For many of us born after 1950, Hilary Rodham Clinton is the first thoroughly modern first lady. That speaks volumes about the importance of Russell Freedman's latest book, "Eleanor Roosevelt: A Life of Discovery," (Clarion, $17.95, 198 pages, ages 9 and up).
On the occasion of Women's History Month, I strained my brain to recall what I had learned of Mrs. Roosevelt during the course of my schooling. There were vague memories -- something about her being a rich, distant cousin of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and about how she was his helpmate after he was stricken with polio.
Later came the Eleanor Roosevelt of television mini-series fame, a stoic survivor of her husband's extra-marital affair with Lucy Mercer.
Mr. Freedman's book, named a Newbery Honor Book last month, portrays a fascinating, intelligent woman who helped shape the social reforms of the New Deal, lobbied Congress, and held a post in her husband's administration as co-director of the Office of Civilian Defense.
The parallels between Mrs. Roosevelt and Mrs. Clinton are many. Their political activism sparked similar responses, from the "We Don't Want Eleanor, Either" buttons during Wendell Willkie's unsuccessful presidential campaign in 1940 to the "Impeach Hilary" bumper stickers of today.
Both also faced reports -- confirmed, in Mrs. Roosevelt's case -- ,, of their husbands' infidelity. Mrs. Roosevelt even might have been modern enough to use her maiden name as her middle name, except that would have made her Eleanor Roosevelt Roosevelt.
Mr. Freedman shows Eleanor as an introverted young girl, a self-described "Ugly Duckling" who was 8 when her mother died. Eleanor's father was an alcoholic, so she was raised by her mother's family, always feeling inadequate among fashionable, socialite relatives.
Although her insecurities surfaced at times throughout her life, Eleanor began to find herself as a teen-ager at a London boarding school. She came back to the States confident and mature, with a compassion for social justice and civil rights that would carry her through private and public life.
She never wanted to be a president's wife, she said, and she was sorry when she had to give up teaching to move to the White House. There she kept an incredible schedule, flying all over the country to inspect government relief projects and to lecture on the social programs of the New Deal. She wrote a TTC daily newspaper column and hundreds of magazine articles. In 1943, at the age of 59, she visited 400,000 U.S. servicemen during a five-week tour of the South Pacific war zone.
