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THE
Vol.5 No.2
The newsletter of
F R O M VA L - K I L L C O T TA G E
Honoring Eleanor Roosevelt
A Project to Preserve Her Val-Kill Home Summer 2011
Boston benefit honors
Following in Her Footsteps
Awardees
From left: Honoring Eleanor Roosevelt Executive Committee Member Betsy Shure Gross, honorees Wheelock
College President Jackie Jenkins-Scott, Civic leader and Philanthropist Chobee Hoy, Award-Winning Actress
Jane Alexander and Honoring Eleanor Roosevelt Chairman Carol Hillman. Story and pictures on pages 4-5.
Honoring
E leanor Roosevelt
NOTES FROM THE CHAIR
CAROL HILLMAN
Carol and Hildie
Dear Friends of Val-Kill:
These past few months have been bittersweet. After our sweet and wildly
successful Following in Her Footsteps award event at the Coolidge Corner
Theatre in Brookline, MA (see cover and pages 4-5), we learned that the
Congress and the President had refused to fund our parent, Save America’s
Treasures, and that the SAT program would close on June 30th of this year.
For the past 13 years Bobbie Greene McCarthy has been our guide, mentor
and friend. She and her colleague, Fiona Lawless, have given us support,
advice and encouragement that have kept our project moving forward. We
will miss them and Save America’s Treasures terribly. Happily, Bobbie has
agreed to remain on our Executive Committee; so we will continue to benefit from her wise counsel.
I am pleased to tell you that while we were in Washington at a party honoring Bobbie and Fiona, Claudine Bacher and I met with executives from the
National Trust to discuss the future of Honoring Eleanor Roosevelt. We are
thrilled to report that we will continue to be a project at the National Trust
for the foreseeable future and will receive the benefit of the Trust’s advice
and support through a relationship with the Northeast Regional Office of the
Trust. Saying farewell to our dear friends was bitter, but we look forward to
a close, rewarding and supportive relationship with the National Trust.
There are lots of other good things happening. We are working on a membership plan which will offer our supporters many benefits in return for their
membership donation. While our events are great fun and successful as well,
they do take a great deal of effort and time. We hope the membership
approach, plus small house parties and mini-events, will prove popular.
We are also planning a bus trip to Val-Kill on November 5, 2011 from both
Boston and New York City which we hope many of you will join. There will
be a visit to the Cottage and grounds, remarks by Silda Spitzer, and a box
lunch picnic provided by an excellent local caterer. E-mail invitations will be
coming in September, but in the meantime if you are interested, please let me
know. If we don’t have your e-mail address, do send that along as well. We
hope to see many of our friends in November.
Warm regards,
Carol
PRIVATE TOUR OF VAL-KILL
Join us and our special guest, Silda Wall Spitzer, Former NY
First Lady, on November 5th for a scenic bus trip and private
tour of Val-Kill. Boxed lunch included.
Buses depart from Manhattan and Boston.
Reservations and information: Melanie McEvoy or Kristine
Bruch 212-228-7446 x12
A Project to Preserve Her Val-Kill Home
Hillary Rodham Clinton, Founding Chair,
Save America’s Treasures
Claudine Bacher, Founding Chair,
Honoring ER
Carol Hillman, Chair, Honoring ER
National Park Service
Sarah Olson, Superintendent, RooseveltVanderbilt National Historic Sites
Executive Committee
Claudine Bacher
Mary Champenois, Emerita
Georgie Gatch
Betsy Shure Gross
Carol Hillman
Barbara A. Levy
Bobbie Greene McCarthy
National Council Members
Jane Alexander
Allida M. Black, PhD
Blanche Wiesen Cook, PhD
Susan Curnan
Priscilla H. Douglas EdD
Deborah Duran
Susan Eisenhower
Hamilton Fish III
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand
Blanche K. Goldstein, Esq.
Senator & Mrs. Bob Graham
Pamela Hayes, Esq.
Cheryl Bell Homer
Risa A. Levine, Esq.
Representative Nita Lowey
Harriet Millrose
Sally Minard
Richard Moe
Sharon Patrick
James & Ann Roosevelt
Eleanor Seagraves
Silda Wall Spitzer, Esq.
Cathy Douglas Stone, Esq.
Kathleen Kennedy Townsend
The Honorable
Christine Todd Whitman
Staff
Judith Ross Morris, Editor & Designer,
The View from Val-Kill Cottage
We welcome your comments. Please contact
[email protected].
Visit our website:
www.honoringeleanorroosevelt.org
Join us on
Search “Honoring Eleanor Roosevelt”
ElEanor’s
stamp
act
During her lifetime, Eleanor Roosevelt was honored by many nations--including our own--in the
form of postage stamps. No other First Lady
has ever been so lauded.
