Eleanor Roosevelt: In Her Words: On Women, Politics, Leadership, and Lessons from Life

by Eleanor Roosevelt

This illustrated, first of its kind collection of excerpts from Eleanor Roosevelt's newspaper columns, radio talks, speeches, and correspondence speaks directly to the challenges we face today.

Acclaimed for her roles in politics and diplomacy, first lady Eleanor Roosevelt was also a prolific author, journalist, lecturer, broadcaster, educator, and public personality.

Using excerpts from her books, columns, articles, press conferences, speeches, radio talks, and correspondence, Eleanor In Her Words tracks her contributions from the 1920s, when she entered journalism and public life; through the White House years, when she campaigned for racial justice, the labor movement, and "the forgotten woman;" to the postwar era, when she served at the United Nations and shaped the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Selections touch on Roosevelt's early entries in women's magazines ("Ten Rules for Success in Marriage"), her insights on women in politics ("Women Must Learn to Play the Game As Men Do"), her commentary on World War II ("What We Are Fighting For"), her work for civil rights ("The Four Equalities"), her clash with Soviet delegates at the UN ("These Same Old Stale Charges"), and her advice literature ("If You Ask Me"). Surprises include her unique preparation for leadership, the skill with which she defied critics and grasped authority, her competitive stance as a professional, and the force of her political messages to modern readers.

Scorning the "America First" mindset, Eleanor Roosevelt underlined the interdependence of people and of nations. Eleanor In Her Words illuminates her achievement as a champion of civil rights, human rights, and democratic ideals.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Politics, History, Biography Memoir, Audiobook, Feminism

368 pages, Hardcover

Published September 5, 2017

About the author

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was an American political leader who used her influence as an active First Lady from 1933 to 1945 to promote the New Deal policies of her husband, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, as well as taking a prominent role as an advocate for civil rights. After her husband's death in 1945, she continued to be an internationally prominent author and speaker for the New Deal coalition. She was a suffragist who worked to enhance the status of working women, although she opposed the Equal Rights Amendment because she believed it would adversely affect women. In the 1940s, she was one of the co-founders of Freedom House and supported the formation of the United Nations. Eleanor Roosevelt founded the UN Association of the United States in 1943 to advance support for the formation of the UN. She was a delegate to the UN General Assembly from 1945 and 1952, a job for which she was appointed by President Harry S. Truman and confirmed by the United States Congress. During her time at the United Nations chaired the committee that drafted and approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. President Truman called her the "First Lady of the World" in tribute to her human rights achievements.
She was one of the most admired persons of the 20th century, according to Gallup's List of Widely Admired People.

Reviews

[H (trying to keep up with GR friends) Balikov · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I have often heard people say they would rather have a democracy, even if it had to be inefficient, than regimented efficiency. We love our freedom, but must we of necessity have freedom coupled with stupidity? Is it not possible to face our situation and recognize the inequalities in the economic background of America’s children, inequalities in educational opportunities, in health protection, in recreation and leisure-time activities and in opportunities for employment?"

This book is 99.44% pure Eleanor Roosevelt and I have never experienced her personality and insights quite like this. I believe that Nancy Woloch’s decision to arrange ER’s observations in chronological order is solid. Aside from the introductory comments, from Woloch such as: "To defend democratic ideals, ER often invoked the concept of “interdependence.” Democracy rested not just on economic security or on equal opportunity, though these were imperative, but on a cooperative community and a sense of responsibility for one another." ER’s thoughts carry the narrative.

Here are some that may surprise you by how easily they could refer to present times:

"Democracy is being challenged today, and we are the greatest democracy. It remains to be seen if we have the vision and the courage and the self-sacrifice to give our children all over the nation a chance to be real citizens of a democracy. If we are going to do that, we must first see that they get a chance at health, that they get a chance at an equal opportunity for education. We must see that they get a chance at the kind of education which will help them to meet a changing world. We must see that, as far as possible, these youngsters, when they leave school, get a chance to work and get a chance to be accepted and to feel important as members of their communities."

"DEFINING DEMOCRACY TOPIC: DEFINITION OF DEMOCRACY Mrs. Roosevelt: “You must have a minimum of economic security in order to have true democracy and for people to love their government and their country. “You must have an assurance of a certain amount of education which makes it possible for you to understand questions which face your country. “And your sources of information must be kept free. While you must guard against government controlled sources of information, there are other ways of controlling those sources which you must guard just as carefully, such as banks, advertisers and subscribers. “People cannot love a government or a country which does not allow them to have anything which makes life worth living.” Press Conference of January 17, 1939"

"(W)e should take a constant interest in all educational institutions and remember that on the public school largely depends the success or failure of our great experiment in government, “by the people, for the people.”

