17th, 1905, wedding.
The book takes a lot of time from the political to delve into the personal and marital. Eleanor's discovery in 1918 that Franklin had been carrying on an affair with Lucy Mercer was shown as an inflection point in their marriage. (It is also insinuated Franklin later carried on at least one other extramarital affair). It seems Eleanor never completely got over the Lucy Mercer betrayal and, from 1918 onward, the book implies that she remained with Franklin more as a marriage of convenience to advance social causes than out of any sort of infatuation.
Eleanor would frequently stay at Val Kill, a cottage on the family's country estate, when she and Franklin went to Hyde Park for respite. Eleanor and several friends would even set up a handcrafted furniture mini-factory onsite at Val Kill during the 1920s. Still, there are plenty of examples of affection and caring attitudes displayed between Franklin and Eleanor during even the most trying times of their marriage.
Franklin was stricken with infantile paralysis in 1921, and this battle with polio would remain a constant throughout the rest of his lifetime. While Eleanor aided him in the ways his handicap required, she was constantly refusing to let him use this disability as a crutch to shirk his numerous other responsibilities.
In a manner almost unprecedented at the time, Eleanor organized groups of women to lobby (unsuccessfully) for entry into the League of Nations and World Court. Eleanor's intrawar efforts to push institutions like the World Court and League of Nations made her an object of suspicion among isolationists.
As the wife of the Secretary of the Navy, the 1920 vice-presidential nominee under James Cox, and (from 1928 until his election as president) New York governor, Eleanor used her husband's growing profile to push for causes dear to her. Lash drives home how important initiatives to secure a lasting peace were to Eleanor both during and after the first and second world wars.
Her approach toward American acceptance of these institutions was summed up when Eleanor stated "Many of us have fixed ideas of what we think our country and the various countries of the world should do, but if we rigidly adhere, each to our own point of view, we will progress not at all. We should talk together with open minds and grasp anything which is a step forward; not hold out for our particular ultimate panacea. Keep it in our minds, of course, but remember that all big changes in human history have been arrived art slowly and through many compromises."
While this desire to push for change while also recognizing the boundaries public figures had to work within would be more of a hallmark of Franklin than his wife, her own penchant for realpolitik was often overlooked by the right wing ideologues of her day.
The book is sprawling with its nearly one thousand pages of in-depth analysis of FDR and Eleanor's public and private lives. There were a few individuals, however, who stood out above the revolving door of officials. Louis Howe was shown to be an invaluable political aide to FDR as well as a friend and ally of Eleanor during her husband's years in public service.
Two of the president's key point men on the New Deal had polar opposite perceptions of Eleanor. As head of the WPA and CWA, Harry Hopkins was a key architect of New Deal policies during FDR's presidency. He and Eleanor by and large had a strong working relationship. Harold Ickes, on the other hand, seemed to resent Eleanor's meddling. As head of the PWA, he was one of a number of officials who viewed Eleanor as unrealistic and too idealistic in the ideas she pushed for.
One such idea was Arthurdale, an experimental farming community in West Virginia which Eleanor took an interest in promoting.
During the height of the Depression Eleanor sought to have a sort of cooperative community built for out of work coal miners and their families, with the federal government bearing the upfront cost. The eventual cost overruns and impracticality of the project ended with its failure, and Eleanor was the butt of jokes and ridicule for her seeming lack of connection to how the real world functioned. While Lash presents his friend Eleanor as a deeply compassionate person who wanted to alleviate as much suffering as possible during a terrible economic downturn, he does not completely paper over her faults either.
And yet her idealism, to read his presentation of it, was on balance her main strength.
While often smeared as a secret fellow traveler in the opposition press, Eleanor was a fierce critic of Communism. Some of the collectivist New Deal policies advocated by her and Franklin were, as the book presents them, far from backdoor efforts to institute Communism. They were instead done to prevent the turn toward totalitarianism taken in places like Russia, Germany, and Italy. By being responsive to Depression era needs and therefore restoring faith in the capitalist system and democratic form of government, so the thinking went, fertile ground would be eliminated for both the far left and far right.