For those of you unfamiliar with these beautiful
images, we proudly present a look at the visual
affirmation of this woman’s remarkable contribution to world peace and human rights.
Note: A stamp from Iran can be see on the back page.
no ordinary Time
Three very special women were honored with our
Following in Her Footsteps award at a benefit honoring
Eleanor Roosevelt. Held at the historic Coolidge Corner
Theatre in Brookline, MA, our awardees were noted actress
Jane Alexander; civic leader and philanthropist Chobee Hoy,
and Wheelock College president Jackie Jenkins-Scott. The
event also featured film clips from the American Experience
film, No Ordinary Time, which enthralled donors who came
together to support the preservation of Mrs. Roosevelt’s
Val-Kill home. The film brought the audience to cheers and
tears.
no ordinary Event
Program participants included Congressman Barney Frank,
Mrs. Roosevelt’s grandchildren Laura and Jim Roosevelt
and Jim’s wife Ann, Claudine Bacher and previous award
winner Cathy Douglas Stone. Kathryn Dietz, co-producer
of No Ordinary Time, produced the film portions of the
program which were introduced by event co-chair Betsy
Shure Gross, National Council member Priscilla Douglas,
local dignitary Nancy Korman, and Kathryn. All in all, a
wonderful evening for ER, Val-Kill and all in attendance.
There were many wonderful pictures taken at this event. We invite you to view them all at
www.flickr.com/photos/dimonikastudio/sets/72157626622533415/.To order prints, please email:
[email protected]. Please include the number appearing at the bottom of the photo
and include your mailing address. 5x7 print = $10, 8x10 print = $15, 13x19 print = $35
In the News...
saralee Doll
New to FDR library & Museum Collection
Eleanor Roosevelt’s role in a littleknown chapter in civil rights history
is reflected in a fascinating object
that was recently added to the FDR
Presidential Library & Museum.
The item is an African American
doll known as Saralee, designed and
sold during the early 1950s.
Crafted to reflect the beauty of
African American children, it was
created by a white woman from
Belle Glade, Florida named Sara Lee
In Memorium
Creech. Creech had seen
black children playing with
white dolls and was struck
by the realization that
there were no dolls of
their own race for these
children. She decided to
provide a black doll that
promoted a positive image
of African Americans for
all children.
The Saralee Doll was
developed in consultation with educators and religious leaders of both
races and manufactured by the
Ideal Toy Company. It came on the
market at a time when toy companies demonstrated little interest in
making black dolls. Those that were
made generally reflected crude
racial stereotypes.
Mrs. Roosevelt learned about the
Saralee Doll while it was under
development. Hoping to help
increase the project’s visibility, she
invited Ms. Creech to Val-Kill
Cottage to discuss the doll and
later wrote her a note of encouragement. At Creech’s urging, she
provided input on the doll’s design.
Mrs. Roosevelt convened a group of
notable figures—including Ralph
Bunche, A. Philip Randolph,
Winthrop Rockefeller, Zora Neale
Hurston, Bernard Baruch, Mr. and
Mrs. Jackie Robinson and Mary
McCloud Bethune—to discuss the
doll’s appearance.
The doll was donated by Charlotte
Klein, who was instrumental in persuading the Ideal Doll Company to
create and manufacture the doll.
She was a long-time leader in the
public relations field, starting her
career when there were few
women in PR. She is also a longtime HER contributor.
Geraldine Ferraro
Ann Roosevelt, Angela Menino, Geraldine Ferraro, Carol Hillman
Geraldine Ferraro, a staunch supporter of Honoring Eleanor Roosevelt and a leading feminist, passed away on March 26,
2011. She was loyal and kept her promises. When she came to Boston to accept our Eleanor Roosevelt Following in
Her Footsteps award, she spoke so eloquently about the things that she and Mrs. Roosevelt believed in that our
donors gave her a standing ovation. She couldn't have been more gracious to every person who came up to speak
with her -- and she was suffering that weekend, I know, from her cancer. We at Honoring Eleanor Roosevelt will miss
her great heart and fierce support of women everywhere.
Carol Hillman, Chair
Honoring Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt and
YOUTH ALIYAH
By John F. Sears
ER and Jewish refugees, 1955
Seventy years ago, when Eleanor Roosevelt agreed to head
Hadassah’s National Youth Aliyah Advisory Committee, she
began an association that would remain deeply important to
her for the rest of her life.
Led by the dynamic Henrietta Szold, Youth Aliyah began rescuing children from Nazi persecution in Germany in the
early 1930s and later from other countries. The organization
brought the children to Palestine where they received training in agriculture and various trades and became the builders
of new communities and eventually a new nation.
