My Day

A portrait of Eleanor Roosevelt writing her My Day column in 1949.

My Day was a newspaper column written by First Lady of the United States Eleanor Roosevelt (ER) six days a week from December 31st, 1935 to September 26th, 1962. In her column, Roosevelt discussed issues including civil rights, women's rights, and various current events (Prohibition, New Deal programs, United States World War II home front, Pearl Harbor, H Bomb, Civil Rights Movement, etc.). This column allowed ER to spread her ideas, thoughts, and perspectives on contemporary events to the American public through local newspapers. Through My Day, Roosevelt became the first First Lady to write a daily newspaper column. Roosevelt also wrote for Ladies Home Journal, McCall's, and published various articles in Vogue and other women's magazines.

The White House Historical Association and the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project collaborated on a digital history project commemorating Roosevelt's best writings. With extra insights from project director Allida M. Black, The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project at the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences works to release digital and print versions of Roosevelt's political writings. It is currently working on transcribing her radio and television appearances. This archive includes a full run of My Day.

Author

Personal Life

School portrait of Eleanor Roosevelt

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born on October 11, 1884 in Manhattan, New York City in her parents' first home. Anna Hall, her mother, was from a wealthy family and married Elliott Roosevelt on December 1, 1883. Eleanor Roosevelt's childhood was riddled with difficulties due to her father's severe alcohol addiction, her mother's cold personality, and her parents' failing marriage. Her mother passed away suddenly in 1892 when ER was eight years old, her younger brother tragically died the following year, and her father passed away the year after that. After receiving an education overseas, Roosevelt returned to the United States and became reacquainted with her fifth cousin once removed, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR). Initially courting secretly, FDR's mother discovered their relationship and eventually permitted them to marry in 1905. Eleanor Roosevelt was twenty, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt was twenty-two. They had six children together. Following her death in 1962, Mrs. Roosevelt was buried at her home in Hyde Park next to her husband.

Public Life

First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt

As niece of former U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt and husband to U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, much of Eleanor Roosevelt's life involved public works. While she is best known as First Lady of the United States, her public life began well before she held this title. Inspired by her uncle's emphasis on political and socio-economic reform, ER actively participated in the social reform movement of the Progressive Era. She also volunteered in poverty-stricken neighborhoods in New York City. Prior to her time as First Lady, ER also worked as a secretary, teacher, and investigator. It was in these early years of her public life when ER began her lifelong interest in civil rights, women's rights, education, and anti-poverty advocacy.

Upon her marriage to FDR and his election to presidency, Mrs. Roosevelt understood the social, political, and economic states of the American public better than any of her predecessors. When FDR was struck with poliomyelitis, ER became dutifully involved in his political affairs, once again broadening her involvement in American activism. As her husband's eyes and ears, she transitioned from progressive reformer to New Dealer to "First Lady of the World," and she brought a human fact to the intense cultural debates of the Great Depression, the Cold War, civil rights, child welfare, housing reform, and women's rights. A true activist, ER instituted regular press conferences at the White House for women and embarked on extensive tours as First Lady. President Harry S. Truman appointed her as a delegate to the United Nations in General Assembly in 1946, serving as the UN's first Chairperson of the Commission of Human Rights. President John F. Kennedy appointed her chair of his Commission on the Status of Women, and in her last decade of life Mrs. Roosevelt also recruited for the Democratic Party.

My Day Column

Background

Eleanor Roosevelt's desire to generate more income initially motivated her to create the column, as ER spent much of the column's proceeds on philanthropy. My Day was not Eleanor Roosevelt's first experience in writing, and her literary agent, George T. Bye, encouraged her to write the column. Although she did not keep a diary, prior to FDR's presidential election ER frequently contributed to magazines, and in 1933 the United Features Syndicate, a renowned editorial and media company, was the first to request she make a daily column as First Lady. The United Features Syndicate suggested the column's title, inspired ER to write about her daily experiences, and defined the column in its early years. My Day is Roosevelt's six-day-a-week newspaper column written from December 30, 1935 to September 26, 1962. At the onset of 1938, My Day appeared in 62 papers across the United States. By 1940, interest in My Day was so strong that the United Features Syndicate offered ER a five-year contract, despite her presumed exit from the White House. At its height in the 1950s, her entries reached 4,034,554 people, and My Day appeared in 90 newspapers across the United States. As if written to a dear friend, the entries disclosed people ER met, where ER traveled, what ER thought, and how ER coped with the pressures of her extremely public life. By 1957, a handful of newspapers, such as the Scripps Howard Syndicate, stopped publishing My Day because her columns grew to be too political. Unbothered, ER continued to write columns and charged her readers to "follow their consciences," not their fears. As ER grew older, in 1961 she requested that her 500-word columns appear every other day. Her last column was published on September 26th, 1961, just two months before her death. As her health declined in her last years, Eleanor Roosevelt never gave any indication that her illness threatened her column's productivity.

External links

• My Day, PBS. Retrieved January 4, 2008.
• "My Day" Project, George Washington University. Retrieved January 4, 2009.