The First Lady's dealings with the Youth Congress drove home this conundrum. While Eleanor felt the group had its heart in the right place in trying to help unemployed youth, both she and her husband became increasingly concerned it was infiltrated by students sympathetic toward Moscow. Their hesitancy to support the war effort against Germany until Hitler's attack on Russia only caused further suspicions as to their true allegiance. Eleanor eventually cut ties with the Youth Congress, telling them she supported their goals to gain work for the unemployed but could in no way endorse a group run by those sympathetic to Communism.
The balancing of Eleanor's social advocacy as First Lady with the political realities Franklin faced was repeatedly returned to in the book. Franklin would often require the votes of southern Democratic senators to get his agenda passed during the Great Depression, and this required him playing it coy on civil rights for black Americans. Eleanor, on the other hand, often infuriated the southern press with her (in hindsight, quite tame) efforts to push for equality between the races.
These portions were interesting, as FDR seemed to privately encourage her to push for what she believed in and steered clear of reprimanding her for the public stands she took on racial issues. But he would then play the political realist in dealings with Congress, doing what he could when it came to making New Deal benefits as fairly distributed as possible while stopping short of calling for the sorts of things NAACP leaders like Walter White were pressuring him to do. The same held true with immigration quotas for targeted groups during World War Two, as Eleanor's pressure on him appeared to steer the president into positions he either did not previously hold or wanted to be seen being pushed into but privately favored all along. Eleanor and Franklin is rife with this sort of supple analysis.
Eleanor's support for the armed forces was clear during her trip to the Pacific during the Second World War. She visited the wounded during this trip and even won over a skeptical military brass because of her genuine commitment to being there for the troops. While she frequently emphasized the fairer and more just world the allies were fighting for, she also showed the heart she had for those who had given so much on the battlefield.
There is so much in Eleanor and Franklin that is grist for discussion and analysis. This book was deserving of the Pulitzer Prize and is one of the greatest works on a president's relationship with his wife ever written. From her press conferences that broke precedent not only with Lou Hoover but every First Lady before her to her fierce advocacy for the unemployed and forgotten during the Great Depression, Eleanor Roosevelt truly reshaped how Americans viewed their public responsibilities.
Joseph Lash's portrait of the times, particularly his personal telling of how policies dealing with the Great Depression and Second World War were crafted, make for top notch nonfiction.
This book is lengthy but worth reading. It details the lives of two patriotic American pushing for a more just and better world during an incredibly difficult period, and the quality of writing only strengthens the compelling time in history it portrays.
-Andrew Canfield Denver, Colorado
April 30, 2023
I have always heard how admired Eleanor Roosevelt was during FDR's presidency, and how much of a champion of working class people she was. I wanted to read a biography about Eleanor to see how accurate these statements were.
Lash was acquainted with Eleanor from his college days, and he ultimately became one her secretaries after the president died. This isn't exactly an unbiased biography based on those facts, but since it won a Pulitzer I was hopeful it would be well written and highly readable. It met those criteria most of the time although like many biographies, it got bogged down in details at times and became a bit of a slog.
Eleanor had a sad childhood as both of her parents died by the time she was 10. She was raised by her grandmother who loved Eleanor and her brother, but she was a proper and somewhat distant woman who had Victorian era views. Eleanor was painfully shy and awkward, and she knew she wasn't pretty. She finally was sent to a boarding school in England when she was 15 where she found a wonderful mentor who boosted Eleanor's confidence tremendously. Eleanor and Franklin married when Eleanor was 20 years old after a year of a private engagement requested by FDR's mother. His mother wasn't thrilled with his choice of a wife, but as a controlling matriarch she couldn't have found a better daughter-in-law. Eleanor turned out to be a wonderful wife in most ways for the aspiring politician. She gave him numerous children, supported him wholeheartedly, and wouldn't disagree with him publicly. What she wasn't in any part of her life was lighthearted, frivolous, and fun. This ended up being fine for a First Lady, but it was a bit of a drag as a mother and wife.