First Youth Aliyah group walking to Kibbutz Ein Harod, 1934
ER first mentioned Youth Aliyah in her “My Day” column of
June 2, 1938, in which she praised the organization for offering “real hope for future security to children many of whom
have come from areas where life has been extremely precarious.” As life for European Jews became more precarious, ER
sought ways to assist refugees to find safe havens.
funds to carry on their work. At a meeting with Hadassah
representatives at the White House in January 1940, ER
agreed to head a National Youth Aliyah Advisory Committee.
Although she found only a limited amount of time to devote
to Youth Aliyah, Hadassah valued her public support and
fundraising efforts. In 1949 they awarded ER the first
Henrietta Szold Citation for humanitarian service “...in the
rescue and rehabilitation of 40,000 Jewish children...”
Her deepest involvement began in 1952 when Moshe Kol,
Executive Director of Youth Aliyah, asked her to become its
World Patron. She agreed, on condition that she visit the
training centers and youth villages in Israel first. ER’s 1952
trip to Israel demonstrated that she would not take her role
lightly. Accustomed to asking penetrating questions and
politely insisting on looking behind the scenes, she knew how
to evaluate whether a facility functioned effectively or not.
She wanted to know whether people ate well, received medical care, felt satisfied by the education they received.
ER returned to Israel again in 1955, 1959 and 1962. On each
trip, Kol recalled, she asked to return to the places she had
been before so that she could “evaluate the development
which had taken place since.” The information ER gathered
on these trips provided material for her fundraising speeches
on behalf of Youth Aliyah in the United States and abroad.
ER recalled in a speech to Hadassah in 1959, “[I thought] it
would be impossible to bring these children back to normal,
happy people, and yet in Israel I saw what had been done.”
The reason for Youth Aliyah’s success, she believed, was its
ability to make them feel part of a momentous event.“You
give them the feeling that they are needed; not that they are
a burden, not that they are receiving charity, but they are
needed! They are the people who are going to build Israel.”
In February 1939, hoping to overcome American opposition
to immigration at a time of economic depression, she supported a bill sponsored by Senator Robert Wagner and
Representative Edith Rogers that would have admitted to
the United States 20,000 German children above the immigration quotas over a two-year period. Despite the efforts of
ER and her friends, however, the bill became so watered
down in committee that Wagner withdrew it. The backers
lacked the necessary support for even this small step.
ER’s association with Youth Aliyah began against this background of failure on the part of the United States to
respond adequately to the crisis of European Jewry and in
response to the urgent need to find places of refuge, particularly for Jewish children. Hadassah, Youth Aliyah’s sponsor in
the United States, hoped that the name of Eleanor Roosevelt
on its letterhead would help them obtain the permits needed from the British colonial secretary to gain the admittance
of additional children to Palestine. They hoped publicity for
their efforts in ER’s “My Day” column would help secure
Youth Aliyah today
Mr. Sears served as Executive Director of the Franklin and Eleanor
Roosevelt Institute from 1986-1999 and Associate Editor of the Eleanor
Roosevelt Papers from 2000-2007. This article was originally published as
“Eleanor’s Kids” in The Jewish Advocate. Reprinted with permission. He is
currently researching a book on ER, Jewish refugees, and the birth of Israel
and seeks transcripts, news clippings or recordings of speeches by ER to
Hadassah or other Jewish groups from 1933 -1962. Please contact him at
[email protected] or at 413-446-8992.
My Day
August 21, 1953
By Eleanor Roosevelt
WAS ELEANOR ROOSEVELT PRESCIENT?
This Article Would Suggest Yes.
Iran is certainly an exciting spot
to be in at the moment!
One day you hear that the Prime
Minister is successful and that the
Shah has left Iran and the next
day the papers tell you that the
rebels have thrown out the Prime
Minister and that the Shah is
returning immediately.
The Middle East is full of unrest,
but I don't think the actual ruler
is as important as what can be
done in the way of reforms that
will really change the life of the
people. Until the people in this
area of the world really see that
efforts are being made to
improve their standard of
living I cannot see how there can
be any change toward stability.
People who are hungry, people
who have very little hope of
improved living standards for
themselves and their children are
not going to settle down to leading peaceful and productive lives.
It's impossible.
So let us hope that whatever
happens in Iran that reforms
toward a better life for the people actually will be accomplished.
NOTE: This is an excerpt. To view the full column as well as other My Day columns, please
visit www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/myday. World
Copyright, 1953, United Feature Syndicate, Inc.
All correspondence:
Carol Hillman
Honoring Eleanor Roosevelt
287 Kent Street
Brookline, MA 02446
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Honoring Eleanor Roosevelt
A Project to Preserve Her Val-Kill Home
Honoring Eleanor Roosevelt, an original project of Save America's Treasures,
is now a partner of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
All donations made payable to “National Trust” with “Val-Kill Cottage” on the memo line are 100% tax deductible.