Women's Voices

eleanor roosevelt …197

lorena hickok …205

mary mcleod bethune …215

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) was sworn in as president of the United States in March 1933. He and his advisers immediately began to introduce legislation designed to address the severe economic hardships brought on by the Great Depression, the worst economic downturn in U.S. history. Collectively, the "three Rs" legislation—providing for relief, recovery, and reform—was known as the New Deal. Under the New Deal, government agencies were established to carry out social and economic aid programs. The New Deal opened a wealth of opportunities for women. Many of the new programs required staff with training in social work, and women were the Americans who had the best training in that field. By the end of 1933 thirty-five women had been appointed to prominent federal government positions. Approximately fifty-five were in key positions in government by 1939. Even more important, the attitude that women belonged in government circles began to take root.

Women had gained the right to vote in 1920, and a few began to play active roles in government at that time. Beginning in 1921 Grace Abbott (1878–1939) served as chief of the Children's Bureau within the Department of Labor. Mary Anderson (1872–1964) led the Women's Bureau in the Labor Department from 1920 until her retirement in 1944. Elected to Congress in 1924, Mary Norton (1875–1959) served in the U.S. House of Representatives until 1950. Molly Dewson (1874–1962) was active in women's reform groups in New York in the 1920s and became good friends with Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962), President Roosevelt's wife and a politically active person in her own right. Dewson was floor manager for women at the 1932 Democratic National Convention and served as chairperson of the Women's Division of the convention from 1932 to 1936. The influence of Eleanor Roosevelt and tireless lobbying by Dewson resulted in several government appointments for women. The most notable were Frances Perkins (1882–1965) as secretary of labor (the first woman ever appointed to a U.S. cabinet); Florence Allen (1884–1966) as a judge on the U.S. circuit court of appeals; and Ruth Owen (1885–1954) as ambassador to Denmark. Dewson never took on an appointment herself but was crucial in women's advancement in government. Both she and Eleanor Roosevelt believed that women's efficiency, energy, and idealism would bring out the humanitarian side of government—the side that cared about people. The idea of the federal government caring for its citizens was an entirely new concept that was pushed to the forefront of American political life by the hardships of the Great Depression.

Two prominent women appointed to New Deal positions were Ellen Sullivan Woodward (1887–1971) and Hallie Flanagan (1889–1969). Woodward served as head of the Women's and Professional Projects Division of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Flanagan headed the Federal Theater Project (FTP) within the WPA. Several other women were prominent in the New Deal government, including Clara Mortenson Beyer (1892–1990), associate director of the Division of Labor Standards within the Department of Labor; Josephine Roche (1886–1976), the first woman to serve as assistant secretary of the Department of the Treasury, and the chairperson of the executive committee of the National Youth Administration (NYA); and Nellie Tayloe Ross (1876–1977), the first woman director of the U.S. Mint.

Along with Eleanor Roosevelt, who took an active role in explaining and promoting New Deal programs, two other women were especially adept at explaining the challenges of the Great Depression to others: Lorena Hickok (1893–1968) and Mary McLeod Bethune (1875–1955). Hickok served as chief investigator for the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), which was founded in May 1933 to bring immediate relief to the hungry. She had left her job as an Associated Press reporter to travel around the country and report back to Harry Hopkins (1890–1946), the head of the FERA, on the conditions she observed firsthand. Mary McLeod Bethune, a leader in education, was the first black American to be appointed as head of a federal agency—the Negro Affairs director for the National Youth Administration (NYA).

The excerpts in this chapter are taken from the writings of Eleanor Roosevelt, Hickok, and Bethune. In an article titled "In Defense of Curiosity," published in the August 24, 1935, issue of The Saturday Evening Post, Eleanor Roosevelt urges women to be curious about and learn about the world beyond their immediate home environment. In "The Un-sung Heroes of the Depression" Hickok describes her experiences as an investigator for Harry Hopkins of the FERA. She originally wrote the piece in 1937 as an introduction to a book she planned to write about her experiences as chief inspector for FERA; it ended up being published in the book One Third of a Nation: Lorena Hickok Reports on the Great Depression (1981), edited by Richard Lowitt and Maurine Beasley. In the third excerpt, taken from a 1936 speech titled "National Youth Administration: Proceedings of the Second National Youth Administration Advisory Committee Meeting," Bethune speaks of the successes of the Negro Affairs Division of the NYA. The speech was published in the 1999 book Mary McLeod Bethune: Building a Better World, Essays and Selected Documents, edited by Audrey Thomas McCluskey and Elaine M. Smith.