The role of the First Lady is not defined, and Eleanor had to figure out how to be the White House hostess while also working for the social issues she believed in. She always said she didn't influence the president in his political decisions but in reality it wasn't from a lack of trying. She sent him personal notes about issues, recommended meetings with key people and set correspondence in front of FDR that she felt he should read. Eleanor spent a little bit of private time with the president each morning and night that she took advantage of to mention issues she cared about. By the end of his third presidency, FDR was sick of her constant prodding and they spent considerable time apart as he distanced himself from her. Ultimately she was the conscience that pushed FDR toward as many social reforms as could be passed with a hostile Congress pushing back. It wasn't that he didn't agree with her aims, but he couldn't achieve everything she wanted without jeopardizing his base support.
In relating the years of Eleanor's childhood, adolescence, and early marriage, the chapters were largely chronological. But once the chapters focused on the presidential years, chronology was primarily discontinued and the chapters were arranged by topics or issues that Eleanor was influential about in some way. In these later chapters, there were many political officials and aides who became hard to tell apart occasionally. There were times I didn't know the background of political issues that weren't fleshed out, both domestic and international, so I was at a loss to fully understand. And finally the year that many events took place wasn't always noted so sometimes I wasn't sure in which presidential term something happened. These are picky omissions that didn't detract from the whole, but it was probably less obvious to readers in 1971 who were closer in time to the actual events. I enjoyed the biography but I felt that sticking with a chronological script overall might have been better.
Lash was acquainted with Eleanor from his college days, and he ultimately became one her secretaries after the president died. This isn't exactly an unbiased biography based on those facts, but since it won a Pulitzer I was hopeful it would be well written and highly readable. It met those criteria most of the time although like many biographies, it got bogged down in details at times and became a bit of a slog.
Eleanor had a sad childhood as both of her parents died by the time she was 10. She was raised by her grandmother who loved Eleanor and her brother, but she was a proper and somewhat distant woman who had Victorian era views. Eleanor was painfully shy and awkward, and she knew she wasn't pretty. She finally was sent to a boarding school in England when she was 15 where she found a wonderful mentor who boosted Eleanor's confidence tremendously. Eleanor and Franklin married when Eleanor was 20 years old after a year of a private engagement requested by FDR's mother. His mother wasn't thrilled with his choice of a wife, but as a controlling matriarch she couldn't have found a better daughter-in-law. Eleanor turned out to be a wonderful wife in most ways for the aspiring politician. She gave him numerous children, supported him wholeheartedly, and wouldn't disagree with him publicly. What she wasn't in any part of her life was lighthearted, frivolous, and fun. This ended up being fine for a First Lady, but it was a bit of a drag as a mother and wife.
The role of the First Lady is not defined, and Eleanor had to figure out how to be the White House hostess while also working for the social issues she believed in. She always said she didn't influence the president in his political decisions but in reality it wasn't from a lack of trying. She sent him personal notes about issues, recommended meetings with key people and set correspondence in front of FDR that she felt he should read. Eleanor spent a little bit of private time with the president each morning and night that she took advantage of to mention issues she cared about. By the end of his third presidency, FDR was sick of her constant prodding and they spent considerable time apart as he distanced himself from her. Ultimately she was the conscience that pushed FDR toward as many social reforms as could be passed with a hostile Congress pushing back. It wasn't that he didn't agree with her aims, but he couldn't achieve everything she wanted without jeopardizing his base support.
In relating the years of Eleanor's childhood, adolescence, and early marriage, the chapters were largely chronological. But once the chapters focused on the presidential years, chronology was primarily discontinued and the chapters were arranged by topics or issues that Eleanor was influential about in some way. In these later chapters, there were many political officials and aides who became hard to tell apart occasionally. There were times I didn't know the background of political issues that weren't fleshed out, both domestic and international, so I was at a loss to fully understand. And finally the year that many events took place wasn't always noted so sometimes I wasn't sure in which presidential term something happened. These are picky omissions that didn't detract from the whole, but it was probably less obvious to readers in 1971 who were closer in time to the actual events. I enjoyed the biography but I felt that sticking with a chronological script overall might have been better.