"This is no ordinary time. No time for weighing anything except what we can do best for the country as a whole, and that responsibility rests on each and every one of us as individuals. No man who is candidate or who is president can carry this situation alone. This is only carried by a united people who love their country and who will live for it to the fullest of their ability, with the highest ideals, with a determination that their party shall be absolutely devoted to the good of the nation as whole and to doing what this country can to bring the world to a safer and happier condition."

And, finally, ER wrote: “If we do not see that equal opportunity, equal justice, and equal treatment are meted out to every citizen, the very basis on which this country can hope to survive with liberty and justice for all will be wiped away.”"

4.5*

[Tara Brabazon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fascinating, complex and intricate book. It explores Roosevelt's own words about being a woman, being a wife, being a leader and - in many ways - managing disappointment.

Her views on marriage - understandably - were sobering. But this book presents her speeches, journalism and press conferences in a way that is awe-inspiring. She was a woman of profound paradox. But she had integrity. She had grit. And she walked through life looking as she wished to look, and reflecting on the nature of being a woman.

I am inspired. Deeply inspired. This type of stoic, complex woman is a model for all of us to remember. She lived the injustices of her time, but she used them as fuel to make a difference.

[Anna-Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The purpose of education and child-training has not changed. First and foremost is the building of character. Second in importance is stimulation of curiosity about the world we all live in.”

I’d be the first person to say you should never idolize a politician because you’ll receive disappointment. However, the one politician where I’ll always let that slide (because I’ve let it slide with me), is Eleanor Roosevelt.

I’ve looked up to this woman since I was a child, and everything I’ve watched in documentaries or read about her, I’ve yet to be disappointed. A pure enigma during her time in history when it comes to social change especially during and after the Great Depression and Second World War as First Lady, and then as First USA Representative of the UN, and chairing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

She was an unstoppable force, and I know she is rolling in her grave watching this awful regression when it comes to politics and society alike. I’m so sorry that the work you’ve done, even going against what your own husband believed in as Governor and President, as well as his government are slowly perishing under this vile regime.

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

After visiting Val-kill this summer in New York, I wanted to learn more about Eleanor Roosevelt. This book is a compilation on topics ranging from leadership, politics, gender roles and work, race, immigration, and democracy.

The writings tend to advance with her age through the book, and most of it still resonates today.

Eleanor Roosevelt’s breadth of knowledge and insights were interesting to read, and I will keep this book as a reference for years to come.

[Prof Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do not, as a rule, write reviews. This is not out of indifference, but out of a cultivated professional discipline. Most texts, even those of considerable merit, do not demand the supernumerary attention of a supplementary voice appended to them. They exist, they perform their intellectual function, and one moves on. On the rare occasions in which I find myself annotating prolifically in the margins, it is typically for pedagogical application or personal reflection, not for the public domain. Very few works justify a departure from this habit.

And yet, I find myself compelled to make an exception for Eleanor Roosevelt: In Her Words, a compendium whose emergence in my reading orbit owes, in part, to a contemporary circulation mechanism one might characterize, with due respect, as the Turn of a Page reading initiative. This structured yet informal network of intellectual prompting, despite its ostensibly pedestrian designation, proves remarkably effective at reintroducing canonical voices into contemporary discourse. One might speculate that such a practice functions as a safeguard against the omission of texts that possess enduring epistemic and ethical weight, ensuring their encounter by readers who, like myself, might otherwise remain insulated within habitual scholarly channels.

Not because the volume is flawless it is not, but because it provoked in me something increasingly rare, a sustained and quietly insistent engagement that extended beyond the simple act of reading. I found myself returning to it with a frequency that surprised even me, quoting it unbidden in lectures, and noting with some astonishment that its phrasing lingered persistently in the interstices of my daily thought. For one habituated to encounters with texts primarily in service of instruction or research, this is a reliable indicator that a work has transcended its immediate function.

The singular potency of this volume lies not solely in the historical gravitas of Eleanor Roosevelt’s voice, but in its capacity to resist historical containment. There is an austerity to her prose, a refusal of ornamental excess, that renders her arguments simultaneously accessible and strikingly direct. The reader accustomed to a temporal distance from figures of her era will quickly recognize the fallacy of such preconceptions. Her meditations on democratic responsibility, social obligation, and the ethics of leadership carry an immediacy that is, at moments, profoundly disquieting.

I will admit that the excerpted structure, while providing breadth, inevitably sacrifices narrative continuity. Lines of reasoning begin to acquire momentum, only to be displaced in favor of other selections. For a reader trained to follow arguments to their fullest articulation, this can occasion a sense of incompletion. Yet, I would be remiss to construe this as diminishment. The fragmentary composition invites a different mode of engagement, one less linear and more cumulative, demanding a reader willing to inhabit the interstitial spaces between excerpts and assemble a coherent intellectual presence from them.

