Review

Textbooks, Readers, and References

Undoubtedly the most important woman in twentieth-century American politics, Eleanor Roosevelt (ER) is the perfect subject for an encyclopedia such as this. The editors have done a superlative job of selecting the topics for inclusion and the authors to write about them; again and again, the most prominent scholars in a particular field contribute the relevant entry. A foreword by Blanche Wiesen Cook and introduction by James MacGregor Burns place ER's life and career in historical context and provide something of an analytical framework for making sense of her contributions and impact. Organized alphabetically, the 237 entries offer a thorough overview of ER's public and private worlds.	1
ER's transition from the traditional role of wife of a politician and government official to a public figure in her own right is traced across numerous entries. "National Consumers' League," by Kathryn Kish Sklar, "Social Settlements," by Robyn Muncy, and "Women's Trade Union League," by Eileen Boris detail how ER's volunteer work, beginning as early as 1903, connected her to a network of women concerned about and working on social justice issues. How ER's approach to public activism evolved over the decades between World Wars I and II is documented in Joan London's piece on the American Red Cross. Entries related to civil rights for African Americans and Native Americans, the Democratic Party, the New Deal, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) by historians such as Roger Biles, Allida M. Black, Theda Perdue, Geoffrey C. Ward, and Susan Ware reveal ER's emergence as a political player on the national scene. ER's connection to the first and second "waves" of feminism is laid out in Lois Scharf's "Equal Rights Amendment" and Kelly A. Woestman's "President's Commission on the Status of Women," along with other entries. Of great interest is ER's role in international affairs, especially her commitment to the new United Nations, its Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the state of Israel, topics discussed in contributions by Jean Harvey Baker, Jason Berger, Joan Hoff, and Myron I. Scholnick. All of these entries on political issues, organizations, and personages clearly demonstrate ER's wide-ranging interest in and strong commitment to a better America and better world.	2
Yet, equally documented are ER's personal life, relationships, joys, and disappointments. The devastating and transformational impact of FDR's extramarital affair with Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd (discovered by ER in 1918) receives repeated attention, but is most thoroughly covered in pieces by Doris Kearns Goodwin on ER and FDR's marriage and Melissa Walker on Rutherfurd. Also well done are several entries on ER's family members_mother, father, uncle Theodore Roosevelt, mother-in-law, children_and significant friends, such as Lorena A. Hickok and Earl Miller. Entries on these last two, by Agnes Hooper Gottlieb and Blanche Wiesen Cook, and on "Sexuality," by Anne Constantinople, present the intimate, passionate side of ER. Constantinople takes on the controversial question of ER's sexuality_whether lesbian or bisexual, carefully and convincingly defines what she means by sexuality, and concludes – as do other scholars_that the sexual character of these relationships is unknowable, given the available sources. What we do learn from these entries is how ER balanced her public and private lives, intertwines the personal and the political. Two additional pieces deserve comment. Nancy Marie Robertson's "Biographers" provides an up-to-date, although necessarily brief, historiographical essay on works about ER. Robertson's survey of how historical interpretations of ER's life and career have changed over time is of great utility for non-specialists in particular. Patricia Meyer Spacks' contribution, "Autobiography," is a wonderful essay on the role of and interrelationships among fact, fiction, and truth in ER's autobiographies.	3
This reference work is accessible and quite a good read. A chronology of ER's life, the index, and the brief bibliographies of primary and secondary sources following each entry are very helpful. All of the authors quote generously from ER's own speeches and writings, as well as from those who knew her, lending a lively tone to what could have been dull, dry reports. A "must-have" for every high school, college, and university library, this encyclopedia is an excellent starting place for student research on Eleanor Roosevelt, the Progressive Era, the New Deal, and women's political activism in the last century. The flourishing secondary literature on these topics has allowed contributors to The Eleanor Roosevelt Encyclopedia to integrate a "woman worthy" with broader currents in twentieth-century U.S. history, indicating that women's political history has come of age.	4
University of Northern Colorado Jennifer Frost

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