June 4, 2009
This was a nice, readable biography, primarily of Elaenor Roosevelt. Ok, I'll admit I didn't quite finish it, but I got almost to the war. I was half way through the book when I realized it ended at Franklins death, which I found rather stunning and disappointing since she did so much after he died. I chose this biography because it had won the Pulitzer and was presumably reasonably accurate and well written, and because it was written by a family friend. I wasn't in the mood for a sensationaly, super-revisionist book casting Eleanor as a 21st century feminist. It did feel a little old school, though, having been written in the 1970s, and I found myself curious about how more recent historians think about Eleanor and Franklin with a bit more hindsight and current perspective. A few things struck me as I read the book:
1. Many parts felt like todays front page news. I absolutely could not believe how almost verbatim Republican criticisms of New Deal policies are being repeated today.
2. There is something wonderful about the sense of womanhood Eleanor exemplified. To be so smart, gracious, determined, and accomplished, and yet have a gift for entertaining and homemaking and making guests feel welcome and cared for in your home is a lovely thing.
3. People thought the young people in the late 1930s where a bunch of lazy, immoral, good-for-nothings. As far as I can tell they became The Greatest Generation and pretty much saved western civilization. I think there is hope for us yet.
4. Both Eleanor and Franklin's lives have so many sad stories of unrequitted love.
1. Many parts felt like todays front page news. I absolutely could not believe how almost verbatim Republican criticisms of New Deal policies are being repeated today.
2. There is something wonderful about the sense of womanhood Eleanor exemplified. To be so smart, gracious, determined, and accomplished, and yet have a gift for entertaining and homemaking and making guests feel welcome and cared for in your home is a lovely thing.
3. People thought the young people in the late 1930s where a bunch of lazy, immoral, good-for-nothings. As far as I can tell they became The Greatest Generation and pretty much saved western civilization. I think there is hope for us yet.
4. Both Eleanor and Franklin's lives have so many sad stories of unrequitted love.
February 3, 2014
After Eleanor Roosevelt's death, her children gave family friend Joseph Lash, who had already written a memoir on Eleanor, her private papers with the hopes that he could compile them into a book. An incredibly daunting task, and I applaud his efforts.
However, if you're going to call a book Eleanor and Franklin, and subtitle it with the claim that it's the story of their relationship, maybe you should begin with their relationship, and not with Eleanor's childhood. Sure, there was a lot of great stuff, letters she'd written to friend and family, including her uncle TR, but maybe write a separate book on that.
In fact, there could have been at least three books made out of this one. Honestly, it was information overload for much of the book. Things that were interesting for the author were, at times, dull for the reader, especially when it came to policy that Eleanor had a hand in.
For research purposes, this is a good source, but if you just want to read a pleasurable biography on either Eleanor or Franklin, there are better ones out there. You can start with Eleanor's own autobiography.
However, if you're going to call a book Eleanor and Franklin, and subtitle it with the claim that it's the story of their relationship, maybe you should begin with their relationship, and not with Eleanor's childhood. Sure, there was a lot of great stuff, letters she'd written to friend and family, including her uncle TR, but maybe write a separate book on that.
In fact, there could have been at least three books made out of this one. Honestly, it was information overload for much of the book. Things that were interesting for the author were, at times, dull for the reader, especially when it came to policy that Eleanor had a hand in.
For research purposes, this is a good source, but if you just want to read a pleasurable biography on either Eleanor or Franklin, there are better ones out there. You can start with Eleanor's own autobiography.
November 7, 2013
I first read this book in the early 70s when I was your typical 20+-year old idealist and not political savvy. What I took away from the book was Eleanor's fight for equal rights for the black race and Franklin staying in the background because of the southern Democrats. Fast forward to now: I'm no longer the idealist. Because I'm older now, I found it so interesting to discover that the political fight back then very much parallels the arguments still used today. I still admire her but because she walked the talk ... The author admits he knew her and they believed in the same causes, but I feel he did an accurate portrayal. He backed the events with references, letters that she wrote, diary entries from others. I was disappointed minimal was said in regards to the Japanese interment, though ... Her thoughts on that would have been interesting. I highly recommend the book, especially to those who not only have an interest in history, but also political viewpoints.