What ultimately compelled me to document these reflections, and to depart from a long-established reticence regarding public commentary, was not any single insight, but rather the consistency and clarity of Roosevelt’s voice. It possesses a steadiness that defies both cynicism and untempered idealism. It is principled yet unperformative, measured but never inert. As one who has spent decades guiding students through texts often encumbered by convolution and opacity, I found this clarity refreshing and, candidly, humbling.

Thus, while my engagement with this text was incidentally facilitated by contemporary reading networks such as Turn of a Page, the book itself retains a force independent of such structures. The mechanisms that circulate it may prompt attention, but they do not diminish the work’s intrinsic intellectual vitality.

So, with both reluctance and conviction, I submit this review. A four-star assessment is warranted. The structural limitations are present and must be acknowledged, yet they do not obscure the persistent intellectual presence of the work. It is rare that I feel compelled to mark a text in such a manner. This is one such occasion.

[Joshua · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was in the middle of an argument with a friend about books, not even a serious argument, just one of those “you don’t actually read what you recommend” type conversations, and somehow Eleanor Roosevelt: In Her Words entered the chat.

He was like, “just read a few pages and come back,” which already sounded suspicious, because when someone says “a few pages,” it is never just a few pages.

Anyway, I started it casually, no pressure, and then it turned into that thing where you read a paragraph, stop, stare at the wall a bit, then go back and read it again. Not because it is confusing, but because it is annoyingly clear. Like she is saying things you already know, but in a way that makes you feel like you have been avoiding them on purpose.

At some point, I even messaged him like, “this woman is not normal,” because how are you writing decades ago and still sounding this current? It almost feels like she is watching everything play out and just shaking her head quietly.

The funny part is, the book itself is not trying too hard. It is just excerpts, pieces here and there, nothing overly dramatic. But that is also where I struggled a bit. I would get comfortable, really into a particular idea, and then it would just… move on. I kept feeling like I was being interrupted mid-conversation. Not enough to ruin it, just enough to notice.

We ended up talking about it again later, and it was interesting how we picked completely different parts that stood out to us. That kind of made me appreciate it more, because it means the book leaves space for you to meet it in your own way.

Also, side note, I have been noticing lately that these reading circles, especially things like Turn of a Page, have been quietly doing their thing. You just keep hearing about books in the most random conversations now. This was one of those moments.

Overall, I would say it is not a loud book, but it stays with you. You do not even realize it immediately. It just shows up later in your thoughts, uninvited, like “remember what you read the other day?”

Yeah. 5 stars feels right.

[Kara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have great admiration for Elenor Roosevelt and I have always felt inspired reading her words. She was very intelligent, articulate, and often ahead of her times in thinking (in some aspects, still ahead of things now, almost 100 years later).

My average rating of 3 stars for this book is not a reflection on Eleanor or her writing but rather the style and compilation of the book. This book features snippets of her letters, articles and speeches, organised in chapters around certain themes and in chronological order throughout her life. What this book does well is give a broad overview of how many different social and political issues Eleanor had her say on and was involved in influencing the public over her life, and in giving a broad overview how she adjusted her view and changed her focuses over time, often in response to what was most prevalent and pressing historically in a certain period.

However, as someone who has read other books which were written and organised in entirety by Eleanor Roosevelt (i.e. Tomorrow is Now) I can see that a book such as this one does a great disservice in that it does not allow the reader to get fully into any one of her arguments, or truly understand the depth and scope of her worldview and wisdom. In other words, this book gives a incomplete and stunted picture with its short snippets.

If choosing between a book like this where selections of her work are organised by someone else and one of the books where Elenor Roosevelt has written and organised the information from cover to cover herself (and she has a number to her name) I would 100% recommend to go for the later.

Perhaps books in the particular style of the book I'm reviewing are a good style for those historical figures whose writings or speeches are very complicated and difficult to read. But Eleanor Roosevelt’s writings are very readable and easy to understand so there is really no need to opt for a book like this organised by others when she has so many other books on offer which give a far richer and rewarding reading experience.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came across Eleanor Roosevelt: In Her Words through the Turn of a Page reading challenge I am currently following, and I am genuinely glad I did because this is not a book I would have picked up on a random day.

What stood out to me almost immediately is how current Eleanor Roosevelt’s voice feels. You expect something this historical to feel distant, but instead it reads like she is quietly side eyeing today’s world and saying, “we really should have learned this by now.” Her thoughts on leadership, equality, and responsibility still land in a very real way.

I liked how the book pulls from different parts of her life, so you get a mix of political insight, social commentary, and more personal reflections. It makes her feel less like a distant historical figure and more like a very sharp, very observant human being who just happened to be ahead of her time.

