Reading FDR by Jean Edward Smith
The Eleanor Roosevelt school of motherhood:
"“I had never any interest in dolls or little children,” she wrote, “and I knew absolutely nothing about handling or feeding a baby.” Having heard that fresh air was good for babies, Eleanor ordered a small chicken wire cage constructed and, placing Anna in it, hung the contraption out a rear window at the town house in New York. It was on the north side of the building, cold and shady, and the baby often cried, but Eleanor paid no attention. Finally, an irate neighbor threatened to report the Roosevelts to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. “This was rather a shock to me,” Eleanor recalled, “for I thought I was being a very modern mother.”"
In 1912, before his campaign to hold his NY State Senate seat, FDR caught typhoid. He spent the whole campaign in bed in NYC, while his campaign manager Louis Howe managed his re-election. He won without ever setting foot in his district.
“In what surely ranks as one of the greatest examples of chutzpah of modern politics, Howe, over FDR's signature, wrote the voters of Columbia County on November 1 to attack Franklin's Republican opponent for not having visited the county during the campaign. FDR, meanwhile, was still flat on his back on East Sixty-Fifth Street.”
On his first day as Assistant Secretary of the Navy:
"“Dearest Mama,” Franklin wrote after he settled in, “I am baptized, confirmed, sworn in, vaccinated - and somewhat at sea! For over an hour I have been signing papers which had to be accepted on faith - but I hope luck will keep me out of jail.”"
"“I had never any interest in dolls or little children,” she wrote, “and I knew absolutely nothing about handling or feeding a baby.” Having heard that fresh air was good for babies, Eleanor ordered a small chicken wire cage constructed and, placing Anna in it, hung the contraption out a rear window at the town house in New York. It was on the north side of the building, cold and shady, and the baby often cried, but Eleanor paid no attention. Finally, an irate neighbor threatened to report the Roosevelts to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. “This was rather a shock to me,” Eleanor recalled, “for I thought I was being a very modern mother.”"
In 1912, before his campaign to hold his NY State Senate seat, FDR caught typhoid. He spent the whole campaign in bed in NYC, while his campaign manager Louis Howe managed his re-election. He won without ever setting foot in his district.
“In what surely ranks as one of the greatest examples of chutzpah of modern politics, Howe, over FDR's signature, wrote the voters of Columbia County on November 1 to attack Franklin's Republican opponent for not having visited the county during the campaign. FDR, meanwhile, was still flat on his back on East Sixty-Fifth Street.”
On his first day as Assistant Secretary of the Navy:
"“Dearest Mama,” Franklin wrote after he settled in, “I am baptized, confirmed, sworn in, vaccinated - and somewhat at sea! For over an hour I have been signing papers which had to be accepted on faith - but I hope luck will keep me out of jail.”"