November 12, 2016
Having read a lot of books on ER it's hard to rate them because so much is just a repeat of what's already known. This is a skimmed over view of her life (which seems crazy for how long it is) from family history to the death of FDR. It's a bit strange because there's a lot of R family set up info and then nothing about ER post FDR. I know the author had a personal relationship with ER but this lacks any emotion or intimate details - which closely reflects ERs own memoirs. Also because of the author's affections for ER, it's mostly all positive. You're getting the neat and tidy, nothing deep, just what happened (or what we want you to see) version and it's not even a complete look at that. It's a good book if you want to read everything written by or about ER, or just want an emotion free overview.
August 12, 2009
"Eleanor & Franklin" is an awesome achievement of interview, research and writing. Joseph Lash produced a tome which ever will be valued by scholars and historians. I think I have never read all of this giant book but I have read some chapters/parts two times, or three times.
Standing in front of Mt. Fuji and being disappointed. I have had that experience. My reaction to, "Eleanor & Franklin," is similar. Here is a Mt. Fuji of historical literature but I still do not know the actual interrelation between Eleanor and Franklin - and perhaps I should not, and perhaps none of us should. Such complex people, such extraordinary personalities, such unfathomable relationships. Joseph Lash helps to appreciate all this.
Standing in front of Mt. Fuji and being disappointed. I have had that experience. My reaction to, "Eleanor & Franklin," is similar. Here is a Mt. Fuji of historical literature but I still do not know the actual interrelation between Eleanor and Franklin - and perhaps I should not, and perhaps none of us should. Such complex people, such extraordinary personalities, such unfathomable relationships. Joseph Lash helps to appreciate all this.
May 31, 2010
I could not put this book down, you hear so much of the Franklin Presidency and now you learn so much of Eleanor. It has letters that she and Franklin wrote to each other. I love books that put you in the life of the character almost on a day to day basis. In the beginning of her life you would have never expected Eleanor to be such an important part of the presidency; which I don't know if that was bad or good. It was a corporate marriage as I would call it. My next goal is to read what her life was after President Franklin passed away. The author does a wonderful description of that era.
November 8, 2013
Magnificently written book about a magnificent woman. Eleanor Roosevelt combined her caring and compassionate heart, achieved through years of quiet suffering, and her brilliant intellect to be a woman for all people for all time. A very dense book with tiny font, at times it delved so deeply into the minutia of 1930s & 40s politics that I would break from it to read other books. That said, it's some of the most worthwhile reading I've ever done. This world could use another Eleanor to grace its stage - with her among us again it would unquestionably be a better place to live.
September 27, 2014
Revealing, intimate biography that places ER in the context of her marriage, written by a close friend. Pays detailed attention to phases of ER's life up to FDR's death, but slights important friendships, such as Dickerman/Cook, Miller, Hickok (published before the Hickok correspondence was unsealed). While ER dominates, this Pulitzer-winning biography is a balanced, weighty look at a power couple in a political marriage.
August 20, 2023
Remember that episode of ALL IN THE FAMILY where Archie is arguing with his liberal counterpart Maude. Maude cites Franklin Roosevelt's record on Black civil rights and Archie says, "We didn't even know the Blacks was here until Eleanor showed up". (Incidentally, this prefigured Ronald Reagan saying in a 1980 debate, "I can recall a time when this country didn't have a racial problem".) Back in 1971, the very year ALL IN THE FAMILY premiered, Joseph Lash pulled off the impossible. He took the two political titans of the twentieth century, Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt, and managed to turn this dual biography into a national best-seller, and winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award. The inevitable TV mini-series that followed proved worthy of the book. 📕 (But the, who were Eleanor and Franklin competing against? Pat and Dick? J. Edgar and Clyde?) This was all the more remarkable in that Lash had known Eleanor personally and served as an unofficial aide to her during World War II. Yet the book shows no sign of bias or personal prejudice. In fact, ELEANOR AND FRANKLIN, based largely but not entirely on Eleanor's private papers, particularly her voluminous correspondence, is more like a portrait of the couple through her eyes than the biography of a duo. Eleanor was steeled for a life of political controversy and personal triumphs and downfalls by having her mother die young and her father, the brother of the President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, turn into a full-blown alcoholic during her youth. Although Theodore favored her marriage to Franklin ("It's always good to keep the name of Roosevelt inside the family") his daughter Alice hated the copuple, mocking Eleanor's looks and saying of Franklin, "We were the Roosevelt family in this town until the Feather Duster showed up". What followed is a story every American should