That said, the format did not always work for me. Since it is a collection of excerpts, it can feel a bit like intellectual snacking. Just when something starts getting really good, it ends, and you are left there like “wait, come back.” I definitely wanted more depth in certain parts.

Still, it is a thoughtful and worthwhile read overall. I appreciate that this challenge brought it onto my radar, because it ended up being one of those books that does not shout for attention but leaves you thinking long after you are done.

[Sandra Hurren · Rating 4 out of 5]

This thoughtfully curated collection of Eleanor Roosevelt’s writings and speeches offers a compelling glimpse into the mind of one of the 20th century’s most influential figures. Spanning decades of her career, from her early advice on marriage to her trailblazing work at the United Nations, the book highlights Roosevelt’s courage in addressing issues like racial justice, women’s rights, and global interdependence. Her critiques of isolationism and advocacy for democratic ideals feel remarkably relevant today.

While the sheer breadth of content can feel overwhelming at times, the excerpts are accessible and illuminating, showcasing Roosevelt’s wit, intellect, and commitment to social progress. Though not a comprehensive biography, this collection serves as an inspiring reminder of her lasting impact on civil and human rights. Perfect for readers seeking insight from one of history’s most remarkable women.

[Rachel Webb · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an outstanding collection of works from one of the most dynamic women in history. This book compiles essays, newspaper columns, interview transcripts and more by Eleanor Roosevelt, starting from her early days as First Lady of New York and a member of various women’s societies, finishing with the sharing of life lessons from her final years.

Readers get a sense ER’s progression from young wife to iconic activist, conveyed by her own wit, sophistication and compassion. This is not a potboiler, but something to be savored, a few pieces at a time. It is also well-indexed so that you can find pieces based on subject. ER’s eloquent words are welcome and timely in today’s climate, and reading her thoughts during some of the world’s darkest times are a comforting balm today.

This is an excellent reference work and will be close at hand for years to come.

[Jake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading Eleanor Roosevelt: In Her Words feels like stepping directly into the mind of one of the most remarkable figures of the 20th century. This curated collection of speeches, letters, and columns captures the depth of Roosevelt’s intellect, her unwavering commitment to social justice, and her enduring courage. What struck me most is how relevant her insights remain today, from her advocacy for civil rights and women’s leadership to her nuanced understanding of global interdependence. Thanks to the Turn of a Page reading challenge, I had the opportunity to discover and engage with this incredible book, and I am grateful for the chance to experience Roosevelt’s wisdom firsthand. It is a reminder of why structured challenges like this matter because they help readers connect with works that can truly inspire.

[Maxwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book offers a powerful and intimate look into Eleanor Roosevelt’s voice, and what stands out most is how naturally her ideas carry into the present day. Through a range of excerpts, you get a sense of her as not just a public figure, but as a deeply reflective thinker navigating complex social and political realities. Her thoughts on leadership, equality, and responsibility feel grounded yet forward-looking, which made the reading experience both engaging and thought-provoking.

I came across this book through its inclusion in a recent reading cycle, and I genuinely appreciate that it was brought into focus this way. It gave me the opportunity to spend time with a work I may not have picked up otherwise, and it turned out to be a meaningful and worthwhile read. It is the kind of book that stays with you, not just for what it says, but for how it encourages you to think.

[Deborah Gebhardt · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received the book for free through Goodreads Giveaways. This book was edited by Nancy Woloch from Eleanor Roosevelt's newspaper columns, radio talks, speeches and correspondence on a number of subjects i.e. WWII; Civil Rights; Postwar Politics, etc. While it was interesting, it was a dry read.

[Beth Meyers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eleanor Roosevelt continues to fascinate me. She professes to be extremely shy yet she didn't shy away from stating her mind and staying with the fight. Many of her writings still ring true today.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love reading Eleanor Roosevelt's words. She is no nonesense, to the point and on point. Loved reading this!

[Buckeyebet · Rating 4 out of 5]

The collection of articles speeches and letters is quite interesting and gives the reader a good understanding of Eleanor Roosevelt's stance on many issues.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ein ganz tiefgehendes Buch. Ich bin sehr beeindruckt, wie fortschrittlich sie für ihre Zeit war. Die Themen, die ihr wichtig waren, sind heute immer noch topaktuell.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

*4,5/5

[Pat Koenig · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found the book and Eleanor Roosevelt so fascinating and discovered many things about her I did not know. Also a good look into the times of the US as well as the world. Good read. Highly recommend.

[Marilyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Live her, wish she was here now

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s hard to read a book like this. The snippets of ER’s writing are short and organized by topic, so it’s hard to see any development of thought.

[Carrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this book from Goodreads Giveaways. Thank you.