know yet is still made more poignant by this massive volume: Franklin's infidelity with Eleanor's private secretary Lucy Mercer, (Significantly, it was Franklin's mother, the domineering Sarah Roosevelt who told him "Divorce Eleanor and you are through in politics") FDR's bout with polio, with Eleanor stepping in for duty in the New York Democratic Party, Roosevelt, now a cripple for life, elected first governor and then President, and the twin storms of the Great Depression and World War II. Eleanor took the trips too physically and politically dangerous for her husband to undertake, whether it was visiting striking miners, "Hoover sent the Army but Roosevelt sends his wife", one joke went, or soldiers in the Pacific, and expressing support for Marianne Anderson when the Daughters of the American Revolution refused the African-American musical legend their hall to sing in. (Eleanor resigned from the D.A.R.). Neglected by her husband in matters connubial, though she bore him six children, enduring still more affairs, Eleanor Roosevelt became a stateswoman in her own right, and transformed the role of First Lady into first confidant and at times first critic of the president. This magnificent book blends the personal and political twin lives of the most remarkable woman to ever step on the political stage of the United States.
November 8, 2023
First off, the title of this book is a misnomer because, make no mistake about it, this is a biography on Eleanor Roosevelt. Franklin is a secondary character and only applies to the narrative in the way he affects Eleanor. For me this was fine because I wanted to read a book which focused on Eleanor, but if someone is looking for a nuanced, evenhanded portrayal of FDR, you might want to find a different book.
Speaking of nuanced and evenhanded. Joseph Lash did a fine job of portraying Eleanor in a nuanced and evenhanded way for a little over half the book and I thought it would end up a solid 4 rating or possibly even a 5. About the time FDR started his second term, however, the book took a bit of a nosedive for me. Too many pages and time were dedicated to certain organizations, relegating the most important event of the 20th Century (WWII) to less than 100 pages of a 723 page book. Lash did cover build up to the war, but even then the narrative is bogged down with pages and pages dedicated to two or three organizations, all making for a tedious read at times. I finally figured out why. Mr. Lash was involved with these particular organizations. So, all the evenhandedness went out the window, replaced with a whole lot of personal bias. I'm not saying Eleanor's involvement with these organizations was not important, but I do think Lash tended to dwell on certain aspects of her life while relegating others to the background. I'd also like to read a biography of Franklin and see if I would get a different picture of the man. I think Lash was truly prejudiced against FDR because of his devotion to Eleanor. Also, completely missing from this book are the last 17 years of Eleanor's life after the war. I couldn't believe when I hit the end. I said "That's it?" out loud in a disbelieving voice. I really am interested in knowing what Eleanor did after FDR died. Some might say it's a book about Eleanor and Franklin's life together. Then, I would argue that the first couple hundred pages shouldn't be added because it deals with Eleanor's childhood and her life before meeting Franklin. I just wish the book had taken a complete look at Eleanor's life, but it didn't.
All in all, "Eleanor and Franklin" does paint a vivid picture of Eleanor Roosevelt (warts and all), but I don't think it does justice to Franklin Roosevelt, a man who overcame physical disabilities to lead the nation during one of the most trying times in history.
Speaking of nuanced and evenhanded. Joseph Lash did a fine job of portraying Eleanor in a nuanced and evenhanded way for a little over half the book and I thought it would end up a solid 4 rating or possibly even a 5. About the time FDR started his second term, however, the book took a bit of a nosedive for me. Too many pages and time were dedicated to certain organizations, relegating the most important event of the 20th Century (WWII) to less than 100 pages of a 723 page book. Lash did cover build up to the war, but even then the narrative is bogged down with pages and pages dedicated to two or three organizations, all making for a tedious read at times. I finally figured out why. Mr. Lash was involved with these particular organizations. So, all the evenhandedness went out the window, replaced with a whole lot of personal bias. I'm not saying Eleanor's involvement with these organizations was not important, but I do think Lash tended to dwell on certain aspects of her life while relegating others to the background. I'd also like to read a biography of Franklin and see if I would get a different picture of the man. I think Lash was truly prejudiced against FDR because of his devotion to Eleanor. Also, completely missing from this book are the last 17 years of Eleanor's life after the war. I couldn't believe when I hit the end. I said "That's it?" out loud in a disbelieving voice. I really am interested in knowing what Eleanor did after FDR died. Some might say it's a book about Eleanor and Franklin's life together. Then, I would argue that the first couple hundred pages shouldn't be added because it deals with Eleanor's childhood and her life before meeting Franklin. I just wish the book had taken a complete look at Eleanor's life, but it didn't.
All in all, "Eleanor and Franklin" does paint a vivid picture of Eleanor Roosevelt (warts and all), but I don't think it does justice to Franklin Roosevelt, a man who overcame physical disabilities to lead the nation during one of the most trying times in history.
May 2, 2023
This book impressed the heck out of me when I read it --50?-- years ago. I'm looking at my yellowed desiccated paperback copy and noticing I had written notes all over it, in the margins, the frontispiece, the end pages, and I had underlined passages on practically every page. It won a Pulitzer, it was incredibly well researched, detailed, and included some terrific photographs....
I hoped that by copying some of my end page notes, my memory would be jogged, but my notes are non-specific and jumbled enough to do nothing but create confusion.
So, it's time to throw this copy out, leaving nothing but some meaningless notes, but I do want to remember the book as solidifying my interest in history and the story of Eleanor (and to a lesser extent, Franklin) Roosevelt and what American life was like in an earlier time.
+++++
EPIC = End Poverty in Calif Upton Sinclair) and VT's Environment!
-213, 224, 303-11, 398, 662 Jealousy
-Chaucer - The Clerk's Tale
-325, 342, 357
Tammany
The Constant Nymph
Ibsen (Nora)
Hoovers
-Prohibiting Poverty, Martin 510
ER It's Up to the Women
Saint Therea
Benefi - John Brown's Body
Dubois, Black Reconstruction
Caroline Conservation Corp
ROTC 712
An Economoic Proposal for Am Democtrats,
-Man, the Coming Victory of Democracy
-Diling The Red Network
-753 Alan Romax
-895 whys answered
-783 compare
-865
-908 Atomic
-Med Chapter 40, LaFollette
Leon BLum
764
Malfeasance
-WH Auden the 30s, "Age of Anxiety"
Wendell Wilkie
Conf on the Cause, Cure of War 730
-766 Millen on Smugs
Buck's Am Unity and Ass
762 this power over the Press
I hoped that by copying some of my end page notes, my memory would be jogged, but my notes are non-specific and jumbled enough to do nothing but create confusion.
So, it's time to throw this copy out, leaving nothing but some meaningless notes, but I do want to remember the book as solidifying my interest in history and the story of Eleanor (and to a lesser extent, Franklin) Roosevelt and what American life was like in an earlier time.
+++++
EPIC = End Poverty in Calif Upton Sinclair) and VT's Environment!
-213, 224, 303-11, 398, 662 Jealousy
-Chaucer - The Clerk's Tale
-325, 342, 357
Tammany
The Constant Nymph
Ibsen (Nora)
Hoovers
-Prohibiting Poverty, Martin 510
ER It's Up to the Women
Saint Therea
Benefi - John Brown's Body
Dubois, Black Reconstruction
Caroline Conservation Corp
ROTC 712
An Economoic Proposal for Am Democtrats,
-Man, the Coming Victory of Democracy
-Diling The Red Network
-753 Alan Romax
-895 whys answered
-783 compare
-865
-908 Atomic
-Med Chapter 40, LaFollette
Leon BLum
764
Malfeasance
-WH Auden the 30s, "Age of Anxiety"
Wendell Wilkie
Conf on the Cause, Cure of War 730
-766 Millen on Smugs
Buck's Am Unity and Ass
762 this power over the Press
March 31, 2026
I started Eleanor & Franklin back in 2018, and today I read the last page. This book has been my off-and-on reading companion for 8 years! That might seem like a bad thing - but some of my favorite books I've savored this way. No sense in pushing through once I've had my fill; put it down and pick it up in a few months or years, when I have a taste for it again.
Anyway, I loved this book. Here's one thing I read tonight. Very shortly before FDR's death, Eleanor wrote:
I wonder if Franklin got to have his wish, and help in "the Near East" or Asia in his next lifetime?
Anyway, I loved this book. Here's one thing I read tonight. Very shortly before FDR's death, Eleanor wrote:
...
I am all ready to hand over to others now in all that I do and go home to live in retirement; but Franklin said to me last Sunday, "You know, Eleanor, I've seen so much of the Near East and Ibn Saud and all of them, when we get through here, I believe I'd like to go and live there. I feel quite an expert, I believe I could help to straighten out the Near East." "Can't you think of something hard to do?" I asked. "Well, yes," he answered quite seriously. "It's going to be awfully hard to straighten out Asia, what with India and China and Thailand and Indo-China. I'd like to get into that." Does that sound tired to you, Margaret? I'm all ready to sit back. He's still looking forward to more work.
I wonder if Franklin got to have his wish, and help in "the Near East" or Asia in his next lifetime?
January 6, 2022
I have reached part of book about Eleanor and Franklin's wedding. I remember seeing a film based on Joseph P. Lash's book. Eleanor and Franklin were two very complicated people. Franklin was a playboy at heart who relied heavily on Eleanor strong sense of duty to make some of the decisions in running the country. Eleanor's sense of duty became more determined after Franklin's adulterous affair. Eleanor had a level if insecurity at times because she had been raised in a grim household and made to feel inferior because she was not as beautiful or a social butterfly like her mother. Franklin initially convinced Eleanor that she was beautiful and that he loved her, but he wanted a wife who would be his conscience. Since Eleanor upbringing instilled a deep sense of duty within her, being Franklin's conscience was accepted. Years ago I learned that one of my neighbors had known Eleanor Roosevelt, had worked with her on minority rights and had been Eleanor's guest on several occasions. The stories my neighbor told about Eleanor were fascinating and inspirational. Few things were said about Franklin and these were negative. I look forward to continuing reading this book.
December 23, 2025
This is one of the best biographies I have ever read. The story of the marriage of Eleanor and Franklin, mainly through the lens of papers by Eleanor Roosevelt is one of both triumph and heartbreak. I developed very strong empathy with Eleanor and admired how she stood by Franklin in spite of his many personal shortcomings. She did not let heartbreak deter her from the things she wanted to do. I can't imagine continuing in her marriage knowing about the extra marital affairs of Franklin and then having to face the fact that he died with his mistress. It was a different time but still, she is a better person than I am. I always admired Eleanor Roosevelt and reading this made me appreciate her so much more. I highly recommend this to any study of American history, especially the history of womens' rights.
October 6, 2022
Well this was a surprising read. The book is titled "Eleanor and Franklin," but after reading I think you'll agree it is truly about the driving force behind Franklin. That force would be Eleanor Roosevelt. He definitely was the salesman, but Eleanor was without a doubt the more clever of the two. She didn't just sit around the White House and drink Martini's, she made her husbands business....the country's business her job. Many statesmen from countries around the world came up against her face-to-face only to retreat in complete awe of her ability to convince and persuade. I found this book to be both inspiring and eye-opening. If you want to read about a woman who never had time to be afraid, but had every reason to be, read this book.
November 4, 2018
This is a very detailed and meticulously researched book based upon the diaries and correspondence of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, along with other key players in early 20th century politics. I’m perplexed by the author’s decision not to explore FDR’s efforts to get the groundbreaking, and then controversial, Social Security Act signed into law in 1935. Regardless, this book was well worth the long read and left me curious to learn more, especially about Eleanor’s life after her husband’s death.
September 14, 2020
I had never read a book length biography of Eleanor or Franklin Roosevelt, and decided to buy this on an impromptu trip to Warm Springs, Georgia, the winter home of Franklin Roosevelt and where he died. I did not find the biography particular engrossing, although it was certainly well written and informative. While there is so much to admire in what they accomplished, the story left me with a better understanding of their humanness and was not a hagiography.
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